Suppose you finally made your dream gaming PC by spending thousands of dollars. Create your powerful gaming PC using high-end components like Core i9 Extreme Edition, 16GB RAM, 5TB hard disk, GTX 1080 graphics, etc. Then it is normal to think that since high-end graphics-intensive games run better on your PC, then normal low-end games from 10-15 years ago will run better.
It feels like you tried to run the Road Rash game on your PC out of a little nostalgia, a game you played a lot in Windows XP as a child. But you see that this game is not even running on your new powerful gaming PC! Far from running well!
You may be wondering a game runs on your PC is depending entirely on how powerful your PC is. But that’s not right. Depending a bit, but whether a game will run on your PC depends on many other small things. First of all, the reason why many old games don’t run on your modern PC is that most of the old games are made for 32-bit system.
But almost all of the modern PCs and laptops you see today use 64-bit CPUs and 64-bit operating systems that give them access to more RAM than 32-bit and the ability to process more information at once. But the main problem here is that the program you are running on your PC has to be created separately to run on 32-bit and 64-bit system.
For this reason, if you want to download a program, you can view and download a 32-bit version and another 64-bit version separately on the program’s website.
This means that if your PC uses a 64-bit CPU and 64-bit operating system, your PC will not be able to run any 32-bit software or program natively. When you run a 32-bit program on a 64-bit system, your system will basically emulate that program. Just as many of us run Android app emulation on PCs, so do 32-bit programs run through 64-bit system emulation. The built-in emulator that Windows uses to run 32-bit programs on 64-bit systems is called WOW64.
These old games are among the 32-bit programs that are run through emulation. It is often seen that many games run smoothly without any problem with the help of this emulator. However, in most cases, most games will not run with this emulation. There are other reasons for this.
For example, many old games will want to run a code that was compatible with previous Windows versions, but not compatible with newer versions such as Windows 10. For example, DLL files that are much needed for games.
The old game is often looking for a DLL file that is not built into the new version of Windows and is not even compatible with the new version.
Often Windows updates can cause this game not to run. For example, it is often written in the details when you update a Windows: After you install this update, some programs may not run (For example, some video games may not run). This means that some video games may no longer run on your PC after you install that update.
Some old games may somehow run on your PC. For this, you would have to use Windows compatibility mode, troubleshooter or manually downloading DLL files, and so on.
However, some old games may never run on your PC. They may be made for a system more aged than 32-bits, such as may be 16-bit systems. While 32-bit programs can emulate 64-bit systems, Windows cannot emulate 16-bit programs at all. Basically, a 64-bit system can never run a 16-bit program.
This is not the end. You can also face problems with the hardware of your modern PC when running old games. Today’s modern operating systems will basically split the workload of the program you run into multiple cores of your CPU. For example, if your CPU has four cores, Windows will basically split the entire workload of the program you run into 4 cores, rather than one core so that you get better performance. However, many of these older games are not made with this type of multicore CPU in mind. Because Windows didn’t do that then and didn’t have Multicore CPU in that time. This is exactly why many old PC games will not run on your modern PC, or even if you run, you may not get the expected performance.
So there is no way to run the old games of the previous era on your modern PC? It is not possible to say for sure. But there are some ways. For example, the first 32-bit version of modern operating systems is still available. If you search a little bit, you will also get the 32-bit version of Windows 10. If you want to run all the old games on the PC, then it would be better for you to use the 32-bit system on the PC.
Hopefully, I have been able to give some idea of the reasons why old games do not run on our modern PCs. I am ending here like today. I hope you like today’s article. If you have any questions or comments, please let us know in the comments section.
Featured Image: YouTube
