What games can Windows 8 play?

[Night Hawk]

Another thing I could reflect on here would be the noticable difference typically seen with each newer version of Windows to begin with. Many XP games simply won't go Vista whether they install and simply do not want to run or won't install even with the compatibily mode for XP and run as admin options used. Yet those same some written strictly for XP titles would go right on and run on the 32bit not 64bit 7 showing where one version fails to see results the next one to come along could!

Since 8 is just recently out of the RTM box like each previous version you will see the trial and error start all over again with some having problems with certain titles others wont. And this can be caused by a number of things other then which version of Windows you are running.

What would those be? System protections, video card softwares, how you are connected online, etc. as the list can expand. Antivirus and firewall programs are long time well known to cause problems. You end up needing to disable or shut those down before each gaming session.

For video card more so then with any separate sound cards not including integrated video or sound the ATI Catalyst as well as the NVidia Desktop/Profile manager have seen the need to be turned off at times with a number of titles over the years more so with ATI prior to being bought out by AMD as for the Catalyst side of things. Some sound cards with the mixer portion of their wares has been a problem in some cases as well. Generally the main software has to be turned off especially the OverDrive causing situations when cards are cranked up a bit.

As we all know integrated video and sound can be very limited and generally doesn't provide a great deal for a gaming rig to begin with. Sometimes the onboard audio is pooched especially with Realtek seemingly the most popular for seeing this type of problem. You can install drivers all day but if the SoundMax app is toast you won't get far. Then you have a software not driver bug to work out.

The most common problem seen so far with 8 that wasn't seen with 7 by the way is the "lack of" 8 drivers it seems. Nearly four months later drivers are still in wait. This was a headache for Vista as well due to extended delays with drivers taking upto a full year to appear by some manufacturers if at all.

With 7 on the hand MS pressured the OEMs to have driver support there ahead of time. Beta drivers that were found to be Vista/7 compatible were found at support sites in Dec. 2008 nearly two months before the beta was made public back then. Yet despite not seeing all the drivers for 8 out some have found that substituting certain 7 drivers like those for ATI cards actually has helped in prevently OpenGL type errors with some of the older titles. This is mainly due to what level of hard coding an older game would see.

 

[Hopachi]

What would those be? System protections, video card softwares, how you are connected online, etc. as the list can expand. Antivirus and firewall programs are long time well known to cause problems. You end up needing to disable or shut those down before each gaming session.

That's how it goes.

I would create a rule in the firewall/AV to allow the game rather than disabling the defenses.
That's why I like Windows Defender and Firewall: you can easily add rules, put folders on the non-scan list: like the VM folder, those are VHD's VMDK's that cannot be seen from the host or they will take too much time to scan them, and it will decrease performance during use. That can be the case for a game folder as well especially on HDD's but even on SSD's. Why not gain a bit of performance if it's possible?

The most common problem seen so far with 8 that wasn't seen with 7 by the way is the "lack of" 8 drivers it seems. Nearly four months later drivers are still in wait. This was a headache for Vista as well due to extended delays with drivers taking upto a full year to appear by some manufacturers if at all.

It looks like Vista all over again. It seems that it gets hard after a popular release because OEM's have to gain interest in the newer version first.
Luckily I have all needed drivers here, sometimes you have to search a bit more and mostly when there are none, use those from Vista/7.

 

[TONSCHUH]

nor does Max Payne 2
Wenda.

Max Payne-2 works without any issues under Windows-8-Pro-WMC-x64. No compatibility-mode / settings needed. Game is patched to v1.01 and I also installed the 2 additional maps (* Upper East Side* Mona's Playground).

I can't double-check Deus Ex-2, as I only have Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

 

[Night Hawk]

What would those be? System protections, video card softwares, how you are connected online, etc. as the list can expand. Antivirus and firewall programs are long time well known to cause problems. You end up needing to disable or shut those down before each gaming session.

That's how it goes.

I would create a rule in the firewall/AV to allow the game rather than disabling the defenses.
That's why I like Windows Defender and Firewall: you can easily add rules, put folders on the non-scan list: like the VM folder, those are VHD's VMDK's that cannot be seen from the host or they will take too much time to scan them, and it will decrease performance during use. That can be the case for a game folder as well especially on HDD's but even on SSD's. Why not gain a bit of performance if it's possible?

The most common problem seen so far with 8 that wasn't seen with 7 by the way is the "lack of" 8 drivers it seems. Nearly four months later drivers are still in wait. This was a headache for Vista as well due to extended delays with drivers taking upto a full year to appear by some manufacturers if at all.

It looks like Vista all over again. It seems that it gets hard after a popular release because OEM's have to gain interest in the newer version first.
Luckily I have all needed drivers here, sometimes you have to search a bit more and mostly when there are none, use those from Vista/7.

Here I never use the Windows Firewall but see that option included in the av software since the firewall also includes the additional protection of web filtering which actually blocks out many pages as soon as something is detected as not being right. Yet when going to run any game old or more recent you wouldn't even know the av program is active except for it notifying you that the scheduled weekly system scan has begun. Even in a Steam title the popup will find a way to leak through the full screen game map for those few seconds. The intrusion as far as stalling a game isn't there however as the program was well written to be non intrusive even when running a more demanding app like video capturing which can be sensitive to anything in the background at times.

As for drivers and unpdates the tv tuner/captrure card waited a full year to see any Vista updates released back in the 2007-08 time frame. Fortunately 7 only seldomly needed 7 drivers since Vista drivers can easily work as well on 7 there. That was a great help when 7 was first out as well as while in beta and RC form.

With 8 however there is a new compatibility issue at times while 7 drivers can still be used but where some will get caught in situation until the updates appear. 8 and 7 won't be seeing the same closeness compatibility wise that Vista and 7 shared by any means. This may also effect a list of game titles in some way as well. XP games often wouldn't go onto Vista or run on Vista while they could still be installed regardless of what you tried. 7 took the advantage with the 32bit Win 7 that is and was found it could run what Vista couldn't! MS is back to the every other version not so friendly and OEMs behind again.

 

[Shuren Inferno]

Games that I have tested to work with no noticeable issues:

• Deus Ex: Human Revolution (+ Missing Link)
• Doom 3 (both original and BFG edition
• Fallout: New Vegas
• Rage
• Hydrophobia: Prophecy
• Magicka
• Payday: The Heist
• Portal 2
• Team Fortress 2
• Metro 2033
• Deus Ex: Game of the Year Edition
• Bioshock
• Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition

Not working at all for me

• Borderlands (Stack overflow crash)
• Crysis (stack overflow crash)

Rumor has it that EA has a patch in the works that will fix the Crysis issue.

I loved hydrophobia very much its a unique game but its not popular

 

[Night Hawk]

What would those be? System protections, video card softwares, how you are connected online, etc. as the list can expand. Antivirus and firewall programs are long time well known to cause problems. You end up needing to disable or shut those down before each gaming session.

That's how it goes.

I would create a rule in the firewall/AV to allow the game rather than disabling the defenses.
That's why I like Windows Defender and Firewall: you can easily add rules, put folders on the non-scan list: like the VM folder, those are VHD's VMDK's that cannot be seen from the host or they will take too much time to scan them, and it will decrease performance during use. That can be the case for a game folder as well especially on HDD's but even on SSD's. Why not gain a bit of performance if it's possible?

The most common problem seen so far with 8 that wasn't seen with 7 by the way is the "lack of" 8 drivers it seems. Nearly four months later drivers are still in wait. This was a headache for Vista as well due to extended delays with drivers taking upto a full year to appear by some manufacturers if at all.

It looks like Vista all over again. It seems that it gets hard after a popular release because OEM's have to gain interest in the newer version first.
Luckily I have all needed drivers here, sometimes you have to search a bit more and mostly when there are none, use those from Vista/7.

At the time I didn't have too much worry using the note updated form of the MS Security Essentials named Windows Defender in 8 that replaced the old and useless WD found in Vista and 7! I didn't enable the firewall on the CP or RP builds and was waiting to see if I would be getting 8 retail and then installing a separate av with firewall/web filtering where no problems with any game have been seen.

As for looking like Vista all over again I can easily agree since MS put the squeeze on OEMs to have drivers ready for 7 after Vista but so far slumped for 8. It usually takes enough customer complaint to get them motivated of course.

Likewise some other 3rd party apps took over a year to finally come out with a Vista update for their products and why back then and up until the 7 RC was out I had keep a dual boot of XP with Vista running with the newer being the primary OS. At least with 7 you could still use a good number of Vista driver sets and some 7 drivers are still good to go on 8 while they are still lagging behind for the actual 8 updates that will be needed!

 

[Shuren Inferno]

What would those be? System protections, video card softwares, how you are connected online, etc. as the list can expand. Antivirus and firewall programs are long time well known to cause problems. You end up needing to disable or shut those down before each gaming session.

That's how it goes.

I would create a rule in the firewall/AV to allow the game rather than disabling the defenses.
That's why I like Windows Defender and Firewall: you can easily add rules, put folders on the non-scan list: like the VM folder, those are VHD's VMDK's that cannot be seen from the host or they will take too much time to scan them, and it will decrease performance during use. That can be the case for a game folder as well especially on HDD's but even on SSD's. Why not gain a bit of performance if it's possible?

The most common problem seen so far with 8 that wasn't seen with 7 by the way is the "lack of" 8 drivers it seems. Nearly four months later drivers are still in wait. This was a headache for Vista as well due to extended delays with drivers taking upto a full year to appear by some manufacturers if at all.

It looks like Vista all over again. It seems that it gets hard after a popular release because OEM's have to gain interest in the newer version first.
Luckily I have all needed drivers here, sometimes you have to search a bit more and mostly when there are none, use those from Vista/7.

At the time I didn't have too much worry using the note updated form of the MS Security Essentials named Windows Defender in 8 that replaced the old and useless WD found in Vista and 7! I didn't enable the firewall on the CP or RP builds and was waiting to see if I would be getting 8 retail and then installing a separate av with firewall/web filtering where no problems with any game have been seen.

As for looking like Vista all over again I can easily agree since MS put the squeeze on OEMs to have drivers ready for 7 after Vista but so far slumped for 8. It usually takes enough customer complaint to get them motivated of course.

Likewise some other 3rd party apps took over a year to finally come out with a Vista update for their products and why back then and up until the 7 RC was out I had keep a dual boot of XP with Vista running with the newer being the primary OS. At least with 7 you could still use a good number of Vista driver sets and some 7 drivers are still good to go on 8 while they are still lagging behind for the actual 8 updates that will be needed!

DONT FORGET that windows 8 is new not bad it needs time to grow :winkey:

 

[kirbs2002]

I loved hydrophobia very much its a unique game but its not popular

Well, part of its lack of popularity is how short it is. I beat it fresh in only 3 or 4 hours.

Also, for what it's worth, I guess I solved why Borderlands wasn't working, though I don't know how.

 

[Night Hawk]

That's how it goes.

I would create a rule in the firewall/AV to allow the game rather than disabling the defenses.
That's why I like Windows Defender and Firewall: you can easily add rules, put folders on the non-scan list: like the VM folder, those are VHD's VMDK's that cannot be seen from the host or they will take too much time to scan them, and it will decrease performance during use. That can be the case for a game folder as well especially on HDD's but even on SSD's. Why not gain a bit of performance if it's possible?


It looks like Vista all over again. It seems that it gets hard after a popular release because OEM's have to gain interest in the newer version first.
Luckily I have all needed drivers here, sometimes you have to search a bit more and mostly when there are none, use those from Vista/7.

At the time I didn't have too much worry using the note updated form of the MS Security Essentials named Windows Defender in 8 that replaced the old and useless WD found in Vista and 7! I didn't enable the firewall on the CP or RP builds and was waiting to see if I would be getting 8 retail and then installing a separate av with firewall/web filtering where no problems with any game have been seen.

As for looking like Vista all over again I can easily agree since MS put the squeeze on OEMs to have drivers ready for 7 after Vista but so far slumped for 8. It usually takes enough customer complaint to get them motivated of course.

Likewise some other 3rd party apps took over a year to finally come out with a Vista update for their products and why back then and up until the 7 RC was out I had keep a dual boot of XP with Vista running with the newer being the primary OS. At least with 7 you could still use a good number of Vista driver sets and some 7 drivers are still good to go on 8 while they are still lagging behind for the actual 8 updates that will be needed!

DONT FORGET that windows 8 is new not bad it needs time to grow :winkey:

When Vista was out for some time there were still a number of driver issues while the main companies were set to go like ATI, NVidia, Creative at least had their beta drivers by the launch date. With 7 the OEMs were on the spot having beta versions at least before the beta was released at the end of January 2009. The beta drivers for Creative were listed in Dec. '08 ahead of time for pre-public testers apparently as well as having foresight on the bulk of Creative customers who would be in need of drivers to try 7 out.

This time around however everybody has been generally using the existing 7 drivers. Now for certain games to run on 8 a few have been finding that running with 7 drivers has seen some better results especially with some older titles. Here I was able to get Direct X 9c to go on the 8 RP VM still running with one specific MS DX download option found at Download Download and Install DirectX9 End User Runtime | Install DirectX, DX9 from Official Microsoft Download Center

The main and likely reason that worked over the stand alone installer is this one is cross version compatible while the other was mainly released for Vista/7 back in 2009. The web installer is more flexible which made the difference in case you have any old games that run into any OpenGL or older DX requirements with some games including their own DX installers in them but may not run without seeing the "incompatible with this version of Windows" error message appearing.

 

[Shuren Inferno]

I loved hydrophobia very much its a unique game but its not popular

Well, part of its lack of popularity is how short it is. I beat it fresh in only 3 or 4 hours.

Also, for what it's worth, I guess I solved why Borderlands wasn't working, though I don't know how.

I totally forgot its so short

 

[Wenda]

nor does Max Payne 2
Wenda.

Max Payne-2 works without any issues under Windows-8-Pro-WMC-x64. No compatibility-mode / settings needed. Game is patched to v1.01 and I also installed the 2 additional maps (* Upper East Side* Mona's Playground).

I can't double-check Deus Ex-2, as I only have Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

Well, after reading this, I tried again, and can state categorically that it does not, at least on my machine.

It's an i7-2670QM with 8 gigs of RAM and a 2GB DDR3 GeForce GT555M, and all its drivers are current.

There is no 'odd-ball' hardware that could cause an issue. Looking at your system specs, nothing stands
out that I'm lacking.

Install locations (even tried installing in C:\Max Payne 2) make no difference, nor do compatibility settings.

The disks are fine, they work on the XP box no problem. The game installs without a hitch, but will NOT run.

Patching makes no difference either. The V1.01 patch installs, but V1.05 cannot find the game folder, even
when manually pointed at it.

You must just have the 'knack'.

Wenda.

 

[TONSCHUH]

nor does Max Payne 2
Wenda.

Max Payne-2 works without any issues under Windows-8-Pro-WMC-x64. No compatibility-mode / settings needed. Game is patched to v1.01 and I also installed the 2 additional maps (* Upper East Side* Mona's Playground).

I can't double-check Deus Ex-2, as I only have Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

Well, after reading this, I tried again, and can state categorically that it does not, at least on my machine.

It's an i7-2670QM with 8 gigs of RAM and a 2GB DDR3 GeForce GT555M, and all its drivers are current.

There is no 'odd-ball' hardware that could cause an issue. Looking at your system specs, nothing stands
out that I'm lacking.

Install locations (even tried installing in C:\Max Payne 2) make no difference, nor do compatibility settings.

The disks are fine, they work on the XP box no problem. The game installs without a hitch, but will NOT run.

Patching makes no difference either. The V1.01 patch installs, but V1.05 cannot find the game folder, even
when manually pointed at it.

You must just have the 'knack'.

Wenda.

That's really strange. Sent you a PM.

 

[Wenda]

Yeah, got that Tonschuh. Thanks muchly.
Have d/l'ed it, will play around later in the week.

Wenda.

 

[TONSCHUH]

Yeah, got that Tonschuh. Thanks muchly.
Have d/l'ed it, will play around later in the week.

Wenda.

Good Luck with it !

 

[elbmek]

I have currently installed Far Cry 2, Silent Hunter 4 and Sid Meiers Pirates. All work perfectly without looking for compat modes.

 

[tortoisegirl]

Every game I have played works except the sims 3 where I needed to launch it into windows 7 compatibility mode and it works fine

I'm new to 8 and to this forum. I was hoping for help installing The Sims 3. Can you tell me how to launch in Windows 7 compatibility mode please? Thanks!

TG

 

[Shuren Inferno]

Every game I have played works except the sims 3 where I needed to launch it into windows 7 compatibility mode and it works fine

I'm new to 8 and to this forum. I was hoping for help installing The Sims 3. Can you tell me how to launch in Windows 7 compatibility mode please? Thanks!

TG

hi you can do it by right click on sims3.exe then properties then compatibilities then check compatibility mode choose windows 7
I hope it helps please reply if it did

 

[Enigma]

Has anyone managed to get the original Tomb Raider working perfectly (or close to it) on 7/8? I bought it from GOG and it either glitches out or crashes when I launch it. I havent been able to play so far.

 

[tortoisegirl]

Every game I have played works except the sims 3 where I needed to launch it into windows 7 compatibility mode and it works fine

I'm new to 8 and to this forum. I was hoping for help installing The Sims 3. Can you tell me how to launch in Windows 7 compatibility mode please? Thanks!

TG

hi you can do it by right click on sims3.exe then properties then compatibilities then check compatibility mode choose windows 7
I hope it helps please reply if it did

Thank you for the tips. It didn't work. I wonder if the real problem is the Origin pop-up from EA rather than the game itself. I know my password is correct because I can successfully log in to the Origins website, however when prompted by the pop-up for the password, I cannot log in. I'll have to search for a remedy here. Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks again!!
TG

 

[TONSCHUH]

Steam:

- Aliens: Colonial Marines + Season Pass
- Arma 2
- Arma 2: British Armed Forces
- Arma 2: Operation Arrowhead
- Arma 2: Operation Arrowhead Beta
- Arma 2: Private Military Company
- Arma 3 Alpha
- Arma 3 Alpha Lite
- Arma X: Anniversary Edition
- Arma: Cold War Assault
- Arma: Gold Edition
- Brink
- Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
- Call of Duty: Black Ops II + Season Pass
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 + Season Pass
- Call of Duty: World at War
- Champions Online: Free For All
- Counter-Strike
- Counter-Strike: Condition Zero
- Counter-Strike: Condition Zero Deleted Scenes
- Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
- Counter-Strike: Source
- Dota 2
- Duke Nukem Forever
- Enemy Territory - QUAKE Wars(TM)
- Forsaken World
- Global Agenda
- Hard Reset
- Hydrophobia: Prophecy
- Killing Floor
- Killing Floor Mod: Defence Alliance 2
- Metro 2033
- Midnight Club II
- PAYDAY: The Heist
- PlanetSide 2
- Portal
- Quake 4
- Quake II - Ground Zero
- Ravaged
- Saints Row 2
- Spiral Knights
- Team Fortress 2
- Torchlight II
- TrackMania-2 Stadium
- Unreal Tournament 3: Black Edition
- War Inc. Battlezone

Origin:

- Battlefield 1942
- Battlefield 3 - Limited Edition + Premium
- Crysis 2 - Maximum Edition
- Crysis 3 - Hunter Edition
- Dead Space 2
- Dead Space 3 - Limited Edition + Season Pass
- Need for Speed: The Run - Limited Edition
- Need for Speed: Most Wanted - Limited Edition + all Extras
- Battlefield 4 - Digital Deluxe Edition - pre-ordered

Others:

- Firefall
- Smite
- Tribes Ascend
- Battle for Graxia
- Borderlands
- Red Faction
- Red Faction II
- Saints Row 2
- Diablo III

That are all the Games I have installed at the moment so far.