old games are very slow

[Vince800]

So now they're telling me to post it on the MSDN forums.

Windows 8 - Speed Issues Running Games DirectX9 & Older

 

[avada]

So now they're telling me to post it on the MSDN forums.

Windows 8 - Speed Issues Running Games DirectX9 & Older

And now they're telling to post on Microsoft Answers. (Where no-one looks at anything.)

I actually posted there a while ago... ( Windows 8, 8.1 old game support is total garbage. - Microsoft Community )

 

[Vince800]

DirectDraw Emulation Is Broken In Windows 8/8.1 - Microsoft Community

 

[Arcturus Fyr]

Speaking of old games running slow, can someone help me with this game in particular. It's called the Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion, I noticed some odd stuttering issues of late, where it ran fine 3 weeks prior, it now experiences some pretty severe slowdown, and stuttering.

I looked in the Event Viewer to see if anything was wrong, and found that the Kernel-Processor-Power ID 37 (Warning) entry had popped up.

Was confused for a while, then decided to test this on other games, more CPU, and GPU intensive than Oblivion, tried Borderlands 2, Skyrim, E.Y.E Divine Cybermancy, The Witcher: Directors Cut, Fallout New Vegas, all of which worked without the warning entry appearing.

It only seems Oblivion is causing these warning entries, I used Open Hardware monitor while in-game to see if anything was overheating; and the the temp results for the CPU (all 4 cores) are (35-46c), the GPU (47-60c.) From what I can tell, it seems my processor is under-clocking itself when I play Oblivion while every other game seems to run fine.

At this point, I've decided to stop installing any other game until I understand whether or not my processor is dying on me, or that this is just specific to Oblivion, the machine i'm using was purchased only a month ago, so dust shouldn't be, and hopefully, hardware failure isn't the case.

If anyone can help, please respond as soon as possible. Thank you in advance.
-Arcturus Fyr

 

[popeye]

Speaking of old games running slow, can someone help me with this game in particular. It's called the Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion, I noticed some odd stuttering issues of late, where it ran fine 3 weeks prior, it now experiences some pretty severe slowdown, and stuttering.

I looked in the Event Viewer to see if anything was wrong, and found that the Kernel-Processor-Power ID 37 (Warning) entry had popped up.

Was confused for a while, then decided to test this on other games, more CPU, and GPU intensive than Oblivion, tried Borderlands 2, Skyrim, E.Y.E Divine Cybermancy, The Witcher: Directors Cut, Fallout New Vegas, all of which worked without the warning entry appearing.

It only seems Oblivion is causing these warning entries, I used Open Hardware monitor while in-game to see if anything was overheating; and the the temp results for the CPU (all 4 cores) are (35-46c), the GPU (47-60c.) From what I can tell, it seems my processor is under-clocking itself when I play Oblivion while every other game seems to run fine.

At this point, I've decided to stop installing any other game until I understand whether or not my processor is dying on me, or that this is just specific to Oblivion, the machine i'm using was purchased only a month ago, so dust shouldn't be, and hopefully, hardware failure isn't the case.

If anyone can help, please respond as soon as possible. Thank you in advance.
-Arcturus Fyr

I kind of doubt it is your hardware. My solution for old games: I dusted off my XP disc and created a virtual machine with VMware Player. Any old game I have problems with, I run on the XP VM and so far they all run fine.

Realize this may not be an option for those that don't have an old XP disc laying around though.

 

[Arcturus Fyr]

I kind of doubt it is your hardware. My solution for old games: I dusted off my XP disc and created a virtual machine with VMware Player. Any old game I have problems with, I run on the XP VM and so far they all run fine.

Realize this may not be an option for those that don't have an old XP disc laying around though.[/QUOTE]

Actually you may be on to something. My old install on another machine had the Oblivion launcher shortcut compatibility settings set to; 'XP service pack 2.' Which may not be mandatory, but I believe is strongly recommended by the support at Nexus Forums in-regards to playing the game with newer OS ware.

However, I cannot set Oblivion to the 'XP Service Pack 2' setting, as it oddly starts the game up into 'Windowed Mode' when I do have the said setting enabled.

The VMware Player option sounds interesting, but i'm unfamiliar with using VMware overall. Is there another alternative?

Thank you for the current support, I hope to hear from you soon if you'd anymore suggestions.

 

[popeye]

Sorry, all I got is a XP virtual machine. Don't think DX 8 or even maybe some 9 games are going to work well on 8/8.1.

 

[Arcturus Fyr]

Damned unfortunate, I suppose at the very least it's not my hardware failing on me. Guess 8/8.1 just isn't very good at playing games that are almost a decade old.

Thank you for the response.

 

[HeyDontSlip]

Yep the original CoD was painful to play on Windows 8.1 lol

 

[Vince800]

These slow games seem to work fine in Windowed mode. Of course this is not possible with all of them but this is surely further proof that Microsoft simply screwed something up rather than an intentional change to the way DirectX works. If it was something intentional then the games would lag in Windowed mode too.

 

[dskiller]

well at lest more people are noticing now... maybe in the future the problem might get fixed.

 

[avada]

Maybe someone with significance and commercial interest should pester them. Thinking of GOG mostly. Maybe it'd matter to Microsoft if they recommended against windows 8.x.

 

[Vince800]

Yes the GOG games are affected by this issue. It's annoying how on the web there are various people simply putting these down to being old games. There's just so many factors which show that this is not intentional or a result of "junk" being removed from Windows 8. The most obvious thing being that the games seem to work fine when running in Windowed mode. Also the fact that in Vista/7 they run at full speed.

 

[dskiller]

if microsoft acknowledges the problem. they wont make a statement about it. it would hurt their slogan for trying to bring back gaming.

 

[CountMike]

How about GOG games, shouldn't they keep up with computer and OS development instead of expecting everyone else to conform to their standards. ?
On the other hand, M$ are priding themselves of the backwards compatibility with older SW and HW but not doing their best to make is sure it is like they say it is.
What we see here is a failure to communicate and do something about problems like that to the detriment of users.

 

[avada]

Does this work for anyone?
Windows 8 strange things and 3d faster in window

 

[elbmek]

I have just retrograded back to win 8 pro from 8.1. My copy of Silent Hunter 4 (2007) runs much better. My copy of Freelancer (1997) has finally given up the ghost but getting a new copy. It also works fine and I use two 'mods' to make it a virtually new game based on a virgin Freelancer install. Graphics etc superb and full screen.

 

[madmax1100]

Does this work for anyone?
Windows 8 strange things and 3d faster in window

Its alot of good possibilities, as many of you are aware, I do not have Windows8 but am always looking for solutions for my friends who have windows8. Going to see if these solutions work. I believe there is a possibility it will work for those games with directx issues. I recommend anyone else who are having problems with directx and windows8 to give it a try, you got nothing to lose for trying.

 

[quailstorm]

just an advice, for older, Win98 designed games, it's recommended to set Windows XP compatibility, or else you will face with this:
http://mobilarena.hu/dl/upc/2014-07/346181_img_14092013_202127.jpg

Buffer overrun, and not enough memory. Even the first version of Half-life 2 (which ran on Win98).

And searching for patches is a good idea. If there is no specific Win7 patch, any NT version patch would to it. 2K, XP, Vista. Mostly it will solve the problem. Even Max Payne needed an XP patch, and it still works on 7 or 8.1.

 

[elbmek]

I used to write games for the ZX81 for my little son; he now has a study packed (sort of) with screens and a big machine!!!