2w ago

I got an old game working through WINE that wouldn't work through Windows' compatibility mode

Back around 2020 or so I wanted to play old games because I only had an underpowered laptop that could barely play modern games.

One I downloaded off MyAbandonWare was this shooter from 2003 called Devastation. It's alright, but more I played it when I was younger and always wondered what happened to it.

On my old laptop it always crashed on startup and I just couldn't get it working. I could open the level editor and that was about it.

Recently I downloaded it again onto a new laptop I put Linux on and tried a few different configurations. I heard how WINE can be better than Windows for old software so I decided to give it a shot.

Eventually I used Bottles with a gaming configuration set to Windows Xp.

I tried Devastation with that setup and it worked. I still have an issue with the game being in the top left corner and not taking up the full screen, but it's playable.

I have a top spec gaming PC now running Windows 10, but there are things this Thinkpad can do that my big PC can't.

29 comments

Wine is kinda magical. I really like this old 16bit Windows 3.x game "Castle of The Winds" (topdown, turn based, roguelike) which doesn't run on any 64bit windows as is (though, you CAN, with https://github.com/otya128/winevdm, but iirc it was a bit finicky).
Wine runs CoTW fine, seemingly.
- I didn't know WINE could do that and play Win3x games! For anything Windows 3.x and DOS related games, I would have used DOSBox emulator. I use it for DOS and even Win98 games, and have to setup it for Win3x yet.
  Sidenote: BTW I have looked what the game Castle of the Winds is about. Man its from Epic. This company was such a cool company back then.
  
  TBH, I kinda do prefer to run the game on Win 3.1 I have installed in my dosbox (and neatly transport the whole "C:" around my systems with Dropbox sync :D), as the UI of CoTW gets kinda too small without pixel doubling/tripling - and afaik that's one thing Wine doesn't do.
  Sidenote: BTW I have looked what the game Castle of the Winds is about. Man its from Epic. This company was such a cool company back then.
  published by Epic, but not developed by them. Anyhoo, they were cool once upon a time. :)
  edit: apart from nostalgia trip, I would say you don't need Win 3.x if you already have Win98 set up in dosbox - should run all 16bit windows apps from stone age just fine as is.
- windows can still play castle of the winds? i play it all the time. In fact, i just booted it up again a moment ago to make sure it didnt break recently or something. I dont remember ever having any issues playing it, and ive played it off and on for decades. In fact, googling real quick, it looks like my abandonware even has a "easy installer" for it.
  
  I tested the game quite a bit and found it not working, and after some digging around I found some tidbits that 64bit windows' lack the old systems to run 16bit apps.
  Kinda sounds like the installer supplied winevdm or similar with the game. Pretty nice of them, tbh.

I did something similar just the other day.
As a kid I really enjoyed Populous The Beginning. I only ever had the demo version. I later bought the game on GOG, but it never ran that well on my computer. You had to use software based graphics acceleration so it didn’t look right, would have issues with the sound, and crash fairly often.
Tried it through Lutris the other day and it just works. Flawlessly. The graphics look right, there are no audio distortions, and so far I’ve not crashed at all. I’d like to figure out how to get it to run in windowed mode, and then I’ll be satisfied.
Big win for WINE.

I only had an underpowered laptop that could barely play modern games.
I would like to point out that not all modern games have stupidly high requirements, and I might argue that the ones that do could actually optimise their shit to work on lower spec machines.
- The main problem was Siege with my friends over lockdown. Even on the lowest settings my framerate would drop whenshootouts happened on screen.
  I hooked it up to the TV recently and got through Pseudoregalia fine. It would handle any modern 2D or basic 3D game alright.
  I also tried Art of Rally, and whilst it works, I had to turn all the settings down. That is such a beautiful game that low settings don't do it justice
  
  That's fair man

Super cool from a games preservation perspective!

I'm pretty sure compatibility mode in Windows hasn't actually done anything after Windows 7. There were a few games and programs I had running on Win7 using the XP compatibility mode, but using the same setting on Win10 did nothing.
Windows 10 also seemed to be the time many games started needing community made patches to run even if the game worked fine on 7.

Yeah, I have a similar situation with Borderlands 2 not running on my machine with Windows 7 but running just fine in Linux with Proton (which is Steam's branch of Wine).
It seems to me that Linux with Wine is actually better at backwards compatibility for Windows applications than Windows itself.
PS: Also a handful of old games I have from GoG that wouldn't run on Windows run just fine with Wine on Linux.
- I figure since WINE is already faking being windows, it's easier to fake what type of Windows it is. By comparison, Windows has a lot of it's own problems

Makes me wonder if you can run WINE on Windows with WSL...
- Some games do have better performance with dxvk on Windows.

You can fix the top corner thing with gamescope.
- Thanks. I'll give that a go because that's the only issue I have with games now

Windows compatibility mode has never ever worked for me. I have the same experience as you with WINE.

I'm super frustrated that for some reason, Sid Meyer's SimGolf doesn't run on any emulation or modern hardware. It was just a friggin windows 95 game!! I have no idea what's so special about it.
- If you want to play it and get really desperate you could try a VM running 95 or 98 but that's a lot of setup
- Not really a solution for the game specifically, but there's a spiritual-successor of sorts for it, "Golftopia". It is a bit scifi/neon themed, but does a similar thing.
  
  I got it about a year ago and I've been playing it again recently. It's okay.

Great to hear you got it working (somewhat). I bet it will get worse and worse with the backwards compatibility of Windows with each iteration. You are Win10, its probably worse in Win11, because they stray further and further from god. On the other hand you have WINE and Proton that gets better and better every day on Linux.
I have a top spec gaming PC now running Windows 10, but there are things this Thinkpad can do that my big PC can’t.
Your big PC could do the same. ;-)
- I plan to now. A friend helped me put it together and that's where I learnt how to make a bootable drive to install an OS.
  I used to use that PC for work on the sneaky so I could do other stuff at home easily, but I've changed job and that's not a concern anymore so it might get PopOs or something on it soon
  
  That's great to hear. As you have used Linux on your Thinkpad, you know what awaits you. And that not everything is compatible. So no need for a lecture or standard disclaimer from me. I wish you good luck.
  Although about PopOS, they are currently working on a completely new desktop environment and have a few betas out. Maybe with their next big release they will ditch Gnome (their current desktop environment) and use their own solution. I thought letting you know if you weren't following the news. And I don't know how much you like Gnome.

According to Wikipedia, Devastation was also released for Linux. Might even be included in the package you found.
- I'll have to hunt around for it. MyAbandonWare only has the windows version, thanks for the tip
  
  Good luck 🤞

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