Zardoz5 wrote on Jan 2, 2011, 19:38:
No it doesn't. For kicks I installed 1942 in Windows 7's XP VM and the game wouldn't even start.
Yes, but 1942 works fine in Windows7 any way.
Basically pretty much every thing works great in Windows 7 x64. Both Vista x64 and Win7 x64 are equally good when it comes to compatibility with older titles. The 32bit emulation module "WoW (Windows on Windows)" is astonishingly good. DOSBox takes care of all the DOS games (and I was using it in XP as well). Some of the games I have installed currently are: Wing Commander 1 Kilrathi Saga (Win7 with Win98SE compatibility), Wing Commander 3 (DOSBox), Little Big Adventure (DOSBox), Entomorph (Win7, with 98SE compat), Summoning (DOSBox), Ultima 7 (DOSBox), Ultima 8 (DOSBox), Alone in the Dark (DOSBox), Ultima 4 (DOSBox), Prince of Persia 1 & 2 (DOSBox), Prince of Persia MAC (Basilisk II emulator), Tex Murphy Overseer (Win7 Good old Games), Outcast (two copies, Win7 and also through Good old Games), Fallout, Max Payne, Dark Forces (DOSBox), Wolf 3D (DOSBo), Call of Duty, Redguard in 3DFX mode (using Glidos), Arcanum (Good old Games) etc.
I am also running bunch of emulators - Dolphin x64 (Wii and Gamecube), BasiliskII (Apple II), ePSXe (PS1), PCSX2 (PS2), MAME, DOSBox, SCUMM etc.
And it's not just about compatibility, but that Windows 7 and Vista are order of magnitude more stable than WinXP. Their memory management is way more advanced, and you get the benefits on x64 versions even for 32 bit apps, since the OS can cache the game data (that's beyond the scope of 32 bit app) into OS managed memory independent of the application. XP does that too with its pre-fetch module, but the SuperFetch in Vista/Win7 is better and the x64 versions simply have more memory to play with. Games like Oblivion played a lot better on Vista/Win7 x64 compared to WinXP x86, in completely eliminating area transition pauses and other background data/texture streaming related artifacts.
Win7 x64 is the best OS for PC gaming, and Vista x64 is almost equally good.