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.

  • eerongal@ttrpg.network
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    13 hours ago

    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.

    • Malix@sopuli.xyz
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      13 hours ago

      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.