Posted December 15, 2018
TrueDosGamer: Again this request is not specifically for me but if there are any Windows 2000 or XP specific titles that have not yet become available on GOG's store "those" titles would be nice for GOG to acquire from Steam to be made DRM free if they already aren't able to run without a CD check or needing to be logged into Steam.
AB2012: I don't think that's how it works. If GOG wants games they have to negotiate directly with the publisher (owner of the games) not another distributor. The only thing Valve can sell GOG is the rights to redistribute its own "Made by Valve" games (Portal, Half Life, etc) that are usually Steam exclusive. The biggest problem for a lot of retro-gamers is a lot of old games aren't available anywhere legally (including Steam). Where's Lemmings, Dune, etc? Same place as No One Lives Forever - stuck in "legal limbo" often as a result of a defunct developer either never being acquired before it goes out of business, or its new owner simply being uninterested in reselling old games. Or for many older sports / racing titles, a license to use a car or soundtrack expiring (eg, you can't buy Outrun 2006 anywhere due to expired Ferrari license). I'm also sure this is why GOG doesn't have many old racing / sports games involving real licensed teams. As for XP, Galaxy actually dropped support before Steam did. Offline installers should still work fine, though there are some discrepancies vs "pure original" disc rips. Eg, old 90's point & clicks these days GOG includes as ScummVM releases. No problem as it still supports XP, however, if you want it running under "pure" MS-DOS (or even DOSBox without ScummVM), then they might lack the .exe compared to say a zip file on an "Abandonware" site.
Just curious though, what do you mean by "XP only" games? I know that's the 2001-2007 DX8-9 era stuff but I can't say I own a single game from then that runs only under XP and not W7? To me the most awkward time period for old PC gaming on modern hardware is between 1993-1995 where there were a few games releases as 16-bit Windows 3.1 titles that both won't run under 64-bit OS's (that dropped 16-bit support) but simultaneously also aren't MS-DOS apps that would otherwise natively under DOSBox. That stuff has been way more difficult to run under W7 than say NWN (2002), FEAR (2005) or Oblivion (2006) released during the XP era.
Yeah I have no list of what "XP" only titles work that won't in Windows 7. I don't use Windows 7 as a daily driver to give you that info and I haven't been "heavy" on the retro gaming or gaming in general for quite some time. Just stockpiling my knowledge making every newest generation of Intel CPU and chipsets work with XP as a security buffer to run all XP, Windows 7, and Windows 10 future games all on one system. Better to have the best equipment than hunt for old gear that overheats and eventually dies. In other worlds don't use XP on a single core Pentium 4 as your retro system. I'd use that for Windows 98SE and DOS only.
One day maybe 10 years from now I might be the only one capable of running XP on some 16 or 32 Core monster they release and having a blast running these games. But even now the i9-9900K octacore is already a beast that you probably won't see much difference if any in performance. Unless you got some ideas of what game other than Crysis can really max out an XP system to its limits I might give it a try and see how it fairs.
Post edited December 15, 2018 by TrueDosGamer