Comment by hulitu
1 day ago
> Windows can still run programs from the 90s unmodified.
Did _you_ tried ? Because i hear this mantra a lot on HN, but my experience is different. MDK ( the game) cannot _run_ on a current Windows.
1 day ago
> Windows can still run programs from the 90s unmodified.
Did _you_ tried ? Because i hear this mantra a lot on HN, but my experience is different. MDK ( the game) cannot _run_ on a current Windows.
Although it's rare for me, I have used some old software that was built for Windows 9X or old versions of NT. So far, the track record is perfect - native programs have worked just fine, though I obviously can't vouch for all of them.
Old, complex games are the worst-case scenario, and are the exception, not the rule. Since they were only beginning to figure out hardware-accelerated 3D gaming in the 90s, it meant that we were left with lots of janky implementations and outdated graphics APIs that were quickly forgotten about. Though, MDK doesn't seem to suffer from this - it should be capable of running on newer systems directly [1]. One big issue it does have is that it uses a 16-bit installer, which is one thing that was explicitly retired during the transition to 64-bit due to it being so archaic at that moment, only being relevant to Windows 1-3. But you can still install the game using the method described in the article, and it should hopefully run fine from there on. Since it has options to use a software renderer and old DirectX, at least one of these should work.
[1] https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/MDK
I use WinAmp 2.0 sometimes which was released in 1996. I prefer to use v5 but I like to show friends that such old software still works fine (even Shoutcast streaming works fine).