Hi. I'm considering doing some gaming again after being away for the last 15 years. I'm going to start with my all time favorite - UT GOTY. Game page says it "works on Windows 7,8.10.11" but system requirements says Windows XP or Vista . Which is it? My gaming system is actually Windows 8.1 vs Windows 8- is that an issue?

If the answer is Yes, this game will work on all of these OS - what kind of issues can I expect if any? Does the game come with the latest patch or do I have to go get it?

Thanks a bunch for your input.

You should look at "Works on". That's what GOG supports and if for some reason you have problems, they'll try to help you.

As for issues, usually it's rather random and dependent on user's setup. You can look at reviews and dedicated subforums (a couple of lines below "works on" you can find "forum discussions" link) to see if there are no recurring problems with the game you're looking at.

If the worst happens, you should rest assured, GOG staff members are doing their best to be helpful and the store has a generous refund policy (you can find policies and contact Support using the Support link in the navigation bar).

That's great - thank you!

If you have issues, also check the game's forum. More often than not others have had the same problems as you (3D games from the late 90s to early 2000 era can be a bitch, thanks to early incomplete DirectX Standards) and already have solutions for them.

Since 7 is way more popular than 8 or 8.1, I'd think more games run on 7.

PCGamingWiki can be a valuable source of information.

Well, I could not find any game yet that would run on 7, but not on 8,10 or 11 after some tweaking (Telltale, I look at you, I only say: directinput). Not much was changed between 7 and 8, so I don't think there are games made during the Windows 8 era that would not run on 7.
But some new games made for 11 might not necessarily be compatible with 7.

From XP to later operating systems can be a bit of a pain tho. And if we go further back to the 16 Bit era ... those don't run on any 64 Bit system.

I see we've reached the point where people are asking the same of Windows XP the time Windows 8 was new.

You're right but just wat to point out that I've yet to found a game that runs on 7 that doesn't run on 8.1, except those weird DirectX12 titles of course. Even most drivers built for Win7 install just fine on 8.1.

Wow, theres a lot of knowledge and support here and it is very appreciated. neumi5694, you're right it was often a challenge to get these games working right and chasing after more horsepower.

Considering that Windows 8.x was the worst thing to ever happen in the history of PC, I feel just discussing about that rottin' abomination is an offence to everything that's sane and normal in the world of man.


Please stop this crap, it offends any PC user worthy of the name :D

The only game that I specifically ran into a compatibility issue involving Windows 8 is The Sims Medieval, specifically if the game's one expansion (Pirates & Nobles) was installed. I don't think this game is even being sold anywhere at this point.

If there's anything else that ran into issues with Windows 8, it may have likewise gone out of print where you don't have to worry about.

Many problems can be solved with virtual graphics card adapters like dgVoodoo, but not all.
SW EP1 Racer for example would turn white after completing round 1, some fans wrote a dll that fixed that. Microsoft allowed some DirectX hacking which has been forbidden since so whatever the original dll did, was not allowed anymore.

Other games - like the original Croc Legend of the Gobbos - which did make use of specific hardware, would only run with limited functionality. Croc used AWE to play background sounds, this way saving CPU power. After direct sound card access was cut off, that would not work anymore (later a version of the games was released that only used DirectSound).
In many other games we don't get surround sound anymore, since they also are using APIs for that, which require direct sound card access.
In that case, virtual sound card drivers like IndirectSound or SoftOpenAL help. They may not yet support all EAX effects, but at least they give us our surround sound back.

In Telltales case it's about direct input, which was updated with Windows 10. Telltale games would require an old version of it. The solution was simple: Get a old dll and put it into the game directory. But Telltale never bothered to update their games, so we had lots of crash reports when people were using a XBox360 gamepad.

TL;DR
Most problems are not connected to the Windows version in use, but based on the use of old APIs that are not supported anymore or the direct access to specific hardware.

Often the games put changeable game data into the games directory and therefore require Admin rights when they get installed into a directory the standard user should not mess with (like c:\Program Files, only Admins should write there).
In very few cases the game code is shit and uses hard coded or - even worse - language dependent directories. That can be a problem if the Windows system is installed differently than in 1995. These days user directory and OS can be located on any drive, not just c:\