Alrighty then.

You ever have that fantastic OLD game that'll never run on your 2K/XP system?

Well, this will hopefully give you ideas on how to get the games running :D.

If the game is running ok on your system, but lacks sound, you'll need to install a handy little tool called VDMSound

Just install this and reboot your computer and this should sort out all your sound troubles ^^.

As for games that won't work full stop in 2K/XP there's a handy little tool called DOSBox

This is basically a DOS emulator that runs quite a few games really well.

If you don't know how to use DOS commands, well you can briefly type "Help" or if you're too lazy all you simply have to do is this.

type: Mount C C:\directoryofgamehere

The letter "C" donates what drive you're mounting too.. Which will be explained in a little bit.

Basically "C:\directoryofgamehere" is the directory you installed that game to. Remember in DOSBox you can only use 8 characters, so "directoryofgamehere" would actually be named direct~1 like so: Mount C C:\direct~1

This will mean that when you type C: you will be put into your C:\direct~1 folder. You can choose any letter you wish, so if you chose D, type D: .. Remember that the stray letter on it's own is only a fake drive, whereas the directory you're telling it to point to is on your physical harddrive.

Once you get into that directory, type dir/w and you'll see a list of files.

Depending on the game, you may have to run through the setup to setup your sound. Remember that to run a game, you always type in the executable name. E.g. if the game is Ishar III then you type "start" since the executable for Ishar III is "start.exe" but you should work all this out once you use dir/w.

Once the game is running in DOSBox (IF it runs) you may notice that it runs far too slow.. The objective here is to change your cycles.. CTRL+F12 makes it go faster, CTRL+F11 makes it go slower. Fiddle around with it to find the best settings for yourself.

If your game doesn't work, you may want to check the compatibility list on DOSBox's site.

DOSBox compatibility page

If all this fails to run, and you have working copies of several Operating Systems, you may want to try using the likes of Virtual PC .

Virtual PC is basically a PC emulator, it has a free trial of 45 days and may help you with any problematic old games you can't get running, providing you have a copy of an older OS or maybe even DOS.

Also, if you have a LucasArts game, or a point and click game.. An emulator that is often overlooked is SCUMMVM

This may help you running a lot of your point and clickies and is fairly self explanatory :D.

Also, I'm sure there's plenty of other PC emulators out there, some that may even be better than Virtual PC.. If you want to add any kind of tutorial or help for any problems then post here.

If the game you have is abandonware and you can't use any of the above methods to get it working, you may want to try The UnderDogs Forum . If you use the search function on the forums there, you may find the game you were trying to get to work :D.

Hope this helps.