Windows 10

[Gunther1987]

I don't have it yet, but I'll might upgrade my system to Win 10 later, not sure when because I've been getting this "free windows 10 ugrade" message for 2 days from microsoft, so...

So, my question is pretty simple: is exult going to be compatible with win 10 in the future?

[Dominus]

Almost all Windows 32bit programs will work in Windows 10. I don't see how Exult should be different.

[galneon]

It's mostly games relying on older versions of DirectX that Microsoft sacrifices at update time. The best recent example is DirectDraw (DX 5-7) games in Windows 8/8.1. In fullscreen mode, flip flags are ignored but the game engine has no way of knowing this. The result is poor framerate, affected games limited to around 30 fps. For people who have played Lazarus and Ultima 6 Project in the Dungeon Siege engine, this is why you have to run the game with the "bltonly=true" switch if you want a decent framerate on Windows 8/8.1. Most game engines from that time are not fortunate enough to have such an option.

[WaltC]

Windows10 is the most backwards compatible gaming OS Microsoft has ever introduced, imo. It's a bit odd, but I found both Vista & Win7 to be not-so-hot in the backwards compatibility picture with old games--Win8./1 was a definite step up from that regard, but in several instances I found I could only achieve bkwds-compat by making a game a DEP exception--several games refused to even boot/run unless I did that. But...with Win10(x64) I've discovered that each and every one of those games runs perfectly without the need to make them a DEP exception--whether that's done automatically now for particular titles I do not know, but all I can say is the bottom line that when it comes to backwards compatibility--nothing beats Win10 in my experience. Many games don't even require a compatibility mode be set, oddly enough. But when they do they function as expected.

Exult is--of course--working fine for me at the moment in build 10240.

Running Vista, Win7, 8 and now 10, I've had a long-standing habit of installing DX9.0c into my Windows system where it installs without problems--I also have the DX7-8 "SDK"s installed, too, just for curiosity & insurance--some of my games are 30+ years old. Older versions of D3d do not overwrite newer versions when installed, so there is no danger in this practice. Newer version of D3d are supposedly compatible with older versions ROOB, but that is surely not always true and that's where actually installing the older APIs alongside the new ones can be very handy.

[galneon]

"Windows10 is the most backwards compatible gaming OS Microsoft has ever introduced, imo. It's a bit odd, but I found both Vista & Win7 to be not-so-hot in the backwards compatibility picture with old games--Win8./1 was a definite step up from that regard..."

That really can't be true. Lack of DEP exception requirements aside (something easily overcome and therefore insignificant in my book), the decreased support for DirectDraw in Windows 8 and beyond means Windows 7 is, without a doubt, the more backwards-compatible OS. This single change has enormous implications for thousands of games. Unless Windows 10 comes with a godly DX1-8 wrapper I'm not aware of that puts dgVoodoo 2 to shame, there's no way it is more backwards-compatible. I expect it to be equal to 8.1 in this regard. Unless you can point to some actual design features that establish Windows 10 as more backwards-compatible than Windows 7, particularly with old games, then I really can't swallow that claim.

As far as I'm aware, there are only two backwards-compatibility improvements from Windows 7 to 8.1 (or 10), and one is due to an Nvidia driver flaw. The latest few Nvidia chips have insurmountable tearing issues on any OS with desktop compositing disabled. That affects XP, some Linux setups, and Vista/Win7 when Aero is disabled. Some games and emulators force Aero off from within the executable--meaning they don't use a compatibility setting. This ruins those games/emulators in Windows 7, but does nothing in Windows 8+ as desktop compositing is always on no matter what.

The other is the forced color mode compatibility setting that was added to 8. That's a cool feature, but basically a shortcut.

I don't like running a significantly older OS on a rig I built six months ago. I'd love nothing more than for Windows 10 to be the ultimate legacy gaming OS.

[Ghobs]

I am having trouble on my windows 10 PC. Worked fine with windows 7 - but now the resolution is off and my mouse won't cooperate. I have to tweak some config settings I'm sure - hopefully I get it running! Will be back to win 7 if I don't.

[SMK]

have you try 16bit color mode? I use win10 and i had problem in exult.
mouse lag and cursor afterimage.

but in 16bit-color mode, there's no problem to play u7. even in win10

[L@Zar0]

For some old games I needed to reinstall the last DirectX Redist from Microsoft, I think it is from June. Try it. It does not makes any mess to the original DX12 embedded in W10.

[Dominus]

I can only confirm that Exult runs fine in Windows 10, at least in my VM...

[Corpsecrank]

I read somewhere there was a workaround for the whole DDraw issue in 10 I can't remember what was said or where I saw it exactly but I think it may be worth checking into if you are using 10 and plan to play any games suffering from the limited DDraw support that it has.