I'm wondering if classic games (released earlier than say 2000) on Steam are somehow optimized to run on modern OS's and/or hardware?
I own one such game, but it always takes some time to set it up and run (installing latest patches, tuning compatibility, etc) even on a new Windows OS. Even with some latest patches it does have some minor graphics artifacts.
This game is currently on sale on Steam, and I think maybe it's worth it to pay a little to remove all these annoyances? Does Steam somehow guarantee that this game will run on all modern OS's (I'm using Windows 8 Pro x64 now), have all latest patches installed and maybe even have some tweaks or unreleased patches to run it better?
Or still having original CD + patches + etc. will eventually give me same result?
Best Answer
Not all games available on Steam work with newer PCs.
While some old games "just work" on newer OSs, many other games have compatibility issues which make them buggy or unplayable when you don't have the "required" OS. For example, the Space Quest collection has trouble running on Vista/7.
I would say that if a game doesn't state your OS specifically, you should probably check for known compatibility issues before buying it, especially since you mention you're using Win 8.
An alternative would be Good Old Games, which specifically mention a game's compatibility with newer OSs, if you're unsure whether the Steam version is compatible or not, I'd go with them.