Credit: Corbin Davenport / How-To Geek
Published 1 minute ago
Arol is a tech journalist who currently works as a contributor at How-To Geek since 2022. He first began writing online for the short-lived portal of Spanish-language gaming forum Emudesc in 2013. Years later, in 2017, he got his true start in tech journalism working for a small Google-focused site called Pixel Spot. He transitioned to a news and feature writer role at XDA Developers that same year, where he worked until 2021 before making the jump to other websites.
Arol brings nearly a decade of writing experience, and the occasional hot take, to his writings. While he’s a technology lover at heart, he holds computer hardware and smartphones particularly close to heart. You’ll normally find him covering news, although…
Credit: Corbin Davenport / How-To Geek
Published 1 minute ago
Arol is a tech journalist who currently works as a contributor at How-To Geek since 2022. He first began writing online for the short-lived portal of Spanish-language gaming forum Emudesc in 2013. Years later, in 2017, he got his true start in tech journalism working for a small Google-focused site called Pixel Spot. He transitioned to a news and feature writer role at XDA Developers that same year, where he worked until 2021 before making the jump to other websites.
Arol brings nearly a decade of writing experience, and the occasional hot take, to his writings. While he’s a technology lover at heart, he holds computer hardware and smartphones particularly close to heart. You’ll normally find him covering news, although he has also written the occasional deal, buyer’s guide, how-to post, and round-up. He’s also written for Android Police and MakeUseOf. He’s also a Political Science student. When he’s not writing, you’ll probably find him hitting the gym, trying to ace a new hobby, reading his textbooks, or traveling. You can reach him at me@arolwright.com.
You have it way easier these days, but back in the day, when you wanted to play a game on your PC, you had to take a similar approach to consoles. Go to a physical store, get a disc, then pop it into your PC. Chances are, though, that nowadays your PC doesn’t have a CD drive. So what do you do when you want to play your old games on your new PC?
You can still play those old games, though it will require a bit of elbow grease on your part.
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Get a CD drive
Credit: Corbin Davenport / How-To Geek
The first hurdle in actually popping open those dusty CD cases is addressing the very hardware limitation keeping you from them: modern computers rarely include optical drives. While case manufacturers prioritized airflow and aesthetics over 5.25-inch drive bays years ago, the physical disc remains the primary authentication key for most retail games released between 1995 and 2005.
So how do you actually get the disc spinning on your own computer? Actual CD drives might be hard to buy these days, but you can still get an external USB DVD-RW drive with relative ease. These peripherals are widely available, inexpensive, and generally plug-and-play compatible with Windows 10 and 11. When selecting a drive, ensure it supports the specific media type of your game collection; while most DVD drives are backward compatible with CD-ROMs, older proprietary formats might require specific read speeds to function correctly. Since CDs are an older format than DVDs and most DVD drives support CDs, pretty much any drive should work fine, but you should still do your research nonetheless.
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Alternatively, if you have an older desktop tower gathering dust, you might be able to salvage an internal optical drive. However, connecting an old internal drive to a modern motherboard can be challenging. Most vintage drives use the Parallel ATA (IDE) interface, distinct from the SATA connectors found on modern boards. You would need a powered IDE-to-USB adapter to connect these legacy components to your current rig. It’s not impossible, but it’s hard.
Before attempting to get the disc spinning on your drive of choice, inspect the data surface of the disc under a strong light. Keep in mind that you’re looking not only for surface scratches but also for "disc rot"—tiny pinholes where the reflective aluminum layer has oxidized and disintegrated. If you hold the disc up to a light source and see light poking through the label side like stars in the night sky, the data in those sectors is irretrievably lost, and the drive will likely fail to read the game files.
Make an ISO out of the Disc
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This part is technically optional, but it’s something I would definitely do before going forward: make a copy. Relying on the physical disc for every gaming session is risky; optical media degrades over time, and the constant spinning accelerates wear on both the fragile disc and the external drive’s motor. So instead of popping the disc inside that drive every time you want to play, just make a disc image, commonly known as an ISO file. This process creates a bit-for-bit digital replica of the physical media, encapsulating the file structure and data into a single file on your hard drive. You get two advantages from this: it archives the game permanently, safe from physical decay, and allows for significantly faster load times, as modern SSDs read data exponentially faster than 1x or 4x CD-ROM speeds.
To perform this ripping process, you will need specialized software. While Windows can natively "mount" or read ISO files as if they were virtual discs, it cannot create them from a physical source without help. Utilities such as ImgBurn or open-source alternatives like InfraRecorder are among options you can check out for this. When using these tools, make sure to select the correct read speed. Contrary to modern instincts, slower is often better when ripping old games; setting the read speed to the lowest possible setting minimizes read errors and ensures a more accurate copy of the data. It is also important to note the format. While "ISO" is the catch-all term, some mixed-mode CD games that utilized the disc for both game data and CD-quality audio tracks (Redbook audio) must be saved as BIN/CUE files. This format pair preserves the timing and distinct tracks of the audio, ensuring the in-game music plays correctly. Once ripped, this digital file becomes your primary method of installation and gameplay.
Actually run the game
Now we get to the fun part. With the game files safely on your storage, you must now convince your modern operating system to execute code written for a completely different technological era.
Your first line of defense is the built-in Windows Compatibility Mode. This feature allows Windows 10 or 11 to mimic the environment of older versions, such as Windows 95 or XP. By right-clicking the game’s executable file, navigating to Properties, and selecting the Compatibility tab, you can instruct the OS to emulate legacy color modes, screen resolutions, and administrative privileges. This method is the least intrusive, often solving issues where games fail to launch simply because they do not recognize the directory structure or memory management of a 64-bit system.
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However, while compatibility mode may get the game to open, it frequently fails to address graphical glitches or speed issues caused by modern hardware running older DirectX instructions.
When the native tools fail, the next logical step is to utilize third-party compatibility layers and wrappers. These are sophisticated pieces of software that translate the obsolete calls a game makes into instructions your modern GPU can understand. For example, wrappers like dgVoodoo 2 can convert old Glide or DirectX 1-7 graphics commands into modern DirectX 11 or 12 calls, fixing texture corruption and allowing for high-resolution upscaling. Similarly, source ports or interpreters like ScummVM completely replace the original game executable, using the game’s data files to run the title on a modern engine designed for today’s hardware. This approach offers the best balance of performance and fidelity but requires a willingness to tinker with configuration files and patch versions.
Then, for the most stubborn titles, or if you would just like an "it just works" environment, the most straightforward option is often the "nuclear" approach: a Virtual Machine (VM). Rather than trying to patch a modern OS to support old software, a VM allows you to install a genuine copy of Windows 98 or XP inside a sandboxed window on your current desktop. Software like VMware Workstation or 86Box emulates the actual hardware of the 1990s, including specific Sound Blaster cards and Voodoo graphics accelerators. Because you are running the game in its native environment—an actual installation of Windows 98—compatibility is essentially perfect. There is no translation layer or guesswork involved; the game runs exactly as it did in 1999 because, as far as the software is concerned, it is running on a Pentium II computer in 1999. This method isolates the old software from your main system, providing a safe, stable, and historically accurate playground for your library.
The fact that our PCs don’t have disc drives anymore doesn’t mean that you have to leave those old titles behind. With a little work, you can continue playing them well into the modern era.