One of the reasons behind Minecraft's success is the fact that you can play it on just about anything. Sure, it's a great game, but a version of Minecraft on seemingly every possible gaming platform means that anyone can play it on whatever they want.
Of course, the PC version is still the best way to play, and the game's lower-than-average hardware requirements means that almost any rig can handle it.
... which begs the question: just how old of a computer can Minecraft run on? Are modern machines the only ones that can handle the game, or would an older version of Windows (with the right version of Java), still be able to get Minecraft up and running?
That's exactly the same question that Druaga1 asked himself before trying to get Minecraft installed on an older machine ... that happened to be running Windows 98. That may sound impossible, especially considering that the operating system has been outdated for well over a decade ... and yet, somehow, Druaga actually got it working.
At first, it looks as if things may actually run smoothly. Druaga has alternative options for the Minecraft app, as well as an older version of Java that's ready to install — but as one might expect, things quickly got complicated from there.
Even after installing network adapter drivers and managing to get the Minecraft launcher online, Druaga still had his work cut out for him: the Windows 98-era graphics card simply couldn't handle the blocky world of Minecraft, and crashed whenever a new world was generated. Thankfully, Druaga had a secondary graphics card on hand for just such an occasion, and once the "new" hardware was installed (and a few more tweaks were made), Druaga booted up Minecraft again — and, amazingly, the game actually launched.
Unsurprisingly, Windows 98 can barely handle Minecraft: the game chugs if you're even close to the world's surface, even with all of the graphical options turned off or set to minimum. Sure, mining works, and tight spaces aren't exactly hard to come by, but who wants to spend their entire game digging out a single tiny room?
Obviously, it's not the best way to play the game ... but the fact that Druaga even got it working in the first place is amazing. Windows 98 was considered outdated way back in 2001, and Minecraft's official release didn't hit until 10 years later — the fact that they're even compatible at all is ridiculous.
If you want to see even more of Druaga's Windows 98 and other tech-related shenanigans, make sure to check out his YouTube channel.
