@AidBand
The point is that there are several gaming API-related developments that almost every *new* game *requires*--not "supports"--but requires. For instance--can't run the EE on d3d9, etc. I know of some rather foolish people who balk at spending $90 on an OS that will last them five years and be supported for every one of those years with free updates--yet they won't hesitate to drop $300 on a new GPU that won't run in anything but semi-compatibility mode because their ancient OS API and drivers hobble it...;) And they'll replace those every two years. I call that fairly stupid, really.
Nobody is "pushing" anybody...;) If you like tech and enjoy gaming, the new stuff is just fun...I get a lot of pleasure from it. It's way, way better than the old. Vista was great when it shipped--I bought it and really liked it--had no problem with it. But it is a kludge compared with Win7 (Vista 2.x, really), and Win10 completely destroys it. And, had you bumped to Win7 when you should have--it is way, way better than Vista in every department--you could now get Win10 free for life. Yea, wow, that's really "pushed"...;)
There is no rationale you can present to me which will bring me around to your point of view because I know better...;) I'd really hate to try and find Vista drivers these days for newer hardware...;) Anyway...my humble opinion is that you are making life much harder and far less rewarding for yourself than it could be--imo, there's never been a better time to buy new hardware, and Win10 is the last OS you'll ever need (because Microsoft has no intention of ending development like it did for Vista)--I'd think that would appeal to you. Perhaps you just haven't thought it through. My oldest games are 30 years old and run splendidly on Win10x64--in fact, I don't have any game that won't run under Win10x64. It is far more backwards-compatible than I recall Vista being--it's not even a close contest, IIRC. (I own 2x the number of games you mentioned, but numbers aren't really the issue, here.)
I guess it all depends on how much computer gaming means to you as a hobby...I've been in it for decades and I'm still nowhere near tired of it. "New and improved" turns the world, don't ya' know...;)
We aren't that far away from d3d12 *required* games hitting the market--and that takes more than just the proper OS, too. These aren't criticisms--of course not. They're just pertinent observations...;)
