Windows & games.
Dave Nelson
to improve/enhance good games like Civ, V4V, and Railroad Tycoon.
I am very surprized at the lack of comments regarding porting these
winners to MS-Windows.
All of these games are GUI based. All of them are short of great
features (I'm guessing here) because of the damn 640k limit in
DOS. Windows breaks the memory constraint, provides a gui, deals
with whatever monitor you've got, offers wav and/or midi drivers
for great sound as well as a kazillion fonts.
Instead we have to buy games that often require a boot disk, don't
know about big monitors, require customized sound and video drivers,
and typically use very crude fonts. I wonder how these folks ever
became convinced to give up on the Z-80 market.
BTW, I own a 486/66 w/17inch super vga monitor. At work I use a 20
inch monitor (1286 lines). I *REALLY* hate MPS fonts on these displays
(yes, I do occasionally stay at my desk at lunch and play a game).
An awful lot of people bought 486 machines last year. Bigger monitors
are becomming quite common place. When are the game publishers going
to figure out Microsoft's obvious dos-into-the-garbage-can/windows
uber-alles strategy is going to apply to their market too?
Besides, there isn't a whole lot of competition for the windows game
environment right now. Whoever gets some good ones out first will
probably make a bundle.
Dave Nelson
BTW, I do have SimCity for Windows. It's a dumb game, as in BORING,
but it's got a really nice user interface! 8-).
Ben Parrish
: but it's got a really nice user interface! 8-).
You have GOT to be kidding. Please say you're kidding. SimCity is one of
the greatest classics in the history of computer gaming.
--
[ pin...@access.digex.net ]
[ failure to heed this signature will result in a $50 fine ]
Todd Walk
(market size).
Todd Walk
wa...@mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu
Jens B. Fiederer
>: BTW, I do have SimCity for Windows. It's a dumb game, as in BORING,
>: but it's got a really nice user interface! 8-).
>
>You have GOT to be kidding. Please say you're kidding. SimCity is one of
>the greatest classics in the history of computer gaming.
>
SimCity is primarily a "software toy" rather than a game. I've enjoyed it,
although I think it would have been more fun if you didn't have to live
with the assumptions of the designers (Do you really need zoning? There
have been plenty of cities throughout history with no such concept. Do
the people really need you to build them a stadium? The whole premise
of SimCity is a whole lot of central planning, which does not fit well
with a libertarian viewpoint).
Jens
Dave Ripton
>to improve/enhance good games like Civ, V4V, and Railroad Tycoon.
>I am very surprized at the lack of comments regarding porting these
>winners to MS-Windows.
Windows-haters populate the net. Many veteran programmers are also
windows-haters. Civ hasn't been enhanced save minor patches, despite
the obvious sales potential of a sequel. Changing V4V to Windows
would require taking basically working code and redoing scads of it.
That would ruin 360's whole ability to charge $50 for essentially
a new scenario disk, by requiring them to actually write a new
program.
>All of these games are GUI based. All of them are short of great
>features (I'm guessing here) because of the damn 640k limit in
>DOS. Windows breaks the memory constraint, provides a gui, deals
>with whatever monitor you've got, offers wav and/or midi drivers
>for great sound as well as a kazillion fonts.
A lot of good DOS games use over 640k with expanded or extended
memory. V4V is an example. If you can do it in Windows with 4MB,
you can do it in DOS with a memory manager and less than 4MB.
The DOS memory management does become a configuration headache
for inexperienced gamers and is a leading cause of headaches at
tech support desks. Windows' sound drivers aren't popular among
programmers who would rather just tweak the hardware. Windows
graphics are dirt slow, though all the Windows-tweaked graphics
cards and better drivers are helping to solve that problem. But
the rules to program them are different, and annoying.
>Instead we have to buy games that often require a boot disk, don't
>know about big monitors, require customized sound and video drivers,
>and typically use very crude fonts. I wonder how these folks ever
>became convinced to give up on the Z-80 market.
Nothing requires boot disks anymore, except for a few lame copy
protection schemes. If you need to twiddle your config to run
something, DOS 6 has multiconfig. You have a point about drivers
and fonts, but there is a Vesa standard (sort of) for video and
the Soundblaster / MPC standard for sound, so they can get away with
just supporting those and use canned stuff to convert. Easier than
porting to Windows.
>BTW, I own a 486/66 w/17inch super vga monitor. At work I use a 20
>inch monitor (1286 lines). I *REALLY* hate MPS fonts on these displays
>(yes, I do occasionally stay at my desk at lunch and play a game).
Yeah, the fonts are a holdover from doing all the text pretty much
by hand in the older games. Most PC game programmers aren't font
people. If you want nice fonts, buy a Mac.
>An awful lot of people bought 486 machines last year. Bigger monitors
>are becomming quite common place. When are the game publishers going
>to figure out Microsoft's obvious dos-into-the-garbage-can/windows
>uber-alles strategy is going to apply to their market too?
Game publishers aren't slaves to Microsoft. Just because Bill Gates
says Windows is great doesn't make it true. The fact remains that
the benefits of Windows come with a price. There is a significant
memory overhead and a significant machine performance penalty. And
there's a learning curve that experienced DOS programmers really
don't have to deal with, since non-NT Windows systems will all run
DOS programs just fine. (Though not necessarily from Windows, as
anybody who's tried to run Civ can vouch.)
What really bugs me is when game makers compile a game that clearly
requires a 386+ to be playable using a non-386 compiler. So they lose
the advantages of the 32-bit instructions in order to allow the game
to (technically) run on a 286. Pttth! And 320x200x256 color mode
bugs the hell out of me too; it's Commodore 64 resolution with
lots of pretty colors. Or sometimes (i.e. Civ) only a few of them.
Writing good Windows code would eliminate some of these kinds of
problems, by explicitly requiring a certain minimum system to run
the pseudo-OS to run the game. But it's a major performance
crimper. Not a big deal in all games, but you'd better bet that
as long as people are trying to make a better flight simulator
or pseudo-VR dungeoncrawl, they'll be trying to tweak all the speed
they can out of the system.
>Besides, there isn't a whole lot of competition for the windows game
>environment right now. Whoever gets some good ones out first will
>probably make a bundle.
I agree with you here, and we will see more Windows games than the
little entertainment-pack variety. But do you remember Balance of
Power? Mac strategy game ported to the PC, only ran under Windows.
Commercial flop because of it. Game publishers do. When the
first few Windows-only monster hits come through the pipe, then
you'll see a rush. But why go to all the trouble to start the
trend? And restrict your user base somewhat in the process.
Maybe if NT took over and a lot of people couldn't run DOS
games, things would be different. But I suspect that we'd get
two versions of everything major for a while.
JMO,
Dave Ripton
Allan Bo Joergensen
> 2 reasons, speed and the fact that MANY more people run DOS than Windows
> (market size).
Well, what do you need blazingly fast graphics for in games like
Civilization, Railroad Tycoon and similar? You don't...
Yes, more people run DOS than Windows, but not MANY more people.
To offset the decreased market size Windows offers a much faster
path to releasing your game, as you need not support a zillion
different graphics, sound and pointing devices. Use the API and
the drivers do that work for you.
I don't think we'll see many conversions of DOS top-hitters. Why?
They have already sold their share of shrink-wrapped units, and the
developers have gone on to new, and hopefully, better stuff. I think
that to get Windows games they would have to be new games, although I
would love to play Civi for Windows :-)
I'm working on a couple of games for Windows myself, but things go a
little slow when you're just one programmer. But it also has the
advantage that I have to get around the whole API, and I can tell
quite clearly that it IS very easy to make stuff like sound and non-
animated graphics in Windows. One standard function call to play a
sound in the background... Now, that's easy :-)
Neil Galarneau
> Todd Walk
> wa...@mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu
I have several comments here.
1) Speed matters only in action games. Windows is fast enough to handle
any strategy game.
2) How many video games take advantage of the graphics accelarator chips? If
these programs were in windows, they would get the benefits automatically.
3) Given that windows comes with many machines these days (and the fact that
it is cheap), the number of people without access to windows is falling
quickly.
R Souljik
Lemme put it this way : do you know how a processor works? Do you know that
there are RISC & CISC processors? Hope you do.
RISC processors - like R3100, R4000 are basically designed to handle
multi-process environment, i.e. it takes only a couple ticks to switch from
one process to another, and they run at 33-66Mhz as well. If you ever saw
X-Windows (11 or any other version) running on a Silicon Graphics comp you
won't say a word about how good Windows 3.1 are. Basically, CISC processors
(386, 486 and P5 is a mix of CISC/RISC architechture) are NOT designed to hadle
multi-task environments, like windows. Therefore Windows is just a huge pile
of software which is NOT supported by hardawre which tries to make it look like
we're having a truly multi-task computer. It does an excellent job, no
doubt. But it's still on average 5 times slower than DOS, believe me. Also,
if you program in DOS you can use direct memory access, and some decent games
even use contorller (Intel 8537) access, although it's not adviseable. With
Windows you can't do that - you should use all that 'OpenWindow' crap to allow
the display manager (which is the slowest thing there) to resize & open /close
your working window.
Basically, Windows are too slow to even handle an adventure game. Mostly this
is because it is a crap environment anyway :-). I sincerely do hope that some
people do understand it.
|>
|> Neil
|> ne...@progress.com
Sorry if I was a bit rough, but I really dislike the Microsoft's policy. If you
want to use a real windows environment - buy a Mac or even Archimedes, which
are twice as fast with windows as a 486DX - 66.
Ok, take care.
Roman
PS Have you heard that P5 is a flop? I've got friends who were beta-testing it,
and they say that it overheats and crashes every 2-3 hours :-). It worked OK
in Intel's labs, but they used powerful cooling systems. It's gonna take 'em
sometime to sort it out now.
Timothy W Woehr
Galarneau) writes:
> 1) Speed matters only in action games. Windows is fast enough to handle
> any strategy game.
>
> 2) How many video games take advantage of the graphics accelarator chips? If
> these programs were in windows, they would get the benefits automatically.
>
> 3) Given that windows comes with many machines these days (and the fact that
> it is cheap), the number of people without access to windows is falling
> quickly.
>
>
> Neil
> ne...@progress.com
It is necessarily that windows is to slow, I know I'd like to run V4V in
windows, it is just that game programers have the mentality that their program
is the ONLY thing on the computer. This leads to memory problems and TSR
conflicts, which makes a lot of DOS games crash or hang in windows. If people
would realize this and take advantage of windows, just like you say, it would
make things a lot better.
THE CARDINAL
Ronald Bense
Hey folks, wake up. Windows is already dead, or dying. As an OS [sic],
it is incapable of handling even today's software adequately. Ever try to
run something like CADKEY or AUTOCAD under Windows? Gee, no? Wonder why?
Sales? So what? Call it a coup in marketing. It will go away.
Ron
Karl S Mathias
>Lemme put it this way : do you know how a processor works? Do you know that
>there are RISC & CISC processors? Hope you do.
>RISC processors - like R3100, R4000 are basically designed to handle
>multi-process environment, i.e. it takes only a couple ticks to switch from
>one process to another, and they run at 33-66Mhz as well. If you ever saw
>X-Windows (11 or any other version) running on a Silicon Graphics comp you
>won't say a word about how good Windows 3.1 are. Basically, CISC processors
>(386, 486 and P5 is a mix of CISC/RISC architechture) are NOT designed to hadle
>multi-task environments, like windows. Therefore Windows is just a huge pile
>of software which is NOT supported by hardawre which tries to make it look like
>we're having a truly multi-task computer. It does an excellent job, no
This is not correct. All the RISC processors I'm aware of have one
basic design goal: Eliminate instructions that need more than one
machine cycle to execute. All those eliminated instructions leave more
real estate for adding large register banks that help facilitate the
process frame switches you refer to. The 80386 DOES have process switching
designed into it (lookup the 80386 virtual mode).
This is neither here nor there. First, the SGI optimized graphic
pipeline is entirely responsible for the excellent performance of X on
that platform. Second, X isn't supplying multi-tasking, the underlying
operating system is. Third, by the time you start writing interfaces at
the widget level, it is just as nasty as Windows 3.1. Fourth, read the
Heller book on Motif, they took their interface design ideas from
early versions of Windows.
I write wargames for the U.S. Air Force. My thesis is an air/land battle
(called Saber) that has a graphic user interface written for X. It has
been my opinion that it would probably be more cost effective to bring
this interface to Windows 3.1 instead. Why? First, Windows 3.1 is
cheap - both to field and develop in. Second, Windows 3.1 has a good
base of non-programmers who know the "basics" of using applications
written to its style standards. Third, no loss of capability - almost anything
that can be done in X can be done in Windows (and vice-versa).
Complaints about Windows? Sure - 16 bit memory model (segmented
memory), lack of pre-emptive tasking, dealing with the DOS file system,
etc. Hopefully NT will actually end up really solving these issues.
OS/2 users already have them solved. Your comments regarding Intel
processors and Windows sound like the usual whining that comes from the
Mac users across the room (BTW, the Motorola 680X0 is a CISC CPU).
Sorry for the long post, bottom line: I'm writing wargames without
touching the hardware, so I can't see why developing strategy games
for Windows is such an issue.
Capt Karl Mathias kmat...@afit.af.mil
Graduate Student, Air Force Institute of Technology
"Opinions expressed are my own and not those of the U.S. Air Force"
Note: I'm attending Tri-Ada '93 and won't be able to respond to mail
until next Wed.
Big Wilber
who gives a flyin' flip what the libertarian viewpoint is!
micro management is fun, even if it's not firmly rooted in reality.
is sim city just a "software toy" because there is no score, goal or ending?
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Lee Towe To...@elcsci.com
Electro Scientific Industries (ESI) ^(@,@)^ Who.????
Portland, Oregon, USA compuserve: 70614,1721
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Recently seen Bumper Sticker: Will work for money
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Andreas Toenne
I have several comments here.
1) Speed matters only in action games. Windows is fast enough to handle
any strategy game.
Ha! Strategy games also need fast displays. Can you imagine Empire Deluxe's
map scrolling under windows? That whould be creeping slow (it is slow right
now too). Also Windows applications (unless running in extended mode which
has its own difficulties) have some huge overhead.
For examples: V4V as a Windows application would at least double its memory
requirements. How many machines out there have 8MB of memory for a decent
gameplay? How many experienced gamers with a real fast machine (486/33++,
8-16MB etc.) still use Windows?
2) How many video games take advantage of the graphics accelarator chips? If
these programs were in windows, they would get the benefits automatically.
No thank you. The real problem with video for games is the bandwidth of the
AT bus for bitmap displaying. Unless you have a local bus machine S3
or 8514/A will not help you.
3) Given that windows comes with many machines these days (and the fact that
it is cheap), the number of people without access to windows is falling
quickly.
I better comment not on that! What is the estimated ratio of
Used copies / Sold copies
for Windows right now? It must be *VERY* small.
My experiences with games running under Windows were desastrous.
I had SimCity for Windows. It was slooooow, the graphics has not really
improved over the DOS version, it was extremely buggy and crashed every
5 minutes. And the user interface was nice looking but useless. All those
menu-bars, buttons and frames took too much space on the display.
Andreas Toenne
--
Andreas Toenne Voice: x49 681 5846272
Max-Planck-Institut Office: x49 681 302 5363
fuer Informatik e-mail: ato...@mpi-sb.mpg.de
Im Stadtwald
6600 Saarbruecken, Germany
Chris Cannon
: In article <1993Sep15.1...@progress.com> ne...@progress.COM (Neil Galarneau) writes:
: I have several comments here.
: Me too :-)
: 1) Speed matters only in action games. Windows is fast enough to handle
: any strategy game.
: Ha! Strategy games also need fast displays. Can you imagine Empire Deluxe's
: map scrolling under windows? That whould be creeping slow (it is slow right
It's out for windows. I'll bet it would be nice and fast on my
machine.
: now too). Also Windows applications (unless running in extended mode which
: has its own difficulties) have some huge overhead.
: For examples: V4V as a Windows application would at least double its memory
: requirements. How many machines out there have 8MB of memory for a decent
Heard of virtual memory??
: gameplay? How many experienced gamers with a real fast machine (486/33++,
: 8-16MB etc.) still use Windows?
ME. Ever seen Microsoft Arcade. Very Nice.
: 2) How many video games take advantage of the graphics accelarator chips? If
: these programs were in windows, they would get the benefits automatically.
: No thank you. The real problem with video for games is the bandwidth of the
: AT bus for bitmap displaying. Unless you have a local bus machine S3
: or 8514/A will not help you.
Most new PC's are local bus.
: 3) Given that windows comes with many machines these days (and the fact that
: it is cheap), the number of people without access to windows is falling
: quickly.
: I better comment not on that! What is the estimated ratio of
: Used copies / Sold copies
: for Windows right now? It must be *VERY* small.
BS. Neophytes use windows just like neophytes use macs. My uncle
probably doesn't even know about the dos prompt. His dealer set
everything to start from an icon, and thats all he needs.
: My experiences with games running under Windows were desastrous.
: I had SimCity for Windows. It was slooooow, the graphics has not really
Yeah, what kind of machine.
: improved over the DOS version, it was extremely buggy and crashed every
: 5 minutes. And the user interface was nice looking but useless. All those
: menu-bars, buttons and frames took too much space on the display.
: Andreas Toenne
: --
: Andreas Toenne Voice: x49 681 5846272
: Max-Planck-Institut Office: x49 681 302 5363
: fuer Informatik e-mail: ato...@mpi-sb.mpg.de
: Im Stadtwald
: 6600 Saarbruecken, Germany
--
===================
can...@lobby.ti.com
Michael J. Black
>>>the greatest classics in the history of computer gaming.
-black
Ben Parrish
: >>>the greatest classics in the history of computer gaming.
: You are wrong here.
No, YOU are wrong. *I* am right.
(Another fascinatingly intellectual discussion, brought to you by c.s.i.p.g.s.
J Greely
ato...@mpi-sb.mpg.de (Andreas Toenne) writes:
>My experiences with games running under Windows were desastrous.
>I had SimCity for Windows. It was slooooow, the graphics has not really
>improved over the DOS version, it was extremely buggy and crashed every
>5 minutes. And the user interface was nice looking but useless. All those
>menu-bars, buttons and frames took too much space on the display.
Funny; I have SimCity for Windows, and I've only found one bug
(loading a game that was saved while time was paused hangs the game).
It runs just spiffy, and on a 1024x768 display, the extra windows
didn't get in the way.
Performance was quite acceptable; sound sucked (PC speaker only),
although they've fixed that since. This was on a generic 486/33 with
a generic ET4000 SVGA card (no VL-Bus, no accelerator chip).
--
J Greely (jgr...@cis.ohio-state.edu; osu-cis!jgreely)
Jay Stelly
> I have several comments here.
>Me too :-)
>
> 1) Speed matters only in action games. Windows is fast enough to handle
> any strategy game.
>
>Ha! Strategy games also need fast displays. Can you imagine Empire Deluxe's
>map scrolling under windows? That whould be creeping slow (it is slow right
>now too). Also Windows applications (unless running in extended mode which
>has its own difficulties) have some huge overhead.
>gameplay? How many experienced gamers with a real fast machine (486/33++,
>8-16MB etc.) still use Windows?
Deluxe scrolls REALLY FAST! In fact I'm writing a strategy game in windows
that lets you grab the scroll bar and scroll a full screen 24-bit map around
in real time (of course it's only fast on my 486/66 with VLB ATI UltraPro)
But then again, in a year or two, a 486/33 with local bus accelerated
video will be the slowest system on the market. I think that Windows is
definitely the future of board and strategy games. The VESA video standard
may keep DOS arond for a while, but accelerators and the Windows graphics
kernel will definitely sway developers.
> 2) How many video games take advantage of the graphics accelarator chips? If
> these programs were in windows, they would get the benefits automatically.
>
>No thank you. The real problem with video for games is the bandwidth of the
>AT bus for bitmap displaying. Unless you have a local bus machine S3
> or 8514/A will not help you.
Again, local bus, accelerated video is almost standard equipment (on new
machines)
>My experiences with games running under Windows were desastrous.
>I had SimCity for Windows. It was slooooow, the graphics has not really
>improved over the DOS version, it was extremely buggy and crashed every
>5 minutes. And the user interface was nice looking but useless. All those
>menu-bars, buttons and frames took too much space on the display.
You have a relatively slow machine then. As for it being buggy, that's not
necessarily Windows' fault. You may have also noticed that it was a bit
more obvious what you were supposed to do with the interface as well (another
Windows advantage). And higher-res, larger monitors give you more space.
With current machines, Windows is not quite viable as a game platform, but
many million 486 machines were sold this year alone, and that, by itself
is probably enough of a market for some games.
Jay Stelly
j...@cs.com
Disclaimer - The above is MY opinion, not my employer's.
Chan Hoong Keong
> No thank you. The real problem with video for games is the bandwidth of the
> AT bus for bitmap displaying. Unless you have a local bus machine S3
> or 8514/A will not help you.
>
Has anyone *actually* compare a local bus machine with a ISA machine yet?
I need real result instead of figures from the magazine. Can they really
achieve 33MHz/8MHz = 4.xx speed gain in DOS environment?
--
Email : hkc...@hkchan.pc.my
Yousuf Khan
>>2 reasons, speed and the fact that MANY more people run DOS than Windows
>>(market size).
>> Todd Walk
>I have several comments here.
>1) Speed matters only in action games. Windows is fast enough to handle
>any strategy game.
Probably true.
>2) How many video games take advantage of the graphics accelarator chips? If
>these programs were in windows, they would get the benefits automatically.
Not really. Most graphics accelerator chips are only designed speed up
the most bandwidth expensive task in Windows video, which is known as
bitblt'ing, the act of moving simple block-shaped objects from one part
of the screen to another. This includes such functions as moving and
resizing a window, and scrolling graphical text. The complex types of
animation that games require just are not these chips' fortes. There
may be some simple objects that can benefit from it in a game, but not
many.
>3) Given that windows comes with many machines these days (and the fact that
>it is cheap), the number of people without access to windows is falling
>quickly.
I still prefer DOS, and the command-line. I can multitask DOS with Desqview
rather than with Windows, and I don't have to put up with a silly GUI.
Naturally I would prefer my games to be DOS.
Yousuf Khan
--
Gandalf Technologies Inc. Creators of the ultimate network segment technologies
in the whole south-western quadrant of the Virgo Galactic Supercluster. Yousuf
J. Khan, Automated LAN testing systems designer. GTI would like to
dissociate itself from any opinions I may express in the past, present,
Lenny Gray
: 2 reasons, speed and the fact that MANY more people run DOS than Windows
: (market size).
: Todd Walk
: wa...@mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu
Most of the strat games I play don't require that much speed. Sim City runs
fine for Windows. I don't think that there are that many people that don't
have Windows(of all the people I know I know one, and he has no games and
has an old 8088 20 meg disk and CGA monotar)
Lenny Gray
: want to use a real windows environment - buy a Mac or even Archimedes, which
: are twice as fast with windows as a 486DX - 66.
Macs not only cost more(majorly more), but run slower
Ben Parrish
while I do like the product, it IS true that the games are not all as
smooth as they could be (BattleZone in particular...)
How can a game made over 10 years ago bring a 386/40 with 8 megs and a
coprocessor to its knees?
(Answer : When it's running in Windows.)
There is only one Windows game (besides a couple of the MArcade games)
which I've found is actually worth playing, and that is Robosport by Maxis.
And if Robosport was available for DOS, I might delete my Windows
directory altogether. :)
1. Windows is NOT good for action games (see above.)
2. Windows is NOT good for games with a scrolling map. (Admittedly, this
is a personal preference, but the standard for map-scrolling in these
types of games (SimCity, Empire, etc...) is moving the cursor to the edge
of the screen in the direction you want to move. It's easy, and it's
intuitive. And you can't do it in Windows.)
3. Windows is NOT good for games with animation (see #1)
4. What games are left? Chess. Windows is good for Chess. (But not great!)
No parking EXCEPT FOR BOB
this thread indicate to me that more people need to take a *look*
at _Spaceward_Ho!_, which does a pretty good job of implementing
a few of these "impossible" features.
Bob O'Bob
--
Dick Sidbury
[stuff deleted]
|> 1. Windows is NOT good for action games (see above.)
agreed
|> 2. Windows is NOT good for games with a scrolling map. (Admittedly, this
|> is a personal preference, but the standard for map-scrolling in these
|> types of games (SimCity, Empire, etc...) is moving the cursor to the edge
|> of the screen in the direction you want to move. It's easy, and it's
|> intuitive. And you can't do it in Windows.)
This is virtually unworkable in SimCity (DOS) because of the speed of my computer.
I can't scroll slowly enough. So although I am not a fan of windows in general
scroll bars are better in my opinion.
|> 3. Windows is NOT good for games with animation (see #1)
this is the same point as above
|> 4. What games are left? Chess. Windows is good for Chess. (But not great!)
and checkers and backgammon and cards and war games and civilization and role playing
games (depending on the amount of animation) and ...
minesweeper (the only reason to have windows).
--
dick sidbury SUN : sid...@cs.uofs.edu
computing sciences dept. VAX : sid...@jaguar.uofs.edu
university of scranton phone : (717)-941-6109
scranton, pa 18510-4664 fax : (717)-941-4250
Ben Parrish
fit on the screen in its entirety) and has no action/animation/anything.
So it's TOLERABLE in Windows.
What's the point of this conversation, anyway?
No parking EXCEPT FOR BOB (obr...@netcom.com) wrote:
: I'm not a defender of Windows, by any means, but several posts to
: Bob O'Bob
: --
--
Daniel M Silevitch
|> Ho! is one of those games that doesn't have a large map (the smallest can
|> fit on the screen in its entirety) and has no action/animation/anything.
|> So it's TOLERABLE in Windows.
Huh? You've obviously never played in a Very Large or Humungous galaxy then.
Either that, or you zoom out to the point where the stars blur together. I think
that Ho! works quite well under Windows, taking full advantage of the interface
(drag&drop, dialogs, sound support, high-res graphics, etc). I will grant that
the animation in Ho! is rather limited, consisting of red lines (lasers?) moving
across the screen from bitmap to bitmap, but so what?
|>
|> What's the point of this conversation, anyway?
|>
You can run real games under Windows. It's not impossible. Spaceward Ho! shows
this. SimLife et al shows this. It can be done.
|> No parking EXCEPT FOR BOB (obr...@netcom.com) wrote:
|> : I'm not a defender of Windows, by any means, but several posts to
|> : this thread indicate to me that more people need to take a *look*
|> : at _Spaceward_Ho!_, which does a pretty good job of implementing
|> : a few of these "impossible" features.
Agreed. Now if only I had a network to play against other people....
|> : Bob O'Bob
|> : --
|>
|> --
|> [ pin...@access.digex.net ]
|> [ failure to heed this signature will result in a $50 fine ]
--
Daniel Silevitch dms...@mit.edu
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
---------Silly Quote Section---------------
"Notation consistent with Pain" -- Blackboard notice in MIT physics class
"The meek shall inherit the Earth, but not the mineral rights" --J. Paul Getty
--------Disclaimer------------
I'm a student. Nobody cares about what I think.
Stuart Blavatnik
So are you saying that Dune][ type games could never be done in Windows?
--
Just how I like it!
Jeff Simon
> In article <1993Sep15.1...@progress.com> ne...@progress.COM (Neil Galarneau) writes:
Me three ;)
>
> 1) Speed matters only in action games. Windows is fast enough to handle
> any strategy game.
>
> Ha! Strategy games also need fast displays. Can you imagine Empire Deluxe's
> map scrolling under windows? That whould be creeping slow (it is slow right
> now too). Also Windows applications (unless running in extended mode which
> has its own difficulties) have some huge overhead.
> For examples: V4V as a Windows application would at least double its memory
> requirements. How many machines out there have 8MB of memory for a decent
> gameplay?
> How many experienced gamers with a real fast machine (486/33++,
> 8-16MB etc.) still use Windows?
For games? Very few, because (obviously) the good games are (for now) written
for DOS. For everything else? Approximately 30 million of 'em do (if you
believe the market figures, which, contractually, I'm obligated to ;)
This market which you've described - the 'experienced gamers' with really
fast machines - is the one which has the hardware (by definition of the group)
to run 'Empire Deluxe' under Windows...so once it came out, they wouldn't be
concerned with the speed of the game (since they know that it doesn't require
anything more than what their machine has).
So that only leaves those machines which aren't fast. This is the same thing as
if we were looking at ultima Underworld in DOS: you have two choices - buy a new computer,
or play it on someone else's. It's just that the resources required by Windows
are larger than that of most games. So you follow the unix theology, and wait
for the hardware to catch up to the software, and then you'll get to play Ultima
Underworld VI while running an Excel spreadsheet (for whatever reason you'd want
to do that :)
>
> 2) How many video games take advantage of the graphics accelarator chips? If
> these programs were in windows, they would get the benefits automatically.
>
> No thank you. The real problem with video for games is the bandwidth of the
> AT bus for bitmap displaying. Unless you have a local bus machine S3
> or 8514/A will not help you.
Actually, that's not quite true - If you've got a strong (not necessarily powerful)
graphics card with an accelerator chip and memory, then the drivers will take care
of offloading whatever is possible onto the Video card, giving many , many times
the speed possible under DOS (unless, of course, the DOS game programmer takes
every single video card into account when programming). This is one of the powers
of Windows - instead of just one company dealing with a bunch of different video
cards, each company which actually _makes_ the card writes the interface, and
Windows automatically takes the fasted route there...
As a simple example, which is faster on the same computer - Strike commander and
a Orchid Prodesigner, or Strike Commander and a Diamond Viper? (hint - if you
don't know, you're in the wrong argument ;))
>
> 3) Given that windows comes with many machines these days (and the fact that
> it is cheap), the number of people without access to windows is falling
> quickly.
>
> I better comment not on that! What is the estimated ratio of
> Used copies / Sold copies
> for Windows right now? It must be *VERY* small.
I'd better comment on that :) Why must it be small? You've got two markets there-
(1) the people who don't know what a 'command prompt' is, and (2) those people
who can edit their config.sys to finally get VOODOO to work (@#$%^!!). The first
market is going to use Windows because it's nice, sweet, and sugary. This alone
is a huge market (hard to comprehend when you spend a lot of time with computers,
but a _very_ small portion of the civilized world knows diddly about computers).
And the second market is going to know enough to say 'Gimme a 486/33 with Windows,
and make it snappy' or 'Gimme a 486/33 with DOS, and make it snappy!'...so don't
completely discount the Windows game market with that argument...
hmm..30 million copies of Windows...let's see:
if a game can get one (1) percent of market share, that's three (3!) million game
copies sold...figure the company makes $10/game...do the math (granted, these
numbers could be larger than normal, but even 1/10000th of the market share
is _still_ a lot of money. I'd wager that _no_ game company is using number
of Windows OS's out there as their deciding factor...mostly, it's difficulty
in learning the new OS, and, of course, the speed of the graphics...)
You're biggest arguement _should_ be that the majority of Windows OS's are
being run on business machines for now, while the game-playin' kiddies are
still in DOS. Since that _is_ the market (all of us game-playin' adult-wannabes
are a different market) for action games, there isn't an extraordinarily large
market for Windows-based arcade games...Strategy, on the other hand, is more
targeted to the aforementioned adult-wannabes who _are_ running Windows on
their home machine, and so _are_ a good market.
>
>
> My experiences with games running under Windows were desastrous.
> I had SimCity for Windows. It was slooooow, the graphics has not really
> improved over the DOS version, it was extremely buggy and crashed every
> 5 minutes. And the user interface was nice looking but useless. All those
> menu-bars, buttons and frames took too much space on the display.
You can't really be blaming that on Windows, can you?? This is similar to saying
'I ran the beta of Ultima Underworld on my 386sx/16, and there were bugs
everywhere. Boy, DOS must suck." It's (1) the speed of you're machine, and (2)
the programmer's problem. As with the UW argument, either get a faster machine
(like a 486/25), or play it in DOS and let others with slightly faster machines
enjoy the bonuses gained from playing in Windows (which, with extreme self
control, I'll avoid listing off ;)) I found that on a 486/25 it was similar in
speed to DOS, so the only difference was that it 'multitasked', ran on any machine,
etc etc. So wait a year or two, when the standard is a 486/25, and then start
playing...
Jeff Simon
jef...@microsoft.com: Disclaimer - These opinions are mine, and not
Microsoft's, which means that I _can_ license them out. email for info...
PS: Major plug here - You might wanna check out MS-Arcade sometime before
continuing the arguement - runs nicely on a 386/25, and incredibly on a 486/25...
Dave Nelson
on all of the responses (btw, thanks to all who did respond).
Setting aside the utterly dis-regardable 'My_OS_is_better_than_your_OS'
debates which occured, I learned a few things:
1) Windows would not be well suited to hand-eye coordination games due
to the need for ultimate speed.
2) Windows would be fine for most, if not all, strategy games, so long
as the gamer owns a fairly new machine.
3) Lottsa people think DOS is just fine, thank you, and see no need
for anything to change. The unwillingness to see change as inevitable
came as a big surprise to me.
4) General agreement that game fonts stink and that publishers waste
resources creating their own video drivers, fonts, and sound card
drivers.
Has my opinion changed? No. I didn't read anything that that convinced
me that a marketing Windows based games would be a bad idea, so long
as the publishers are careful about what they do. Further, I didn't
read anything which convinced me that DOS has any long term future.
Consider this prediction, made by the President of Oracle Computer,
last June:
Todays 'Hot' Platform Hot Platform in 2001
--------------------- --------------------
486/66 986/200
4mb ram 256mb ram
240mb disc 1gb disc
$2500 $2500
Toss in a 24 bit color, 27" diagonal flat panel display for good
measure. Oh, and don't be surprised when this box is functioning as
your TV *and* video phone.
Hardware performance improvements are going to make todays DOS only
machines look like those old cars with the crank under the radiator.
They're just not gonna be used anymore and the publishers will be
ignoring them. Windows has got's it's warts - no doubt about it. It
also is a look at what's coming down the road: change, change, change.
Why wait?
That's my $0.02 for what it's worth.
Dave Nelson
No parking EXCEPT FOR BOB
> pin...@access.digex.net (Ben Parrish) writes:
>>Ho! is one of those games that doesn't have a large map (the smallest can
>>fit on the screen in its entirety) and has no action/animation/anything.
>>So it's TOLERABLE in Windows.
>>
>>What's the point of this conversation, anyway?
>>
>>No parking EXCEPT FOR BOB (obr...@netcom.com) wrote:
>>: I'm not a defender of Windows, by any means, but several posts to
>>: this thread indicate to me that more people need to take a *look*
>>: at _Spaceward_Ho!_, which does a pretty good job of implementing
>>: a few of these "impossible" features.
>>
>>
>>: Bob O'Bob
>So are you saying that Dune][ type games could never be done in Windows?
>Just how I like it!
Actually, I think what Ben said was that he's hardly played
_Spaceward_Ho!_ at all, because I believe every detail noted to be incorrect.
I don't know anything about Dune II except what I've read on the net,
and I don't think I'd like it, so I won't comment on it regarding Windows.
Bob O'Bob
"Don't give me any of that 'intelligent life' stuff,
find me something I can blow up!" -Doolttle, Dark Star
--
Ben Parrish
: They're just not gonna be used anymore and the publishers will be
: ignoring them. Windows has got's it's warts - no doubt about it. It
: also is a look at what's coming down the road: change, change, change.
You still haven't told us what's so great about Windows. It looks pretty?
Fine. I don't really care. It can task-switch? Several other products
(many DOS-based, like Desqview) perform much better. It can multi-task?
Several other products (many DOS-based, like Desqview) perform much
better. It's easier for non-computer-literate people to understand? This
is possibly true, but still debatable.
Let me ask you a question. When I want to delete a file called
"pinback.svg" in directory c:\games\empire\svgame, I type "del
c:\games\empire\svgame\pinback.svg." This took me 5 or 6 seconds. How do
you do this in Windows? Find the Main windows, find the file-manager
icon, double-click on File Manager, search for pinback.svg (possibly by
changing the sorting mechanism (by clicking on...etc, etc...) ) then
clicking on it, and going to the File menu, and selecting Delete?
That takes a lot longer, and is far more difficult.
So, Windows is a picture of the future. What exactly is so great about
Windows that the future will want it (and its ilk, for that matter)?
Dave Nelson
|> You still haven't told us what's so great about Windows.
It's real simple: It's where the money is at. In case you havn't noticed,
every software publisher under the sun has put their money behind Windows,
simply for the reason that it's what you have to do to sell lottsa copies
of whatever you've published. And in software, volume is *everything*.
Sure, it's not a technical wonder. It's often a pain in the ass. But
the market doesn't much care about that. It only cares about volume.
Didn't you notice what happened to Lotus 123 market share when they did
not have a decent windows based product? It fell by 50%. That kinda
money tends to get your attention, not to mention the board of directors
and your stockholders.
|> Let me ask you a question. When I want to delete a file called
|> "pinback.svg" in directory c:\games\empire\svgame, I type "del
|> c:\games\empire\svgame\pinback.svg." This took me 5 or 6 seconds. How do
|> you do this in Windows?
I pop an icon on my Dashboard and type "del c:\games\empire\svgame\pinback.svg".
This takes my 5 or 6 seconds. It might take a second longer if I switch
workspaces first.
|> So, Windows is a picture of the future. What exactly is so great about
|> Windows that the future will want it (and its ilk, for that matter)?
Money. Ya just can't ignor it. And when something else offers as big
a market, it'll be that instead and we'll all be laughing about those
crazy days when we used Windows 3.1.
Dave Nelson
BTW, I misquoted that guy from Oracle. I checked my notes. He said:
x/200 mhz CPU.
1 gb ram
4-16 gb hard disc.
Jim Veneskey
>hmm..30 million copies of Windows...let's see:
>if a game can get one (1) percent of market share, that's three (3!) million game
^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^
>copies sold...figure the company makes $10/game...do the math (granted, these
>numbers could be larger than normal, but even 1/10000th of the market share
>is _still_ a lot of money. I'd wager that _no_ game company is using number
>of Windows OS's out there as their deciding factor...mostly, it's difficulty
>in learning the new OS, and, of course, the speed of the graphics...)
Sorry - but I could'nt let something like that go past. A 3 million seller
game - and it was'nt bundled with the computer w/out asking the buyer -
that I'd love to see.
--
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Jim Veneskey Akron,Oh
jv...@telxon.mis.telxon.com - preferred
jven...@delphi.com - last resort
Marc J. Fraioli
>>hmm..30 million copies of Windows...let's see:
^^^^^^^^^^
>>if a game can get one (1) percent of market share, that's three (3!) million game
^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^
>>copies sold...figure the company makes $10/game...do the math (granted, these
>
I couldn't let it go past either. 1% of 30 million is 300,000, not 3 million.
Do the math.
Then, if the company made $10/game, they've made $3,000,000, which I suppose is
not bad. Still, I don't think they do make $10/game, when you consider the
overhead of developing it in the first place, and second, I think selling any
individual game to 1% of the _total_ Windows installed base is unlikely. Many
many of those installed Windows machines are in businesses where they don't buy
games, and many more are in boxes on the shelf (I know mine is). So overall,
the market is still small. I think you could make some money doing it (that's
why some companies, e.g. Maxis, have done it), but you could make more money
doing it for DOS, since the market is potentially much larger. So that's
what people do.
--
Marc Fraioli | CHICAGO DAILY TRIBUNE
m...@clark.net <--- New Address! | ---------------------------
| Windows defeats OS/2!
Robert C. Merritt <rcmerrit>
>I wrote the base note for this thread; I figure I should comment now
>on all of the responses (btw, thanks to all who did respond).
>
>Setting aside the utterly dis-regardable 'My_OS_is_better_than_your_OS'
>debates which occured, I learned a few things:
>
>1) Windows would not be well suited to hand-eye coordination games due
> to the need for ultimate speed.
Well Microsoft Arcade I seems to beable to handle those types of games.
>
>2) Windows would be fine for most, if not all, strategy games, so long
> as the gamer owns a fairly new machine.
>
>3) Lottsa people think DOS is just fine, thank you, and see no need
> for anything to change. The unwillingness to see change as inevitable
> came as a big surprise to me.
Hey, I still have an Atari 800. Change is good and inevitable but not always
nessacary.
>
>4) General agreement that game fonts stink and that publishers waste
> resources creating their own video drivers, fonts, and sound card
> drivers.
>
>Has my opinion changed? No. I didn't read anything that that convinced
>me that a marketing Windows based games would be a bad idea, so long
>as the publishers are careful about what they do. Further, I didn't
>read anything which convinced me that DOS has any long term future.
Well, I can see some different things.
1. The present formats of windows, face it, suck. Windows 3.x and NT leave alot
to be desired. Windows 4.x (the os/2 copy cat) might improve things. But
There really isn't anything that says moden oses can't run dos emulated.
I feel that untill most PCs can run os/2 (win 4.x) oses, dos will live on.
>
>Consider this prediction, made by the President of Oracle Computer,
>last June:
>
>Todays 'Hot' Platform Hot Platform in 2001
>--------------------- --------------------
>486/66 986/200
>4mb ram 256mb ram
>240mb disc 1gb disc
>$2500 $2500
>
>Toss in a 24 bit color, 27" diagonal flat panel display for good
>measure. Oh, and don't be surprised when this box is functioning as
>your TV *and* video phone.
Well, thats probably basically correct, although I doubt it'll be an 86 line
of chip running it. Probably be a risc chip..
>
>Hardware performance improvements are going to make todays DOS only
>machines look like those old cars with the crank under the radiator.
>They're just not gonna be used anymore and the publishers will be
>ignoring them. Windows has got's it's warts - no doubt about it. It
>also is a look at what's coming down the road: change, change, change.
>
Hopefully this change will be to os/2
>Why wait?
>
>That's my $0.02 for what it's worth.
>
>Dave Nelson
Rob Merritt
email:rcme...@cbda9.apgea.army.mil**Disclaimer: My opinions are mine alone.
Sysop of Moon Base Tycho BBS. **not of my employer, not of my friends,
(410)391-6291, Running Renegade **and family, and not of a co-worker.
"Nostalgia isn't what it used to be" -unknown
Ed Neo
>"pinback.svg" in directory c:\games\empire\svgame, I type "del
>c:\games\empire\svgame\pinback.svg." This took me 5 or 6 seconds. How do
>icon, double-click on File Manager, search for pinback.svg (possibly by
>changing the sorting mechanism (by clicking on...etc, etc...) ) then
>clicking on it, and going to the File menu, and selecting Delete?
>
>That takes a lot longer, and is far more difficult.
I'm not exactly a fan of Windows, but here's a viewpoint of a devil's advocate.
You may not know exactly what file you want to delete. Traversing through
the directory tree, doing a dir list that doesn't allow you to scroll backwards
is a pain. The File Manager allows you to see exactly what's there and
traverse the tree very easily. When you've found it, click the file and
hit the del key.
Note you could be doing this while your game was still running so that you
could return to the game after deleting the file. I know I'm come across
situations where my save slots are full and I had to get out of the game,
copy my save files, remove them and go back into the game.
Note I'm not saying that Windows is the answer. DOSSHELL can do the above
(depending on the game).
Ed Neo
e...@hpsid.sid.hp.com
Chan Hoong Keong
> So, Windows is a picture of the future. What exactly is so great about
> Windows that the future will want it (and its ilk, for that matter)?
I think what we need is a protected mode DOS that allows :
Direct access of 16M of RAM. It is not the same as using page frame
swapping in EMS or CPU mode switching in XMS. Expect some performance
boost here as most games nowadays are huge.
Multi-tasking. This has not much impact on gaming but it makes life
much easier. I can run a BBS and other programs at the same time.
It is not necessary to window different tasks. Full screen
multi-tasking will do.
Multi-threading. Computers can plan further strategies while waiting
for user input. It is possible to do this in DOS but it makes
programming very messy.
32-bit model. No longer limited by 64K segment will make a lot of
graphics and sound routines run much faster. Not to mention we *might*
see less arithmetic overflow problem; e.g. score went down to negative
range after reaching a limit.
Built-in networking support. Novell is too expensive for playing
games. :-)
It MUST be able to emulate 8086 mode too! Maybe even a mode change
utility for you to switch between protected and real mode? So that
it can run all the old titles and yet has powerful new features for
the new games. Able to access hardware directly is a must too. This
might have some problems with multi-tasking aspect but I am sure
something can be worked out.
Did I miss anything?
--
Email : hkc...@hkchan.pc.my
RROE...@maine.maine.edu
hopelessly addicted to minesweeper, the game included with windows. is my
score of 190 seconds on expert level pretty good, or are there people out
there doing it in less than three minutes?
rich roesing
rroe...@maine.maine.edu
Daniel M Silevitch
I once broke the 100 second mark (99 seconds). That was a perfect game, and
I don't have any immediate hopes of doing any better. Just practice. Things
will improve.
Dave Nelson
|> hopelessly addicted to minesweeper, the game included with windows. is my
|> score of 190 seconds on expert level pretty good, or are there people out
|> there doing it in less than three minutes?
Yes it's fairly good. I stopped playing after doing expert in 97 seconds
on a unix machine and 137 on an intel platform. The manic behavior
needed to get these scores wasn't worth it.
dave
No parking EXCEPT FOR BOB
>please let me apologize in advance for my low-tech question. i've become
>hopelessly addicted to minesweeper, the game included with windows. is my
>score of 190 seconds on expert level pretty good, or are there people out
>there doing it in less than three minutes?
>
Yes. (it is)
and Yes. (there are)
With a combination of *luck* and skill, I have beaten
three minutes at expert. One thing I do is to poke
five or six different spots randomly during the first
second. Nice to have more than one start before
investing much, and if it blows up, it's only a second
or two lost.
Of course, my "best" time at expert level, 1 second, was
achieved through the stop-the-clock cheat, as should be
pretty obvious...
Bob O'Bob
--
Jack Parker
square that cleard 95% of the board for you? I can't remember my high (low)
score - it's been so long since I got over 'mindless-sweeper' but I know
that I was continually clicking that button with very few pauses but I don't
think I ever hit 100 - or even close.
j.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Jack Parker |
Hewlett Packard, BSMC Boise, Idaho, USA| Your .sig has expired, please enter
jpa...@hpbs2561.boi.hp.com | a new one.
(208) 396-5388 (W) (208) 384-1623 (H) |
_____________________________________________________________________________
Any opinions expressed herein are my own and not those of my employers.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Daniel M Silevitch
|> 100 at the expert level? You've got to be kidding! What, did you hit a blank
|> square that cleard 95% of the board for you? I can't remember my high (low)
|> score - it's been so long since I got over 'mindless-sweeper' but I know
|> that I was continually clicking that button with very few pauses but I don't
|> think I ever hit 100 - or even close.
|>
|> j.
Calculate the probability of that happening, and you'll find that you will
have to play a _lot_ of games. No, I play fair. You have to internalize the
different patterns of numbers, and be able to convert them into flag patterns
subconciously, at least for the common ones. A fast game for me will often
mean that I only stopped to think once or twice, the rest of the time, the
mouse is in constant motion.
Building a high score like that takes time, it took me over 2 years of near-
constant Minesweeper play (it's something to do while the modem d/ls).
CD...@psuvm.psu.edu
periodically...
Beginner - 6 seconds
Intermediate - 45 seconds
Expert - 154 seconds
Master (24x30x150mines) - about 380 seconds
*-=Carl=-* INTERNET - cd...@psuvm.psu.edu | A sucking chest wound |
GEnie - C.FAGO1 | is nature's way of |
Carl Fago State College, PA | telling you to slow down|
Matthias Rauhut
In article <1993Sep28.1...@microsoft.com>, jef...@microsoft.com
(Jeff Simon) writes:
>hmm..30 million copies of Windows...let's see:
>if a game can get one (1) percent of market share, that's three (3!)
>million game
>copies sold...figure the company makes $10/game...do the math (granted,
>these
>numbers could be larger than normal, but even 1/10000th of the market
>share
>is _still_ a lot of money. I'd wager that _no_ game company is using
>number
>of Windows OS's out there as their deciding factor...mostly, it's
>difficulty
>in learning the new OS, and, of course, the speed of the graphics...)
Hmm,interesting...1% is 30,000,000 is 3,000,000! No wonder,you'r a
microsoft-employee...no,no - i won't make you angry,but i couldn't
resist.WinDOS is IMHO not the right plattform for games - too slow compared
to a DOS-pure PC (and still to buggy...,but that's another story.)
Matthias