Why DOS is still better than Microsoft Windows for Games... The sad truth.
Ken Kahn
And for good reason, I'm a games programmer. Rather than releasing a DOS
port of my latest game, I decided it was time to embrace Windows. Sadly,
my advice is DON'T. To write a games program in Windows, you must do
everything the Windows-way. This means (1) you cannot write directly
to the VGA frame buffer - you must go through Windows horribe DIBs
and use their APIs to make the call; this slows your program down
substantially. I talked to Microsoft about this and they told me
directly accessing the VGA frame buffer was inherently evil and that in
order to keep my program "Device independant" I should use the DIBs.
That ignores that I'm paying a severe performance penalty to do this,
and personally I think VGA-compatibility will be here for a long time
to come. (2) Windows is slow, and lacks preemptive mulititaskong.
Yes, I know DOS does, but in DOS if you have a time citical application
you *can* do it. In Windows, everything bogs down because of that
cooperative multitasking model. As for the speed, Windows drags. The
memory it takes up I could better use myself. (3) In Windows, you cannot
switch to say 256 colour mode or do Mode X graphics at a whim. In
Windows you can't even use Mode X graphics. That means people with
standard VGA dislays are stuck to 16 colour graphics, even though their
machine has 256 colour modes!
Re (3) you can use DISPDIB.DLL and use whatever mode you want in 256 (e.g.
Mode X) even if Windows is set to 16 colors. (2) It is slow unless one is
very very careful -- there are articles about how to get that speed and soon
there will be WinG.
I saw DOOM running under Windows and it was NOT slow. It is true that
Microsoft seems to be encouraging one to run in a window but that window can
be the size of the screen and one can write on the whole screen (even where
the window frame is). Windows was painful to learn but I'm convinced Windows
is the future of games programming on PCs.
-ken
Clay Alberts
>Mode X) even if Windows is set to 16 colors. (2) It is slow unless one is
>very very careful -- there are articles about how to get that speed and soon
>there will be WinG.
>I saw DOOM running under Windows and it was NOT slow. It is true that
>Microsoft seems to be encouraging one to run in a window but that window can
>be the size of the screen and one can write on the whole screen (even where
>the window frame is). Windows was painful to learn but I'm convinced
>Windows >is the future of games programming on PCs.
I have been playing computer games for about 8-9 years now and if Windows
is the future of games programming on PCs I will sell off all of my equipment
and find a new hobby to entertain myself. Personally, I HATE Windows - Not
that I am opposed to GUIs, I loved the Amiga's workbench and operating system.
Chad
DICKENSON HTR
(3) In Windows, you cannot
>switch to say 256 colour mode or do Mode X graphics at a whim. In
>Windows you can't even use Mode X graphics. That means people with
>standard VGA dislays are stuck to 16 colour graphics, even though their
>machine has 256 colour modes!
Microsoft do have a 256 color video driver for a standard VGA I am told.
It is on ftp.microsoft.com somewhere, but exams came around a bit too quick
for me to try it out. I know that wasnt really the point you were making,
but it _is_ possible.
>forget Windows 3.1 - for doing your stereotypical Windows applets
>it's fine - but for games it just doesn't cut the mustard.
For a large section of todays games I certainly agree with you, but there
is a significant proportion of games that _do_ look like a stereotypical
windows application. Sim City type games are the obvious candidates, and
isnt there a windows version of Civilisation now?
>We want pretty graphics, and fast! Back to the drawing board, guys.
....in which case, DOS cant be beaten yet. Sad but true.
- Toby Dickenson
Fabian Gonzalez
>Microsoft seems to be encouraging one to run in a window but that window can
>be the size of the screen and one can write on the whole screen (even where
>the window frame is). Windows was painful to learn but I'm convinced Windows
>is the future of games programming on PCs.
Windows is the death to PC games development. When all PS'c just show up the
ugly windows screen, game players will buy consoles instead. And when the market
disappears, so do the games.
Zax / Avalanche
--
*** e-mail : fab...@alkymi.unit.no ***
---------------------------------------------------------
If your feet are smelling and your nose is running,
check to see whether you are upside down
---------------------------------------------------------
Tim Triemstra
QQ> >forget Windows 3.1 - for doing your stereotypical Windows ap
QQ> >it's fine - but for games it just doesn't cut the mustard.
Boy, that is a very shortsighted statement. I agree with the 3.1 part -
but then again I think that learning the Win3.1 API now would be
EXTREMELY stupid anyhow, you'll need to learn win32 soon anyhow, screw
the 16bit API. But, just because that archaic 1991/2 Windows 3.1 won't
do games well (there wasn't anything CLOSE to DOOM back when 3.0/3.1 came
out anyhow so the comparison is moot) doesn't mean that Windows will be
the death of PC games. I rather think that Windows 4.0 and (more in my
preference) OS/2 will. Tools like Watcom 10.0 which will produce OS/2
and Windows 32 bit code can change everything. Granted, Windows and OS/2
and such do slow things down a bit, but they also can speed things up
(over a mediocre programmer.) OS/2 will thread sound effects, or thread
a movie while other things are going on. There is no reason to believe
that certain aspects of Windows 4.0 won't lend themselves perfectly for
games. You will be able to switch video modes on the fly - and 320x200
could very well be one of them. Finally, I think it is obvious that we
are bordering on the end of what low-res 256 color graphics is needed
for. I can get near perfect animation at 640x480x64k on my PCI 2meg
video board already, and when you can start getting boards like the new
ATI Mach64 for good prices these games will become more and more popular
(image DOOM at that resolution!)
You're comparing a "today" situation and forcasting it into the future
simply because it isn't doable today. I honestly think that the great
hesitation people have is the fear of having to re-learn programming (new
API - all C++ instead of ASM etc...) Most would argue that Id has its
finger on the pulse of gaming, they seem happy with WinG...
Just my optimistic 0.02$ (about to buy a new CD drive and Watcom 10.0 :)
--
Tim.
==== Timothy R. Triemstra == emp...@umcc.umich.edu ===
Davidson Corry
>To write a games program in Windows, you must do
> everything the Windows-way. This means
>(2) Windows is slow, and lacks preemptive mulititasking...
>(3) In Windows, you cannot switch to say 256 colour mode
>I know Microsoft wants games written for MS Windows *real bad*,
>but they have to learn to adjust to the gaming community, rather than
>telling us we have to make do with what we've got. We want pretty
>graphics, and fast...Windows is a very bad choice as a game platform.
Well, of course. It's not so much that DOS is a good platform for
high-performance graphics work (which is what you are talking about)
as that DOS lets you bypass it altogether and go to BIOS or directly to the
hardware... and "down to the metal" is ALWAYS the way to go to
write the fastest code.
In contrast, the three key design goals of Windows were
(1) graphics with hardware independence
(2) cooperative execution of multiple programs
(3) backwards compatibility with a large pool of
existing DOS applications, few of them graphical
What MS came up with was a brilliantly successful kluge
based on existing technology. (Ask any Windows programmer
if you don't think it's a kluge. Ask BillG's accountant if you don't
think it was successful.)
All three of these goals conflict with dedicated, high-performance
graphics applications like gaming. You pay two, maybe three
orders of magnitude in speed for the compatibility... and hardware
just ain't fast enough yet that you can give that much away and still
do an adequate job on GigaZork. That's why almost all successful
Windows games are "think" games rather than "speed" games.
Hardware is still a generation or two away from being able to run
"speed" applications like multimedia or games satisfactorily on
a general-purpose machine. (But with both those markets to drive
it, it will get there soon.)
wem...@fms0.cca.rockwell.com
In article <2si25h$m...@ugle.unit.no>,
Fabian Gonzalez <fab...@alkymi.unit.no> wrote:
> Windows is the death to PC games development. When all PS'c just show
> up the ugly windows screen, game players will buy consoles
> instead. And when the market disappears, so do the games.
That is exactly right. People don't want to take apart their PC's and flip
all the damn dip switches every time they play a game. I have a different
CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT for just about every game. Windows is even
worse! Every tried to uninstall an application in Windows?
With powerful consoles like the 3DO coming out, the future is with them.
That machine is DESIGNED for games (unlike PC's).
R S Rodgers
<wem...@fms0.cca.rockwell.com> wrote:
>With powerful consoles like the 3DO coming out, the future is with them.
>That machine is DESIGNED for games (unlike PC's).
Then why are there so many fantastic PC games and, well, _zero_
really good games for 3DO?
I'd take SamNMax&tc over Crash and Burn and other rehashed bores
any day.
--
"If I went apeshit in here, you'd be in a lot of trouble, wouldn't you? I
could screw your head off and place it on the table to greet the guard."
-- Edmund Kemper, convicted serial killer, to
Robert K. Ressler ("Whoever Fights Monsters")
R S Rodgers
Fabian Gonzalez <fab...@alkymi.unit.no> wrote:
>> Doesn't the fact that Microsoft is on the brink (any quarter now...) of
>> releasing a new Windows that isn't built on top of DOS imply that DOS is on
>> the decline?
>
>Yeah RIGHT... it IS built on top of DOS...
Well, sort of. It's built on top of a 32bit, multithreaded,
preemptive OS that is, otherwise, much like DOS except that it
features truly 32bit drivers.
This is quite similar to another OS which you may be familiar
with, but that OS still uses a 16:16 driver model for the sake
of compatibility.
Bryce Koike
>>>And for good reason, I'm a games programmer. Rather than releasing a DOS
>>>port of my latest game, I decided it was time to embrace Windows. Sadly,
>>>everything the Windows-way.
It's ridiculous to select a platform based on popularity, especially
when the alternative (DOS) is equally popular, if not more so. In a
case like this, one should decide based on which platform is going
to be the most effective. Since you didn't say what kind of game
you were writing, it's impossible to determine if it was a bad
choice on your part or what, but I'm assuming that your game
required animation speed which, as a massive number of people know,
isn't Windows strong point as of now.
On the other hand, I've seen Sierra games running under Windows and
wasn't disappointed. You need a good computer to make it effective,
and the interface is pretty much the same...but it works.
>>I've started writing games for Windows and I disagree with some of what
>>you said. I agree that there's a massive speed loss compared to DOS - Even
>>Atari STs and Amigas are way faster at drawing sprites than any
>>486s. Obviously, this makes games like Doom and flight sims impossible to
>>do in Windows.
Of course there's a massive speed loss. Shrug. But no one should
expect something out of a platform that they know isn't possible
(yet).
And considering that Doom will run fairly well, it seems, under
Windows in the future, even that's somewhat of a misnomer.
But in any case, this still means that DOS will be even faster and
more effective for certain kinds of games.
>>However, if you write games which do suit Windows better there's some
>>real benefits. It doesn't matter what screen resolution, or number of colours,
>>or sound card the user has. Also there's so much code that you don't have
>>to write, like scollbars, menus, sound players, dialog boxes, minimizing, switching
>>into another program etc.. This makes non-fast action games in the style of
>>SimCity and Civilization much easier to write. My first game, "Mother Of All
>>Battles!" (a demo is in FTP.CICA.INDIANA.EDU in windows/games/mother12.zip)
>>didn't need DOS's speed but would have taken much longer to write for DOS.
This is an enormous strength...and I've been personally amazed to
see what a friend of mine has done with a minimal understanding of
Windows programming. Windows does have its strengths.
>I would perfer to write my own scrollbars, menus, sound players and dialog
>boxes. I would rather spend the extra time coding and have a better program.
>Besides, once you have these routines coded, you can use them in future
>programs to save time but still retain maximum control over your program.
Eh? Windows already has all of these things coded and you can
already use them in future programs. In fact, anyone who's
programming for Windows can use scrollbars, menus, etc, in all of
their Windows programs.
What's a "better" program? How can you place value on something as
incredibly vague as that? There are a number of games which would
gain immediate improvement if they ran under Windows. Master of
Orion suffers from a terrible interface...and under Windows it would
be far more responsive.
Also, because you can use a standard style of interface for your
Windows games, people don't have to be lost in a sea of new
interfaces. The buttons, the scrollbars, the menus, etc, are all
like similar buttons on other Windows programs. This is a strength.
>By the way, using the same windows interface for every game is boring.
Whatever.
>>compete with them. So I reckon that the future of PC games is with Windows.
>
>Not for me. All of the Windows games I have tried so far have been deleted
>as soon I loaded them up and tried them out.
>
>Chad
That says very little, actually, considering the number of
commercial games which have been written for Windows. I'm not
saying that it's a great system, but I use it often for things which
my DOS applications haven't been able to do for quite some time now.
Animation-intensive games will probably never run as well under Windows as
they do under DOS. That's a given. But to claim that Windows is a
terrible environment because it won't give you the animation power
you need and because of that problem, Windows is incapable of
being an effective platform for ANY game only reveals your personal
bias, nothing more.
Having an already-implemented multiple-window interface complete
with dialog boxes, menus, etc, is a great boon, especially when it
is a universal interface -- anyone who uses Windows will recognize
them and how they operate. I am, by no means, a Windows fan, but
I'm sick to death of irrational Windows bashing and unsubstantiated
claims that "Windows sucks for all games." (Ever play Lunatic
Fringe? Runs great on my 486-33 with a crappy Trident 8900 card.)
Games don't need a great interface to be good (but looking at
SimCity 2000, one can tell that it helps), and games don't even need
a new, original interface to be good. Obviously what's the most
important is the gameplay -- so long as the interface doesn't
significantly interfere with that, the game will probably do
alright. But Windows makes creating certain interfaces very easy
and allows the programmer to worry about other things, instead of,
"Why doesn't the list box move when I push the down arrow?!"
It also allows you to support all sound cards that have Windows
drivers. You can support all SVGA cards that work under Windows.
You can support all SVGA resolutions that work under Windows. The
cost for all this? The price of a compiler and the time required to
learn how to program the above. You don't need to write drivers for
every sound card and every graphics card (although VESA is changing
this), and you get SVGA resolution and color to boot.
You get a common interface that's shared between almost all other
Windows applications. (And it's an interface that is potentially
very powerful considering its flexibility.)
For some, Windows may very well be the logical choice for them. As
computers get faster and more machines have VLB or PCI cards in
them, Windows (or, say, OS/2) will become better platforms, not
worse, and more effective for games as well. (Although from what
I've heard about Galactic Civilizations, OS/2 is already quite
effective, not to mention the effectiveness of WinDoom...)
Ed Goldman
: I have been playing computer games for about 8-9 years now and if Windows
: is the future of games programming on PCs I will sell off all of my equipment
: and find a new hobby to entertain myself. Personally, I HATE Windows - Not
: that I am opposed to GUIs, I loved the Amiga's workbench and operating system.
First, let me say I really dislike the Windows GUI paradigm on both 3.1
and NT -- I've had to develop on both. My druthers is to work under OS/2
for games development which I find to be a very, very nice DOS multitasker
and ideal for working thru the development cycle. The OS/2 interface is
also very nice.
Windows 3.1 is a polished turd, and Windows NT is a bloated pig.
That being said, I've seen a demo of Chicago. IMO, Microsoft may have
*finally* gotten it right. If WinG is as fast as claimed for graphics
(the WinG Doom version seems to bear this out), then as game developers
we'll have a 32 bit, true multitasking multithreaded environment
with standardized interface to networks, sound cards, etc, and (finally)
a decent Windows GUI. I think it's going to be big.
As much as I like OS/2, IBM just hasn't yet been able to unseat Windows
with it on John Q Public's desktops. If (and I emphasize if) Chicago
lives up to spec, I predict slow deaths for OS/2, Windows 3.1 and DOS.
I for one am going to be boning up a bit on the WIN32 API ...
-edg-
Brendan Jones
> I'm confused because there are so many people HANGING ON WITH TIGHT GRIPS to
> DOS (the caps are to emphasis how strongly the opinions seem to be.)
>
> Doesn't the fact that Microsoft is on the brink (any quarter now...) of
> releasing a new Windows that isn't built on top of DOS imply that DOS is on
> the decline?
Somehow I know instinctively you have never written a high performance
game under Windows... ;)
>
> What strikes me the most odd, is that the segment of industry that is driving
> change the fastest seems to be so very unwilling to change.
And for good reason, I'm a games programmer. Rather than releasing a DOS
port of my latest game, I decided it was time to embrace Windows. Sadly,
my advice is DON'T. To write a games program in Windows, you must do
everything the Windows-way. This means (1) you cannot write directly
to the VGA frame buffer - you must go through Windows horribe DIBs
and use their APIs to make the call; this slows your program down
substantially. I talked to Microsoft about this and they told me
directly accessing the VGA frame buffer was inherently evil and that in
order to keep my program "Device independant" I should use the DIBs.
That ignores that I'm paying a severe performance penalty to do this,
and personally I think VGA-compatibility will be here for a long time
to come. (2) Windows is slow, and lacks preemptive mulititaskong.
Yes, I know DOS does, but in DOS if you have a time citical application
you *can* do it. In Windows, everything bogs down because of that
cooperative multitasking model. As for the speed, Windows drags. The
memory it takes up I could better use myself. (3) In Windows, you cannot
switch to say 256 colour mode or do Mode X graphics at a whim. In
Windows you can't even use Mode X graphics. That means people with
standard VGA dislays are stuck to 16 colour graphics, even though their
machine has 256 colour modes!
I spent a lot of time, but in the end I had to give up. It was like
trying to teach the provebial pig to sing. It doesn't work, and it
annoys the pig. Chicago may be the bridge Microsoft needs, but
forget Windows 3.1 - for doing your stereotypical Windows applets
it's fine - but for games it just doesn't cut the mustard. It was
a disappointing discovery; I figured Electronic Arts and co were
just being backwards, but I validated myself what I'm sure they
looked at. For games and high-performance applications, DOS is
still king. This is more a failing of Windows 3.1 than a complement
for DOS. Yes, OS/2 would make a better game platform than DOS;
you *can* sieze control of the screen and say do your own Mode X
graphics in OS/2. This is something I don't think Chicago will be
able to do; Microsoft seem hell-bent on making you put it in a
window, missing the point something you do want the full screen to
your application, and that a winning game design these days needs
a high frame rate - something you can't do under Windows.
I know Microsoft wants games written for MS Windows *real bad*,
but they have to learn to adjust to the gaming community, rather than
telling us we have to make do with what we've got. Not to slam
Windows; on the whole I quite like it, and I use it for my business
apps. But Windows is a very bad choice as a game platform.
We want pretty graphics, and fast! Back to the drawing board, guys.
cheers
bj
--
"[NSF head] Dr. Wolff suggested barring mature services [..] In particular,
NSF could bar the mail and news protocols [..] from the backbone and thereby
encourage private providers to offer a national mail backbone [..]" -RFC 1192.
Rainer Deyke
: -ken
What kind of processor do yo have anyway? Pentium? I have a 16MHz
386, and Wolfenstein 3D runs at full speed (from DOS) while anything
under windows is too slow.
--
+---------------------------------------------------------+
|"Who made you God to say, 'I'll take your life from you'"|
| - Metallica, "Ride the Lightning" |
| "It feeds; it grows; it clouds all that you will know" |
| - Metallica, "The God that Failed" |
| Rainer Deyke - rai...@mdddhd.fc.hp.com |
+---------------------------------------------------------+
Brendan Jones
>
>QQ> >forget Windows 3.1 - for doing your stereotypical Windows ap
>QQ> >it's fine - but for games it just doesn't cut the mustard.
>
>Boy, that is a very shortsighted statement.
But is it wrong? ;)
*ACTUALLY* I've got a few notes along this line; was my article
overtrimmed or do people only read the first two lines of a post
befoe replying! ;)
>I agree with the 3.1 part -
>but then again I think that learning the Win3.1 API now would be
>EXTREMELY stupid anyhow, you'll need to learn win32 soon anyhow, screw
>[...] I rather think that Windows 4.0 and (more in my
>preference) OS/2 will. Tools like Watcom 10.0 which will produce OS/2
>and Windows 32 bit code can change everything. Granted, Windows and OS/2
>and such do slow things down a bit, but they also can speed things up
>(over a mediocre programmer.) OS/2 will thread sound effects, or thread
>a movie while other things are going on. There is no reason to believe
>that certain aspects of Windows 4.0 won't lend themselves perfectly for
>games. You will be able to switch video modes on the fly - and 320x200
>could very well be one of them. [...]
>
>You're comparing a "today" situation and forcasting it into the future
>simply because it isn't doable today. [...]
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. In my original append I was flaming Windows 3.1
(as noted above). Further, I *did* say that Windows 4.0 (may be) and
OS/2 is a better environment for game writing. I gather you didn't
see that part of my post, and thus plead in my defense that I was
a victim of an over-zelous trimmed reply... :)
>I honestly think that the great
>hesitation people have is the fear of having to re-learn programming (new
>API - all C++ instead of ASM etc...)
I don't agree. I don't agree one bit. I write all my games in C++, and
only the time critical portions are written under assembler. I think
most games programmers work this way. (BTW, that is what Id said they
do too). The fact that you're even suggesting otherwise leads me to
suspect you could be another unmarried marriage councellor? :-)
>Most would argue that Id has its
>finger on the pulse of gaming, they seem happy with WinG...
Yes and No. They use graphics and sound to very good effect, but
there are much better games around... just none quite so cinematic
(or gory! ;)
Anyway, per WinG - I was under the assumption that WinDoom was Billy
Boy pulling the strings to try and show us Windows is doable for games.
I've not seen WinG, but I would like to look at it. Who do I get in
touch with. I presume it's a library? Is there a royalty involved?
If there is Microsoft can sit in the sin bin with Phar Lap until the
end of the millenium (Phar who? :). This is one of the few occasions
I think I can speak for Electronic Arts & co (whom I have nothing at
all to do with :)
>Just my optimistic 0.02$ (about to buy a new CD drive and Watcom 10.0 :)
You *ARE* optimistic if you think you can buy a CD and Watcom 10.0
for 2 cents! ;)
>Tim.
>==== Timothy R. Triemstra == emp...@umcc.umich.edu ===
God
g...@heaven.org
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Say NO! to the NSF selling off the Internet to AT&T and friends!
Just kidding...
It's merely a mortal..
Sens, M.C.
R S Rodgers
> It uses WinG, which is a Graphics Windows API which is comparible to OpenGL.
/Slight/ correction:
WinG: Fast DIBs & palette functions
WinGL: OpenGL for Windows NT 3.5
David Charlap
>
>I talked to Microsoft about this and they told me directly accessing
>the VGA frame buffer was inherently evil and that in order to keep my
>program "Device independant" I should use the DIBs.
This is correct. Since the desktop may not be in VGA mode, your
bypassing the device drivers could cause system crashes. Some cards
(like 8514/a) don't have anything resembling a VGA frame buffer when
running in native mode.
>That ignores that I'm paying a severe performance penalty to do this,
Yep, it does. MS is supposed to be releasing a "Win-G" games library
that will have lightwieght-DIB code. I don't know how well it will
work, or when it will ship.
>and personally I think VGA-compatibility will be here for a long time
>to come.
Too late. Many cards already have dropped it. XGA, 8514/a, ATI
Mach-nn, S3, and P-9000 based cards are all incompatible with VGA when
running in their native modes. Sure, they all contain VGA emulations,
but these modes aren't available while someone's desktop is in a
hi-res/hi-color mode.
>(3) In Windows, you cannot switch to say 256 colour mode or do Mode X
>graphics at a whim.
This is a more serious problem. I think MS has a bit of tunnel vision
here. They assume that if people want games, they will have a hi-res/
hi-color video adapter and a proper Windows driver to allow the mode
on the desktop.
OS/2 suffers from many of the same problems, except it doesn't force
you to write a PM app.
And IBM has a high-speed PM method for displaying graphics. The DIVE
libraries that are part of MMPM/2 can be used to rapidly display
bitmaps on the screen. MMPM/2 uses it to play video movies in
real-time. It has a problem on slow hardware, but it is good enough
on most machines.
---------------------+--------------------------------------------------------
David Charlap | The contents of this message are not the opinions of
da...@visix.com | Visix Software, or of anyone besides myself.
Visix Software, Inc. +--------------------------------------------------------
Member of Team-OS/2 |
---------------------+
Andy Wilkins
point. Presumably, those in the business of writing games intend to
make money. There is a _huge_ pent up demand for decent Windows games, so anyone
who provides a truly excellent Windows game will make vast amounts of dosh. This
is called an opportunity. Microsoft are providing support to you by releasing
the WinG library (docs are downloadable from Compu$erve, GO MSDS, download
wing.zip), so I suggest that you ignore the disadvantages of programming under
Windows (slower, new API to learn) and focus on the benefits (device
independence, ready built UI components, new market).
All the arguments against Windows games are exact rehashes of those that were
current when Windows and OS/2 first started to take over the world. All those
people who said that Windows apps are too slow, or that all apps will look
the same look pretty stupid now, don't they? Rather than throwing your teddies
in the corner and whinging that you want to implement your own scroll
bars(puhlease!), or that all games will look the same, why not just get one with
it? The opportunity is there now, I suggest you grab it.
_______________________________________________________________________
Andy Wilkins a...@ioc.co.uk
It's my brain, I'll do want I want with it.
_______________________________________________________________________
Dale Pontius
In article <2sircv$3...@mailer.fsu.edu>, hu...@xi.cs.fsu.edu (Steven Hugg) writes:
>
> But one thing you DO get is access to the awesome acceleration functions
> of the user's video card! I am sure there are few, if any, flight sims. or
> 3D games that use the full power of the video card out today. I'm guessing
> that you could increase throughput 10x using the accelerators ... but
> you'll never see it in DOS, because there are 1000's of video accelerators
> out there, for which a lot of vendors won't even release programming
> information (like Diamond, grrr...)
>
Most of those Windows accelerator boards are just that - Windows
accelerators. Most are not general purpose graphics accelerators.
If you need to do what they do well, then you are in luck. If not...
Diamond doesn't make their own chips, they buy them from a variety
of sources. Check out places like S3, Cirrus Logic, or Tseng Labs
for chip specs. Obviously the board logic will make a difference,
but it's a start.
Dale Pontius
(not a spokesperson for IBM)
R S Rodgers
>All this arguing about whether DOS or Windows is better for games misses the
>point. Presumably, those in the business of writing games intend to
>make money. There is a _huge_ pent up demand for decent Windows games,
Yep, but there's no pent-up demand for _bad_ Windows games. The
high sales of Civilization for Windows reflected the pent-up
demand. The rapid drop off and thorough bashing of MicroProse in
the games groups for what they actually produced shows that the
demand isn't going to overcome shoddy quality.
We'll see what happens with WinG--anyone interested should probably
ask to be added to the beta list in the WINMM forum on Compuserve,
as they're taking everyone who applies seriously--but until then,
the "state of the art" for Windows games is the MS Arcade Pack. I
haven't seen much else that wasn't laughably bad, graphically, except
for card games and Tetris.
[...]
Mark S. Wyman
>I saw DOOM running under Windows and it was NOT slow. It is true that
>Microsoft seems to be encouraging one to run in a window but that window can
>be the size of the screen and one can write on the whole screen (even where
>the window frame is). Windows was painful to learn but I'm convinced Windows
>is the future of games programming on PCs.
What was the (ahem) hardware that was running Doom in Windows?
A Sextium?
Funny thing is, I read that Microsoft was adding some Chicago
features (multitasking comes to mind) for the next major DOS version.
The article (which was pretty vague and was from a gaming mag not
a tecnical mag) didn't go into details about the DOS since the article
was about Chicago.
Mark
0018...@ysub.ysu.edu
or speed. OS/2 is ok, but then you get restricted by DPMI which is like a
choke chain on your protected mode programs. Windows is even worse. I hope
that the industry realizes that MS-DOS is still the most flexible and
adaptable OS around and that it is here to stay for good. It would be nice
to see the code optimized for later processors though such as the 386.
But we can't have everything.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
today's definition: Windoze- a sure cure for insomnia.
Paul Silver
R S Rodgers
Mark S. Wyman <wy...@sealion.cig.mot.com> wrote:
>ka...@Csli.Stanford.EDU (Ken Kahn) writes:
>>I saw DOOM running under Windows and it was NOT slow. It is true that
>>Microsoft seems to be encouraging one to run in a window but that window can
>>be the size of the screen and one can write on the whole screen (even where
>>the window frame is). Windows was painful to learn but I'm convinced Windows
>>is the future of games programming on PCs.
>
>What was the (ahem) hardware that was running Doom in Windows?
From what I understand, it was a Diamond Viper VLB 2MB and a
486 DX33.
Fabian Gonzalez
> releasing a new Windows that isn't built on top of DOS imply that DOS is on
> the decline?
Yeah RIGHT... it IS built on top of DOS... it just loads windows automatically.
No more DOS shell... you have to get the windows virus...
>
> What strikes me the most odd, is that the segment of industry that is driving
> change the fastest seems to be so very unwilling to change.
Since windows SUXX for games and game development, while DOS is the ideal
development area, it doesn't seem very ODD to me... Just because MS has new funky
ideas it doesn't mean they are good or very innovative.
Fabian Gonzalez
Zax / Avalanche
Clay Alberts
>>port of my latest game, I decided it was time to embrace Windows. Sadly,
>>my advice is DON'T. To write a games program in Windows, you must do
>>everything the Windows-way.
>I've started writing games for Windows and I disagree with some of what
>you said. I agree that there's a massive speed loss compared to DOS - Even
>Atari STs and Amigas are way faster at drawing sprites than any
>486s. Obviously, this makes games like Doom and flight sims impossible to
>do in Windows.
>However, if you write games which do suit Windows better there's some
>real benefits. It doesn't matter what screen resolution, or number of colours,
>or sound card the user has. Also there's so much code that you don't have
>to write, like scollbars, menus, sound players, dialog boxes, minimizing, switching
>into another program etc.. This makes non-fast action games in the style of
>SimCity and Civilization much easier to write. My first game, "Mother Of All
>Battles!" (a demo is in FTP.CICA.INDIANA.EDU in windows/games/mother12.zip)
>didn't need DOS's speed but would have taken much longer to write for DOS.
I would perfer to write my own scrollbars, menus, sound players and dialog
boxes. I would rather spend the extra time coding and have a better program.
Besides, once you have these routines coded, you can use them in future
programs to save time but still retain maximum control over your program.
By the way, using the same windows interface for every game is boring.
>compete with them. So I reckon that the future of PC games is with Windows.
Sean O'Connor
>and my game runs on anything from 16 colors to 24 bit 1600x1200. (Check
>out "Comet Busters", COMET.ZIP on an FTP site near you)
Nice game! I love the graphics & sound.
>But I don't think the future of games is with Windows, since you need
>unrestricted access to the hardware to do the really cool stuff...
I don't think that the future of games is with WIndows either. PCs wont be
able to compete against new game consoles with custom sound & graphics
chips, which I'm sure will soon be running games that make even Doom look
tame. That's why I think the future of _PC_ games is with WIndows as it's
that sort of game that the consoles won't be able to do so well.
Sean.
Ian Young
okay, hold on a second. Firstly, MS-DOS and innovation are two mutually exclusive terms.
if Microsoft had true innovation in mind, it wouldn't have backed out of the OS/2 deal.
DOS may be fast, but so would my car if i ripped off the body panels, the interior, and the
roof, but it would be completely useless except for speed. Dos is zippy, but the question is--
Do you want to play games and write programs that can only do one thing at a time at the exclusion
of other programs, or do you want to run multiple programs that share a common memory model and r
driver system. Big graphical applications for DOS all use their own special methods of dealing with
peripherals, and you can't run them together. Face it, the future is in multitasking 32 bit OSs, and
whining about how they won`t run fast enough on your old computer is getting you nowhere. Buy a new machine
that will run them better than the old one did DOS. Face it, for all intents and purposes, DOS is on the way
out. Having a stripped down hot-rod is a heck of a lot less useful than a big pickup truck.
Ian
-Standard disclaimers apply-
Paul Martz
--
-paul "Eno is the one, Eno's the one to take
pma...@dsd.es.com One hundred percent for your stomach's sake...
Evans & Sutherland Bubbly bubbly Eno!"
Jeff Kirvin
: In article <2si25h$m...@ugle.unit.no>,
: Fabian Gonzalez <fab...@alkymi.unit.no> wrote:
: > Windows is the death to PC games development. When all PS'c just show
: > up the ugly windows screen, game players will buy consoles
: > instead. And when the market disappears, so do the games.
: That is exactly right. People don't want to take apart their PC's and flip
: all the damn dip switches every time they play a game. I have a different
: CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT for just about every game. Windows is even
: worse! Every tried to uninstall an application in Windows?
If you were running OS/2, you wouldn't have that problem. I just open the
settings notebook for the .exe, show it what it wants to see, and run the
damn thing. All my games have individually tailored configurations, and I
don't have to reboot, or even exit the game I'm playing to play another.
--
______________________________________________________________________
Jeff Kirvin | Proud member of Team OS/2! | lun...@asylum.hq.af.mil
"You are a lunatic. Go away. Pester someone else." Londo Mollari
Disclaimer: I do _not_ speak for the United States Air Force...
Jeff Kirvin
: In article <2sie0s$q...@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk>,
: Sean O'Connor <sp...@cus.cam.ac.uk> wrote:
: >However, if you write games which do suit Windows better there's some
: >real benefits. It doesn't matter what screen resolution, or number of colours,
: >or sound card the user has. Also there's so much code that you don't have
: >to write, like scollbars, menus, sound players, dialog boxes, minimizing, switching
: >into another program etc.. This makes non-fast action games in the style of
: >SimCity and Civilization much easier to write.
: That's what I thought, too, until I saw what Microprose had
: done with Civilization for Windows. Truly, an astoundingly
: _bad_ port. I've seen ports I thought were terrible, but
: CFW takes the cake, the plate, the platter, the table and the
: house.
Is it worse than Civ for the Amiga? Butt-ugly if I ever saw one. They took
the DOS version and dumped it on the Amiga, except since the Amiga has
no 256 color resolution, the made it 16 color instead of 4096. Ugh.
: --
: "If I went apeshit in here, you'd be in a lot of trouble, wouldn't you? I
: could screw your head off and place it on the table to greet the guard."
: -- Edmund Kemper, convicted serial killer, to
: Robert K. Ressler ("Whoever Fights Monsters")
--
0018...@ysub.ysu.edu
iyo...@vasquezwright.edu (Ian Young) writes:
>
>In article <16FC97844...@ysub.ysu.edu>, 0018...@ysub.ysu.edu writes:
>|> Yes DOS still kicks butt in anything that requires true innovation, power,
>|> or speed. OS/2 is ok, but then you get restricted by DPMI which is like a
>|> choke chain on your protected mode programs. Windows is even worse. I hope
>|> that the industry realizes that MS-DOS is still the most flexible and
>|> adaptable OS around and that it is here to stay for good. It would be nice
>|> to see the code optimized for later processors though such as the 386.
>|> But we can't have everything.
>|>
>|> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
>|> today's definition: Windoze- a sure cure for insomnia.
>|> Paul Silver
>
>
>
>okay, hold on a second. Firstly, MS-DOS and innovation are two mutually exclusive terms.
>if Microsoft had true innovation in mind, it wouldn't have backed out of the OS/2 deal.
>DOS may be fast, but so would my car if i ripped off the body panels, the interior, and the
>roof, but it would be completely useless except for speed. Dos is zippy, but the question is--
>Do you want to play games and write programs that can only do one thing at a time at the exclusion
>of other programs, or do you want to run multiple programs that share a common memory model and r
>driver system. Big graphical applications for DOS all use their own special methods of dealing with
>peripherals, and you can't run them together. Face it, the future is in multitasking 32 bit OSs, and
release of DOS is supposed to have formal multitasking included. And besides,
I'm not opposed to multitasking but the standards that Windows imposes on the
user application isn't worth the agony just to communicate with other programs.
>whining about how they won`t run fast enough on your old computer is getting you nowhere. Buy a new machine
>that will run them better than the old one did DOS. Face it, for all intents and purposes, DOS is on the way
>out. Having a stripped down hot-rod is a heck of a lot less useful than a big pickup truck.
OVERKILL.
>
>Ian
>-Standard disclaimers apply-
David Charles Leblanc
> Yes DOS still kicks butt in anything that requires true innovation, power,
>or speed.
Innovative? What these DOS games need is their very own operating system -
insert CD-ROM and let it COMPLETELY take over the hardware. I'm so sick
of having a worse time trying to configure a system to run a stupid game
than virtually anything else (including installing network support). Just
take over the whole damn machine, then let me go back to a normal config.
Or maybe ship boot floppies along with the game.
For an example of some fairly fast Windows action games, try Arcade from MS.
The aliens in Missle Command are extremely quick - this is on a 486/66
with a medium performance video card.
--
David Charles LeBlanc
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332
Internet: gt6...@acme.gatech.edu
Sean O'Connor
>And for good reason, I'm a games programmer. Rather than releasing a DOS
>port of my latest game, I decided it was time to embrace Windows. Sadly,
>my advice is DON'T. To write a games program in Windows, you must do
>everything the Windows-way.
I've started writing games for Windows and I disagree with some of what
you said. I agree that there's a massive speed loss compared to DOS - Even
Atari STs and Amigas are way faster at drawing sprites than any
486s. Obviously, this makes games like Doom and flight sims impossible to
do in Windows.
However, if you write games which do suit Windows better there's some
real benefits. It doesn't matter what screen resolution, or number of colours,
or sound card the user has. Also there's so much code that you don't have
to write, like scollbars, menus, sound players, dialog boxes, minimizing, switching
into another program etc.. This makes non-fast action games in the style of
SimCity and Civilization much easier to write. My first game, "Mother Of All
Battles!" (a demo is in FTP.CICA.INDIANA.EDU in windows/games/mother12.zip)
didn't need DOS's speed but would have taken much longer to write for DOS.
compete with them. So I reckon that the future of PC games is with Windows.
>I know Microsoft wants games written for MS Windows *real bad*,
>but they have to learn to adjust to the gaming community, rather than
>telling us we have to make do with what we've got. Not to slam
>Windows; on the whole I quite like it, and I use it for my business
>apps. But Windows is a very bad choice as a game platform.
If Microsoft want games written for Windows then better BitBlt functions
would be nice. Like one that will would generate masks for sprites, and
one for rotating sprites.
Sean.
R S Rodgers
>:_bad_ port. I've seen ports I thought were terrible, but
>:CFW takes the cake, the plate, the platter, the table and the
>:house.
>
>Is it worse than Civ for the Amiga? Butt-ugly if I ever saw one. They took
>the DOS version and dumped it on the Amiga, except since the Amiga has
>no 256 color resolution, the made it 16 color instead of 4096. Ugh.
Not having seen the Amiga version, I can't say. But my initial
reaction was going to be to respond that the only way it could be
worse is if it just put up solid black squares and was
unplayable.
But then again, maybe that would have been better. I gues the
best way to describe COW is to say that, on a 486dx2-66 VLB Viper 2MB
system, it's too slow to play, and the graphics are so noisy that
it's near impossible to see things.
Oh, yes. Almost forgot. Everything gets distorted and near-unusable
at any res above 640x480.
(Not that Civilization for DOS was ever a well-written wonder
program -- and it _is_ my favorite game of all time -- being full
of bugs and all, but at least you could _play_ it. I can't believe
MicroProse, who also made another favorit game (MOO), left this one
on the shelves. Awful.)
Ian Young
>>lot less useful than a big pickup truck.
>Only if you want to waste gas and spin the wheels. There is such a thing as
>OVERKILL.
yeah, but am I trying to outrace alien space monsters or downloading and
wordprocessing at the same time (which I do all the time!) try to do that
in your precious DOS at least windoze gives me the impression of
multitasking, instead of forcing me to write, quit, download, quit, write,
quit, download, quit, etc........
>
>> >>Ian
>>-Standard disclaimers apply-
once again, Ian,
-standard disclaimers etc....-x
Jim_...@transarc.com
gt6...@prism.gatech.edu (David Charles Leblanc) writes:
> 0018...@ysub.ysu.edu writes:
>
> > Yes DOS still kicks butt in anything that requires true innovation, power,
> >or speed.
>
> Innovative? What these DOS games need is their very own operating system -
> insert CD-ROM and let it COMPLETELY take over the hardware. I'm so sick
> of having a worse time trying to configure a system to run a stupid game
> than virtually anything else (including installing network support). Just
> take over the whole damn machine, then let me go back to a normal config.
> Or maybe ship boot floppies along with the game.
>
Oh, please no. This used to be the way many games worked. You rebooted
the machine with the game disk when you wanted to play the game, then
rebooted again when you were done. I have long since thrown out all
such games and certainly will not buy any such in the future.
******************************************************************
Jim Mann jm...@transarc.com
Transarc Corporation
The Gulf Tower, 707 Grant Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15219 (412) 338-4442
Baseball has no penalties at all. A home run is a home run. You cheer.
In football, on a score, you look for flags. If there's one, who's it
on? When can we cheer? Football acts can all be repealed. Baseball acts
stand forever.
-- Tom Boswell, "99 Reasons Why Baseball Is Better than Football"
Steven Hugg
: In article <CqKJn...@hatch.socal.com>, b...@hatch.socal.com (Brendan Jones) says:
: I've started writing games for Windows and I disagree with some of what
: you said. I agree that there's a massive speed loss compared to DOS - Even
: Atari STs and Amigas are way faster at drawing sprites than any
: 486s. Obviously, this makes games like Doom and flight sims impossible to
: do in Windows.
But one thing you DO get is access to the awesome acceleration functions
of the user's video card! I am sure there are few, if any, flight sims. or
3D games that use the full power of the video card out today. I'm guessing
that you could increase throughput 10x using the accelerators ... but
you'll never see it in DOS, because there are 1000's of video accelerators
out there, for which a lot of vendors won't even release programming
information (like Diamond, grrr...)
: However, if you write games which do suit Windows better there's some
: real benefits. It doesn't matter what screen resolution, or number of colours,
: or sound card the user has. Also there's so much code that you don't have
: to write, like scollbars, menus, sound players, dialog boxes, minimizing, switching
: into another program etc.. This makes non-fast action games in the style of
: SimCity and Civilization much easier to write. My first game, "Mother Of All
: Battles!" (a demo is in FTP.CICA.INDIANA.EDU in windows/games/mother12.zip)
: didn't need DOS's speed but would have taken much longer to write for DOS.
: compete with them. So I reckon that the future of PC games is with Windows.
I agree. It saved me from writing a zillion sound drivers and GUI modules ...
and my game runs on anything from 16 colors to 24 bit 1600x1200. (Check
out "Comet Busters", COMET.ZIP on an FTP site near you)
But I don't think the future of games is with Windows, since you need
unrestricted access to the hardware to do the really cool stuff...
: If Microsoft want games written for Windows then better BitBlt functions
: would be nice. Like one that will would generate masks for sprites, and
: one for rotating sprites.
Here here!
--
Steven E. Hugg
hu...@cs.fsu.edu
Ian Young
pardon???? Dos is the ideal developement area for games etc....???
Surely you don't mean the crappy 16 bit dos we've had for fifteen years???
ick! Listen... If you want games for your little toy, buy a little toy.
the Atari Jaguars are out an hot, get one of them for your infantile diversions.
Okay, so doom is "kool". fine. good. keep dos around to run this version, but don't
come crying when the Win4 version comes out in 32 bit mode and you still piddle with
DOS, the OS for nitwits.
PS, so what if Win runs over the New DOS, the new DOS will be (mostly) 32bit multiprocessing,
more like UNIX, which kicks butt (but not for the little nintendo freaks who insist on games for
their "developement tool") waaaahhhhh you lose your pacifier, hey, move up to the world of silverware,
live with Win4 (or OS/2 or Linux or WinNT, or whatever, just not MS-DUHs)
Rainer Deyke
: >And for good reason, I'm a games programmer. Rather than releasing a DOS
: >port of my latest game, I decided it was time to embrace Windows. Sadly,
: >my advice is DON'T. To write a games program in Windows, you must do
: >everything the Windows-way.
: I've started writing games for Windows and I disagree with some of what
: you said. I agree that there's a massive speed loss compared to DOS - Even
: Atari STs and Amigas are way faster at drawing sprites than any
: 486s. Obviously, this makes games like Doom and flight sims impossible to
: do in Windows.
: However, if you write games which do suit Windows better there's some
: real benefits. It doesn't matter what screen resolution, or number of colours,
: or sound card the user has. Also there's so much code that you don't have
: to write, like scollbars, menus, sound players, dialog boxes, minimizing, switching
: into another program etc.. This makes non-fast action games in the style of
: SimCity and Civilization much easier to write. My first game, "Mother Of All
: Battles!" (a demo is in FTP.CICA.INDIANA.EDU in windows/games/mother12.zip)
: didn't need DOS's speed but would have taken much longer to write for DOS.
: compete with them. So I reckon that the future of PC games is with Windows.
These scrollbars, menus, etc. are lots faster in DOS. They're also
extremely easy to program. I think the best approach to writing games
for a GUI-based OS is using an internal buffer to write the graphics to
and then using putimage() or a similar function to output the graphics.
Ron Asbestos Dippold
>wordprocessing at the same time (which I do all the time!) try to do that
>in your precious DOS at least windoze gives me the impression of
>multitasking, instead of forcing me to write, quit, download, quit, write,
Right before it crashes and takes everything with it. And, since you
might have been in the middle of updating the file, Word 6 does it's
usual '"Can't load this file. OK" with no hope of recovery' thing.
Running ambitious games in Windows seems to be a very risky
proposition. I found out the hard way that trusting my data to
Windows when it's working hard is like trusting Congress with money.
--
Feed me, Seymour!
x91t...@wmich.edu
> In <CqKJn...@hatch.socal.com> b...@hatch.socal.com (Brendan Jones) writes:
>>forget Windows 3.1 - for doing your stereotypical Windows applets
>>it's fine - but for games it just doesn't cut the mustard.
>
> For a large section of todays games I certainly agree with you, but there
> is a significant proportion of games that _do_ look like a stereotypical
> windows application. Sim City type games are the obvious candidates, and
> isnt there a windows version of Civilisation now?
>
>>We want pretty graphics, and fast! Back to the drawing board, guys.
>
> ....in which case, DOS cant be beaten yet. Sad but true.
>
Just another reason to advocate OS/2. OS/2 will let you
still write GOOD FAST DOS games if you want and have them run under
OS/2 if you don't use some stupid memory management routine that is
incompatible with the world. If you want more power, you can write
your game for OS/2 full screen or you can write to the OS/2
presentation manager. OS/2 GUI programs can have good speed because
PM still lets you get right to the metal if you want. Plus OS/2
has preemptive multitasking and threads.
If you disagree with me. Think about it like this, if
Windows didn't exist at all and it was just DOS and then OS/2 as
the obvious successor do you think we'd be having this converation?
No, we would be crying that the game makers aren't moving their programs
to OS/2 fast enough.
Hopefully a year from now there will be some good OS/2 games
to back my claim up!!
> - Toby Dickenson
Clay Alberts
Windows seems to crash on me a lot when I am using my frame grabber. It
might be the way I have something set up but I don't use Windows a lot
(just for my frame grabber because the software only runs in Windows) so
I have no idea what I am doing wrong. I just reload Windows when it crashes
and start again (which is very annoying).
Chad
R S Rodgers
>>ask to be added to the beta list in the WINMM forum on Compuserve,
>>as they're taking everyone who applies seriously--but until then,
>>the "state of the art" for Windows games is the MS Arcade Pack. I
>>haven't seen much else that wasn't laughably bad, graphically, except
>>for card games and Tetris.
>
>ask for it?
Don't know.
Terry Sikes
>>Microsoft seems to be encouraging one to run in a window but that window can
>>be the size of the screen and one can write on the whole screen (even where
>>the window frame is). Windows was painful to learn but I'm convinced Windows
>>is the future of games programming on PCs.
>
>up the ugly windows screen, game players will buy consoles
>instead. And when the market disappears, so do the games.
Bzzzt! Wrong! Thanks for playing... ;)
--
Terry Sikes == tsi...@netcom.com | All I want is a baseline 1/1/1 machine:
Alternate address: tsi...@fatcity.com | 1000 MIPS, 1000 MB RAM, and 1000 GB HD.
Also tls...@bix.com, tsi...@aol.com |
All my opinions reflect my views only!| Is that too much to ask?
n...@babel.cb.att.com
Brendan Jones <b...@hatch.socal.com> wrote:
>>David Ransier (dav...@wv.mentorg.com) wrote:
>>I'm confused because there are so many people HANGING ON WITH TIGHT GRIPS to
>> DOS (the caps are to emphasis how strongly the opinions seem to be.)
>>
[snip]
>Somehow I know instinctively you have never written a high performance
>game under Windows... ;)
[a really well done and correct critique of doing games the Windows way
deleted]
>I spent a lot of time, but in the end I had to give up. It was like
[snip]
>I know Microsoft wants games written for MS Windows *real bad*,
>but they have to learn to adjust to the gaming community, rather than
>telling us we have to make do with what we've got. Not to slam
>Windows; on the whole I quite like it, and I use it for my business
>apps. But Windows is a very bad choice as a game platform.
Was. Right now *is* remains correct. Windows without WinG is not
appropriate for fast graphics animation. But the advent of things like WinG
make the Windows system a whole nuther beast. We could have used WinG when
3.1 came out.
>We want pretty graphics, and fast! Back to the drawing board, guys.
DOOM at native speed fast enough for you? A whole bunch of us saw it, it
was either real or Microsoft and ID have pulled off one heck of a mass
hallucination.
Speaking of back to the drawing board, I get really irate at VGA games.
Here at work I have a 1280x1024x256 display. (It's 4 years old and in no
way VGA compatible). At home it's 1024x768x256. It's almost as old, and
it is VGA compatible, BUT WHY SHOULD I BE FORCED TO LOOK AT GRAPHICS THAT
LOOK LIKE THEY WERE HEWN FROM STONE WITH A BLUNT CHISEL? 320x200x256? How
come I can't play these games on the finest machine I have access to? I
hate looking at color blobs painted on a dozen pixels each. Should we
mention software that turns OFF the 10 MIP accelerator on the graphics card in
order to use the slowest and lowest resolution mode on the system?
>cheers
>bj
It's time for the dinosaurs to notice the chill in the air. There's lot's
of forage out there for them today, but the frost warnings are being posted.
Neil Kirby DoD# 0783 n...@babel.cb.att.com
AT&T Bell Labs Columbus OH USA (614) 860-5304
President Internet BMW Riders
It's very red. It's very fast. And it's mine: 1994 R1100RSL
R S Rodgers
>real benefits. It doesn't matter what screen resolution, or number of colours,
>or sound card the user has. Also there's so much code that you don't have
>to write, like scollbars, menus, sound players, dialog boxes, minimizing, switching
>into another program etc.. This makes non-fast action games in the style of
>SimCity and Civilization much easier to write.
That's what I thought, too, until I saw what Microprose had
done with Civilization for Windows. Truly, an astoundingly
_bad_ port. I've seen ports I thought were terrible, but
CFW takes the cake, the plate, the platter, the table and the
house.
0018...@ysub.ysu.edu
William Dieterich
[Stuff deleted]
>
>For an example of some fairly fast Windows action games, try Arcade from MS.
>The aliens in Missle Command are extremely quick - this is on a 486/66
>with a medium performance video card.
>
Actually ms-Arcade is an excellent example of games running under windows.
First the person who wrote it, as an employee of Microsoft, had access to
large amounts of knowledge about the internals. He then took 10 year old
games that ran fast when they first came out, added some small changes, and
then using really fast hardware was able to get the same speed that chips
the speed of 286 were getting.
You did get I nice little window around each game, but who cares for that.
--
William Dieterich Call Sign: KD4LZE
Email: wdie...@rainbow.sosi.edu
x90wa...@wmich.edu
>
> In article <2si25h$m...@ugle.unit.no>,
> Fabian Gonzalez <fab...@alkymi.unit.no> wrote:
>
>> Windows is the death to PC games development. When all PS'c just show
>> up the ugly windows screen, game players will buy consoles
>> instead. And when the market disappears, so do the games.
>
>
> all the damn dip switches every time they play a game. I have a different
> CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT for just about every game. Windows is even
> worse! Every tried to uninstall an application in Windows?
>
>
> That machine is DESIGNED for games (unlike PC's).
I strongly disagree. I think that there is definitely a
large market for those areas but most of the games purchased today
(for PC's) are not done by teens or children but by adults who use
them themselves. I know of few adults who are willing to make a
conscious effort or choice to spend a few hundred to buy a dedicated
game machine.
(The following statements are of course just my opinions)
I believe that DOS will be around for manyy many years to come.
There is jsut too much installed software around and even if there weren't
the huge DOS game market makes it a certainty that DOS games will be
around for some time to come.
Moreover, even if DOS does virtually die, game companies will
just include a run time verison of DOS or something for those games that
absolutely need to control the machine.
GUI's are great for (as someone else said) the thinking man's
game. Presently, an action intensive game is not real practical on
a GUI for the following reasons:
#1] Windows and OS/2 do not presently allow you to change
the resolution on the fly. Someone mentioned that the accelerators
speed things up greatly and I totally agree to an extent. The office
I work at has Radius XGA-2's and Diamond Stealth Pro's which are very
fast but I don't think that a gamee DOOM would run particularly well at
1280x1024 or 1024x768x256 colors which is what most users with good
video cards run at. Doom would probably run VERY well under OS/2 or
Windows at 640x480x256 or (on the fastest video cards) 800x600x256.
It's presently too much of an annoyance for most to close what you're
doing and reset the system just to play a game when you can much easier
load a DOS session and play it there.
#2] I know from experience that writing games that work right
at every imaginable combination of resolution and color is a BIG PAIN
IN THE ...REAR. You lose a lot of control when you have Player #1
running at 1024x768x256 but player 2 is running at 640x480x16. It
would be economic suicide to force a Windows or OS/2 user to have to
choose a particular resolution to run their system (their entire
environment mind you) just to play your game. Probably about 10% of
the development time of GalCiv (and OS/2 GUI game) has been spent
getting it to run well at every resolution. For example, every space
ship has 4 or so different versions of it to fit different resolutions
and color depths. You can argue that you could just do 1 version and
stretch it appropriately but then you decide which resolutions are going
to suffer?
#3] CONTROL OF THE DRIVERS and GRAPHICS CARDS. You write for
DOS and you have total control over the sound and graphics whereas you
don't with an OS like Windows or OS/2. You have to rely on the drivers
supplied by people like Creative Labs. It gets frustrating having
testers tell you that the game hung at portion X and you know it is
probably because the buggy sound drivers put out by company Y are
doing something wrong. Writing for DOS gives you the knowledge that
if something hangs that it is your fault (assuming not a TSR or
something which can quickly be weeded out).
But these are temporary problems in general. It would be nice
if OS/2 was the only game in town. It offers fullscreen modes which
have the benefits of DOS programming but have OS/2's multithreaded
power and 32bit architecture or a powerful GUI engine (PM) with DIVE
which means you can have control over the graphics if you want.
In conclusion, I think that for now, action games and the like
are best suited for real mode OS's like DOS (in general). The guys who
made DOOM (ID) are incredible wizards and could probably get the thing
working well on any platform but I am talking in general.
SPresently, Action games are best on full screen platforms
(DOS or OS/2) and Thinking games are best on GUI platforms (Windows
and OS/2). The key here is presently. OS/2 2.2 and Windows 4 will
have on the fly resolution changes and the computers will get faster
and faster. When that time comes, it will be a totally different..ballgame.
Sorry to ramble.
Brad
n...@babel.cb.att.com
Mark S. Wyman <wy...@sealion.cig.mot.com> wrote:
>ka...@Csli.Stanford.EDU (Ken Kahn) writes:
>
>>I saw DOOM running under Windows and it was NOT slow. It is true that
>>Microsoft seems to be encouraging one to run in a window but that window can
>>be the size of the screen and one can write on the whole screen (even where
>>the window frame is). Windows was painful to learn but I'm convinced Windows
>>is the future of games programming on PCs.
>
>A Sextium?
A 486 DX 2/66 VL bus machine. They did NOT bring a Pentium precisely for
credibility reasons.
THey were seeing performance very close to "native" speeds. I remember
numbers in the 90 to 100% range. In other words, as fast as it would go
under DOS for the same display size. Blow it up to 640x480 or 800x600 and
you get slowdowns - DOOM is pixel bound.
Jim_...@transarc.com
> In article <2sihld$f...@montego.umcc.umich.edu>,
> I have never heard the word "good" applied to a Windows game....though I
> am sure some, some where has said it......but they probably wrote it,
> too. :-)
OK. I'll do so now: the Maxis games (such as SimCity for Windows) are
good games. Perhaps Windows isn't currently the best best platform
for fast action shoot-em-ups. But it's great for Simulation games, for
strategy games, an so forth.
******************************************************************
Jim Mann jm...@transarc.com
Transarc Corporation
The Gulf Tower, 707 Grant Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15219 (412) 338-4442
Football coaches talk about character, gut checks, intensity and
reckless abandon. Tommy Lasorda said, "Managing is like holding a dove
in your hand. Squeeze too hard and you kill it; not hard enough and it
flies away."
Bernd Backhaus
> In article <2sircv$3...@mailer.fsu.edu>, hu...@xi.cs.fsu.edu (Steven Hugg)
> writes:
> > you'll never see it in DOS, because there are 1000's of video
> > accelerators out there, for which a lot of vendors won't even release
> > programming information (like Diamond, grrr...)
> >
> Diamond doesn't make their own chips, they buy them from a variety
> of sources. Check out places like S3, Cirrus Logic, or Tseng Labs
> for chip specs. Obviously the board logic will make a difference,
> but it's a start.
that's right, but they use a proprietary mechanism for the selection of pixel
clock frequencies which they don't reveal (except for the cards with Cirrus
Logic chips which have an internal clock generator). Too bad :-(
Cheers,
Bernd.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bernd Backhaus email: be...@bbbo.ping.de
Am Schamberge 56 Compuserve: 100111,3061
44879 Bochum Fidonet: 2:2445/53.8
Germany
R S Rodgers
>A 486 DX 2/66 VL bus machine. They did NOT bring a Pentium precisely for
>credibility reasons.
>
>THey were seeing performance very close to "native" speeds. I remember
>numbers in the 90 to 100% range. In other words, as fast as it would go
>under DOS for the same display size.
Well, that depends. For one thing, the card that they were using
(at least, at the games conference) was a Viper VLB, I'm told, which
happens to be the same card as in this machine. One hell of a fast
Windows card in terms of both accelleration and ->VRAM framebuffer
performance. But it's not so hot under DOS. In fact, it's likely
that the benefit of using the card in linear FB mode over the VLB
is more than enough of a speed advantage over the relatively slow
Weitek 5286 ISA VGA chip that even at ~twice the actual screen size
(e.g., Doom runs @ 320x240, WinDoom running in a 600x400 window) to
make WinDoom look "as fast as native."
What would be more interesting is to hear how well WinDoom on an
ET4000 VLB card compares to Doom with the same card under DOS.
(Of course, all those users who have S3, P9000, Matrox and XGA cards
with crummy VGA performance aren't going to compare if WinDoom runs
as fast as native because of this catch or not, they'll just be glad
that it is.)
Mark Huth
>In article <1994Jun1.2...@pony.ingres.com>,
>Ed Goldman <e...@Ingres.COM> wrote:
>> cl...@montego.umcc.umich.edu (Clay Alberts) writes:
>>
>> As much as I like OS/2, IBM just hasn't yet been able to unseat Windows
>> with it on John Q Public's desktops. If (and I emphasize if) Chicago
>> lives up to spec, I predict slow deaths for OS/2, Windows 3.1 and DOS.
>> I for one am going to be boning up a bit on the WIN32 API ...
>One OS to rule them all and in the darkness, bind them.
>If Chicago *does* crush all before it, we will still be using pretty much the
>same version 20 years from now.
>You heard it here. That's another reason why I use OS/2. Without
>competition, look forward to paying a lot more for software.
Oh, come on! Isn't this just a tad melodramatic? I remember the 1970's well.
IBM was viewed by their corporate accounts as the devil incarnate. They'd
walk in and announce that the company had to upgrade their equipment because
the IBM product was going to be upgraded. Customers looked for alternative...
thus Amhdal and other companies were formed. If MS failed to provide product
another vendor would provide what was needed. I like competition too, but
I don't see any lack of it in todays market...in any sector.
>
>--
>Steve Withers / Wellington, New Zealand
>ste...@actrix.gen.nz (all night)
>with...@delphi.com (weekly)
>swit...@vnet.ibm.com (all day) One of these days I'll have to get a life.
Bryan C. Dunne
>I have never heard the word "good" applied to a Windows game....though I
>am sure some, some where has said it......but they probably wrote it,
>too. :-)
Try Microsoft Golf (created by MS and Access - who brought us LinksPro,
one of the greatest DOS golf games), Dynamix Pinball - the Leisure Suit
Larry board is the best, and my personal favorite Whac-A-Mole.
If you used to pop quarters into Atari's bankrolls as a kid, the MS Arcade
is a fun trip, too.
wem...@fms0.cca.rockwell.com
In article <2sl44t$s...@hq.hq.af.mil>, lun...@asylum.hq.af.mil (Jeff Kirvin) writes:
>wem...@fms0.cca.rockwell.com wrote:
>
>: In article <2si25h$m...@ugle.unit.no>,
>: Fabian Gonzalez <fab...@alkymi.unit.no> wrote:
>
>: > Windows is the death to PC games development. When all PS'c just show
>: > up the ugly windows screen, game players will buy consoles
>: > instead. And when the market disappears, so do the games.
>
>: That is exactly right. People don't want to take apart their PC's and flip
>: all the damn dip switches every time they play a game. I have a different
>: CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT for just about every game. Windows is even
>: worse! Every tried to uninstall an application in Windows?
>
>If you were running OS/2, you wouldn't have that problem. I just open the
>settings notebook for the .exe, show it what it wants to see, and run the
>damn thing. All my games have individually tailored configurations, and I
>don't have to reboot, or even exit the game I'm playing to play another.
Too bad OS/2 wasn't originally written for 386 PM and priced at $39!
All I've heard is good things about OS/2 and complaints about Windoze. The
real question is, can OS/2 really start grabbing enough market share that
developers will take it seriously?
-Wayne.
The Pumpkin King
: ste...@actrix.gen.nz (Steve Withers) writes:
: > In article <2sihld$f...@montego.umcc.umich.edu>,
: > I have never heard the word "good" applied to a Windows game....though I
: > am sure some, some where has said it......but they probably wrote it,
: > too. :-)
: OK. I'll do so now: the Maxis games (such as SimCity for Windows) are
: good games. Perhaps Windows isn't currently the best best platform
: for fast action shoot-em-ups. But it's great for Simulation games, for
: strategy games, an so forth.
As much as I hate Windows, I have to agree with the above. The only game
that I use a lot in Windows is RoboSport for Windows. REally a great
game, with excellent multiplayer capabilities...
: ******************************************************************
: Jim Mann jm...@transarc.com
--
/* sig.c */
main() {
printf("%s", silly_quote);
Silly_Ascii_Picture();
Address_Info("atsp...@ucdavis.edu", *phone_number);
} /* main.c */
Sean O'Connor
> ask to be added to the beta list in the WINMM forum on Compuserve,
> as they're taking everyone who applies seriously--but until then,
> the "state of the art" for Windows games is the MS Arcade Pack. I
> haven't seen much else that wasn't laughably bad, graphically, except
> for card games and Tetris.
Do you know if I can get hold of a copy if I'm not on Compuserve? Who do I
ask for it?
Sean.
Jerry Shekhel
:
: I think the best approach to writing games
: for a GUI-based OS is using an internal buffer to write the graphics to
: and then using putimage() or a similar function to output the graphics.
On most systems, that is the only approach possible -- you can optimize the
putimate() step by using dirty rectangles, but that's about it. On the
other hand, if you're using a Silicon Graphics machine, you get real double
buffering in a window (!!!).
--
+-------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------+
| JERRY J. SHEKHEL | Molecular Simulations Inc. | Junta drew a picture of |
| Drummers do it... | Burlington, MA USA | nectar and hoisted the |
| ... In rhythm! | je...@msi.com | lawn boy over the rift. |
+-------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------+
Brendan Jones
>All this arguing about whether DOS or Windows is better for games misses the
>point. Presumably, those in the business of writing games intend to
>make money. There is a _huge_ pent up demand for decent Windows games, so anyon
Who says there is a "huge pent up demand for decent Windows games?"
Everyone has DOS. If you want to play a game, type Alt-F4 to go to
DOS and play it from there, or worst case play it in the DOS box.
You're implying people are shunning games because they don't run
under Windows, and that as soon as a Windows game is released people
will come running in furious hordes eager to spend their cash.
A game is a game is a game. It doesn't matter what platform it's
on.
>Microsoft are providing support to you by releasing
>the WinG library (docs are downloadable from Compu$erve, GO MSDS, download
>wing.zip),
Yes, Microsoft are finally making some positive moods here. A welcome
step, since I found their treatment of the games industry as somewhat
contemptuous. They were presenting a platform ill suited to our needs,
and just expected us to hop on.
>so I suggest that you ignore the disadvantages of programming under
>Windows (slower, new API to learn) and focus on the benefits (device
>independence, ready built UI components, new market).
>All the arguments against Windows games are exact rehashes [...]
Grrr... I get annoyed at the tone of these posts. It seems the people
critising we games programers for not all abandoning DOS for Windows
don't have a good grip on the issues. I *tried damned hard* to use
Windows for a high-performance game and I found it to be very ill
suited. It's not a matter that "we're too lazy to use the API" as
you seem to think. I use the Windows API for business apps, but for
games *it sucks*.
I want to check out this WinG thing; have Microsoft made the doc
available for ftp? (Their last bunch of similar notes were only
readable using the latest version of Microsoft Word (I run 1.1 quite
happily and I'm not shelling out $200 to upgrade so I can read some
MS PR). The RTF version they provided was only readable by (you
guessed it) the RTF filter provided with the latest version of
Microsoft Word). If I sound a bit p*ed off about this I am!
Microsoft have to treat developers they need with a bit more
consideration...
In article <2skj02$n...@twonky.btv.ibm.com> pon...@btvlabvm.vnet.ibm.com writes:
>
>In article <2sircv$3...@mailer.fsu.edu>, hu...@xi.cs.fsu.edu (Steven Hugg) writes:
>>
>> But one thing you DO get is access to the awesome acceleration functions
>> of the user's video card! I am sure there are few, if any, flight sims. or
>> 3D games that use the full power of the video card out today. I'm guessing
>> that you could increase throughput 10x using the accelerators ... but
>> you'll never see it in DOS, because there are 1000's of video accelerators
>> out there, for which a lot of vendors won't even release programming
>> information (like Diamond, grrr...)
>>
>Most of those Windows accelerator boards are just that - Windows
>accelerators. Most are not general purpose graphics accelerators.
>If you need to do what they do well, then you are in luck. If not...
Well said. If it was a games card (games=high performance graphics)
then it'd be worth the effort; y'know - I give it the coordinates of
a polygon and a texture bitmap - and it plonks it all on the screen
in real time - then yeah; it *would* be worth the effort. (I know
IBM's RS/6000's can draw polygons *with* gourad shading in hardware;
so it can certainly be done!). But if it's just accelerating your
average Windows functions - nope.
BTW, when are we going to see someone produce a games card like this?
(please!)
In article <2sl80q$8...@acmez.gatech.edu> gt6...@prism.gatech.edu (David Charles Leblanc) writes:
>
>For an example of some fairly fast Windows action games, try Arcade from MS.
>The aliens in Missle Command are extremely quick - this is on a 486/66
>with a medium performance video card.
>
Hmmm...
Games programmers are setting their sights a bit higher than that.
Run Ultima 7 on the same 486/66 with a medium performance video
card and tell me which impressed you more? (Hell; I play Ultima 7
on my 386sx-20 and get away with it).
Anyway, WinG sounds worth a look...
cheers
bj
--
"[NSF head] Dr. Wolff suggested barring mature services [..] In particular,
NSF could bar the mail and news protocols [..] from the backbone and thereby
encourage private providers to offer a national mail backbone [..]" -RFC 1192.
Brian Hook
> Microsoft Word). If I sound a bit p*ed off about this I am!
> Microsoft have to treat developers they need with a bit more
> consideration...
*chuckle*
See now, there's the fallacy in your thought...since when has Microsoft
needed a damned thing from anyone other than the FTC and Justice
Department?
:-)
> BTW, when are we going to see someone produce a games card like this?
> (please!)
Last I heard Artist Graphics is developing something (3GA?) that does just
this. Note though, that most "low-priced" 3D accelerators are still CPU
bound -- basically they make the CPU the bottleneck and the video card
transparent. For a good laugh, take a look at the specs for the Matrox MGA
Ultima -- something like "60K flat polygons/second". Then read the fine
print "peak bandwidth, actual speed 23K/second on a Pentium/60" These may
not be the specifics, but basically they are optimizing the living hell out
of 2D operations, and the traditionally slow things (transformations) are
still unaccelerated.
This is why some "dream" boards seem so cheap -- they are fast, but only as
fast as the CPU you attach them to. Other boards, such as the old i860
accelerators, could handle a lot of the math chores onboard, making the CPU
a glorified input device. Actually, the older 34020/34082 TI boards were
like this too. I guess they found out that it was more cost effective
letting the CPU do the main work and accelerated the 2D functions.
The fundamental problem with supporting weird hardware is that designing a
new chip is a lot easier (and money making) than the accompanying software.
Currently, hardware development cycles run about 1 year long -- since the
first accelerated S3 chip came out, ca. 1991, S3 has introduced the 924,
928, 801, 805, and now the new 964 and 864 chips. And we (software
developers) are supposed to keep up with this?!
Brian
--
+-----------------------------------------------------------------+
| Brian Hook | Specializing in real-time 3D graphics |
| Box 90315 |-----------------------------------------|
| Gainesville, FL 32607 | Internet: b...@cis.ufl.edu | Free Tibet! |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------+
James A. Dahl
: Yes DOS still kicks butt in anything that requires true innovation, power,
: or speed. OS/2 is ok, but then you get restricted by DPMI which is like a
: choke chain on your protected mode programs. Windows is even worse. I hope
: that the industry realizes that MS-DOS is still the most flexible and
: adaptable OS around and that it is here to stay for good. It would be nice
: to see the code optimized for later processors though such as the 386.
: But we can't have everything.
If you were writing a game for OS/2, I dont think you'd write it using DOS
memory management (DPMI), though yes, that would be rather like choking it :)
(of course it would then have the advantage of working under DOS/Windows, but
then it wouldn't really be an OS/2 game, would it, since it would run in a
VDM).
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jim Dahl | da...@cs.und.nodak.edu
University of North Dakota | jad...@badlands.nodak.edu
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Bill Poitras
: >> Having a stripped down hot-rod is a heck of a
: >>lot less useful than a big pickup truck.
: >Only if you want to waste gas and spin the wheels. There is such a thing as
: >OVERKILL.
: yeah, but am I trying to outrace alien space monsters or downloading and
: wordprocessing at the same time (which I do all the time!) try to do that
: in your precious DOS at least windoze gives me the impression of
: multitasking, instead of forcing me to write, quit, download, quit, write,
: quit, download, quit, etc........
But many games don't run very well under Windows. OS/2 is a better
platform for running games AND running productivity apps. Even Windows
apps.
--
+-------------------+----------------------------+------------------------+
| Bill Poitras | Molecular Simulations Inc. | Tel (617)229-9800 |
| bi...@msi.com | Burlington, MA 01803-5297 | FAX (617)229-9899 |
+-------------------+----------------------------+------------------------+
|FTP Mail |mail ftp...@decwrl.dec.com | Offers:ftp via email |
| |Subject:<CR>help<CR>quit | |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Brian Hacking
Pumpkin King) wrote:
> As much as I hate Windows, I have to agree with the above. The only game
> that I use a lot in Windows is RoboSport for Windows. REally a great
> game, with excellent multiplayer capabilities...
>
I found RoboSport to be rather tedious to play. The robots need some kind
of macro or program capability so I can tell them to "cautiously advance to
point X" (move slow and look around a lot) and then "aggressively cover
area Y" (grenade anything that moves). I got tired of plotting every
single step, look, shoot....
I like Spaceward Ho! for Windows. Playable, fun, fairly simple interface.
And one of the few multi-player/multi-computer/parallel-move-entry games
around! My only complaint is the limited resources in the universe which
often result in end games where players run out of resources and grind to a
halt.
*** These are my words, not Novell's ***
R S Rodgers
Rainer Deyke <rai...@mdddhd.fc.hp.com> wrote:
>R S Rodgers (rsro...@wam.umd.edu) wrote:
>: >What was the (ahem) hardware that was running Doom in Windows?
>
>:From what I understand, it was a Diamond Viper VLB 2MB and a
>:486 DX33.
>
>Wolfenstein 3d, an id game that uses an engine very similar to Doom,
>runs great on something as primitive as a 16MHz 386SX with 2Mb RAM.
Yes, but Doom doesn't run on a 386sx-16 with 2MB at all. And if
it did run (as it does on the 386sx-20 notebook machine next to
me), it would run so slowly and so poorly that the only thing
fast about it would be the "del *.*" command executed after
you managed to quit.
>I very much doubt that any Windows game runs as fast on the same
>machine. In fact, Windows barely runs at all on this computer.
Yes, well, that's nice. What you've done is said "a is like
b even though a can run on this and b cant, so C running b is
obviously going to be awful."
R S Rodgers
Rainer Deyke <rai...@mdddhd.fc.hp.com> wrote:
>Ian Young (iyo...@buddywright.edu) wrote:
>: pardon???? Dos is the ideal developement area for games etc....???
>: Surely you don't mean the crappy 16 bit dos we've had for fifteen years???
> ^^
>DOS can run 32 bit apps. Windows is based on 16 bit shit.
Always the literate one. WinDoom is a 32bit application.
Owen Lynn
Rainer Deyke <rai...@mdddhd.fc.hp.com> wrote:
>Ian Young (iyo...@buddywright.edu) wrote:
>suck for games. Unless Win4 is a *lot* better than Win3.1, I'll stick
>with a real OS that can handle screen output at a reasonable speed on
>a 386.
Umm, excuse me, but UNIX "has" X (X is open, so no one really "has" it)
and several GUI's run on top of X like OpenLook, and Motif. OS/2 has PM,
and the Workplace Shell runs on top of that. Both are graphics subsystems,
and are no more than just another process to the kernel. Windoze and NT
are different - you can't separate the GUI from the OS part. And if you
want screen output at a reasonable speed, OS/2 will step aside and let you
do it, if you ask it nicely.
--
Owen fnord Lynn +---------------+ I think you hear me knocking Bill, and I'm
ly...@magneto.physics.auburn.edu | coming in with Lee Reiswig, David Barnes,
lyn...@eng.auburn.edu +--------+ John Soyring and a copy of OS/2, and we're
Finger for PGP23a Key | going to play Neko the Cat until you release Chicago.
CathrynM
I'm a partner in a software testing company. We have been testing
Windows games, and we find that debugging Windows games is much more
expensive than debugging Dos games. What happens, is that Windows
development, in the early phases is roughly comparable to DOS in
expense. Then, what happens at the end of the project is that you get
all kinds of weird intermittant problem when you try to run the game
in the minimum memory configuration. You see, what happens is that
some VGA and Sound drivers use slightly more memory than other sound
drivers and VGA drivers. So, if you test in minimum ram on your
system, you'll still find that other machines out there will crash
when the system runs out of ram.
VGA and sound driver code is not all created equal. Some VGA drivers
and sound drivers have bugs that only appear when you bang them hard
with something like an animated video game.
The other problem is midimap.cfg -- and the tendency of different
sound card drivers to configure it differently. What happens is that
it's very difficult to get high quality, consistent music from the
Windows midi drivers.
...
You should carefully test your install code, I believe, because
what's going to happen is unless your careful, someone out there's
gonna' install your game on his system, something 'weird' is gonna'
happen. Then, some poor customer is going to be calling you saying
that he can't run Word any more after installing your game.
...
My impression is that Windows will work for games, though DOS will be
able to out-video Windows for most types of games. I'd say there is
a market for Windows game product, but don't forget that performance
counts also. In any animated game, the frame rate makes a big
difference in the quality of the experience. What'll win in the end?
I don't know.
Big Windows games will push the amount of memory customers need quite
a bit higher. Start thinking of 8 - 16 Meg RAM required for Windows
games with lots of animation.
Yevgeny Glazamitsky
>Steve Withers writes:
>>I have never heard the word "good" applied to a Windows game....though I
>>am sure some, some where has said it......but they probably wrote it,
>>too. :-)
>
>Try Microsoft Golf (created by MS and Access - who brought us LinksPro,
>one of the greatest DOS golf games),
Access did most of the work in developing MS Golf and their non-Windows based
golf games are lots better.
>Dynamix Pinball - the Leisure Suit Larry board is the best,
Is it the same Dynamix Pinball about which Computer Gaming World said "It can
be so bad as to be unplayable on a 386, and irritating on a 486"? Dynamix
does quality work, but even they cannot overcome basic platform problems.
Why is it platform problem and not implementation problem, you ask? Because
"Microsoft said that a pinball game would ask more of Windows than it could
deliver" (quote from same article).
>and my personal favorite Whac-A-Mole.
Never tried that.
>If you used to pop quarters into Atari's bankrolls as a kid, the MS Arcade
>is a fun trip, too.
Nostalgia only goes so far. Implementing 10-12 year old games is not much of
an achievement.
>
--
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am free! I am free! I am Microsoft-free at last! gl...@io.com
(Running OS/2 2.99 for Windows WITHOUT Windows)
CathrynM
screen. I'd be happy, as long as I can draw to an off screen buffer,
and then have the OS provide some reasonably coherent scheme for
copying only the modified bits of that buffer to the display.
In DOS, since I draw the mouse I can clean up all those fussy details
-- like making the mouse pointer never flicker when it's over
animation. I personally, do not want to deal with any system where I
can't insure that every frame, and every transition is absolutely
clean. Seeing weird redraws and trasitions just makes me wanna' gag.
Perhaps WinG can solve this?
...
I don't like the borders, it IS nice to be able to set the graphics
mode. I find that the Windows interface stuff is uniquely ugly. It
distracts, imo, from the game. So, it is nice to be able to set the
graphic mode to a resolution that fills the screen. Playing with
borders is ugly -- just look at how many people don't like
letter-boxed movies because of the border. And, redrawing all the
graphics for every graphic mode is just not realistic given the
budgets of games today.
...
Working on bizarre VGA cards of the future is a non-issue as far as
I'm concerned. I'm more worried about whether the game can be done
on the Sega, 3do, or the future Sega machines than anything else.
...
Does anyone, btw, have any information on what kind of Sound card
support WING has? Is it possible, for example, in Wing to load new
patches into the OPL3?
Yevgeny Glazamitsky
>Jim_...@transarc.com wrote:
>: ste...@actrix.gen.nz (Steve Withers) writes:
>: > In article <2sihld$f...@montego.umcc.umich.edu>,
>: > I have never heard the word "good" applied to a Windows game....though I
>: > am sure some, some where has said it......but they probably wrote it,
>: > too. :-)
>
>: OK. I'll do so now: the Maxis games (such as SimCity for Windows) are
>: good games. Perhaps Windows isn't currently the best best platform
>: for fast action shoot-em-ups. But it's great for Simulation games, for
>: strategy games, an so forth.
>
>As much as I hate Windows, I have to agree with the above. The only game
>that I use a lot in Windows is RoboSport for Windows. REally a great
>game, with excellent multiplayer capabilities...
that? Except for Robosport, all major commercial Windows games I know about
are ports of otherwise good Mac and Dos versions. The fact that Robosport
failed despite being a good game speaks against Windows games, not for them.
BTW, where are most posts on this thread originate from? I don't think it is
applicable any longer to some groups it is crossposted to.
Mike Levis - OS/2 2.11
>UNIX is OK (no GUI). Win4, WinNT, and OS/2 are all GUI based. GUIs
>suck for games. Unless Win4 is a *lot* better than Win3.1, I'll stick
>with a real OS that can handle screen output at a reasonable speed on
>a 386.
OS/2 is not GUI-based. It is a text-based operating system, although
it has had a GUI (Presentation Manager) bundled with it since OS/2 1.1
(this is roughly similar to bunding Windows 3.1 with DOS). In other words,
OS/2 graphics programs, like games, can be either GUI-based (Presentation
Manager apps) or they can take over the video (Full Screen apps) just like
DOS programs can. (Note: OS/2 1.x is the multi-tasking, multi-threaded,
and protected mode version of DOS, and OS/2 2.x is the 32-bit version)
I will let Official Windows Guru and Official Borland Spokesman Mike Timbol
debate you on the Windows 4.0 and Windows NT subject. :)
--
===== Mike Levis mle...@ringer.cs.utsa.edu =====
:: ftp ftp-os2.cdrom.com in /pub/os2/* for OS/2 :: Place
:: software and info. Tim Sipples' faq21e.zip :: stamp
::::::::::: in /pub/os2/all/info/faq/* ::::::::::: here.
Mike Levis - OS/2 2.11
>DOS *is* the future platform for games, and here's why...
[...blueprints for Microsoft Amusement Park, deleted...] :)
> 2. DOS is still faster than Windows, OS/2, etc.
>
> 3. DOS 7 will have 32 bit multitasking.
These two seem mutually exclusive. Right now, OS/2 has a small CPU
overhead because of the task scheduler. When DOS 7 gets multitasking
it will also have the overhead of the task scheduler (it should be
a small overhead of MS does it right).
[...invisible text, deleted...] :)
> 5. DOS doesn't have an ugly GUI.
OS/2 does not have an ugly GUI, either. It has a pretty GUI. And
an OS/2 app does not have to use the GUI because OS/2 has support to
allow apps direct access to video (Full Screen sessions).
[...ingredients of Scooby Snack, deleted...] :)
Frank Pitt
> port of my latest game, I decided it was time to embrace Windows. Sadly,
> my advice is DON'T. To write a games program in Windows, you must do
> everything the Windows-way. This means (1) you cannot write directly
> to the VGA frame buffer - you must go through Windows horribe DIBs
> and use their APIs to make the call; this slows your program down
> substantially.
Then how come Doom runs fine in a window under Chicago ?
I believe iD replaced their graphics
calls with GDI calls, put a window around it, and voila!
As Broderbund can do clean animation for their talking book series
under Win 3.1 , I don't see why other people can't.
And no, I haven't actually written any real games for windows, just a
couple of animations and a platform game in Visual Basic. However
I'm working on the AI for a wargame, as that's the hardest part.
For a wargame, DIB's and icons make it _easier_ to program under
Windows.
Frankie
David Charlap
>
>Actually, it is undocumented but DOS can do limited multitasking
It's not undocumented. DOS 5.0 and later had built-in APIs for task
switching. But only one app can run at a time anyway. (You can
enable the task switching if you use the DOS shell, or some other
shell that uses the API.)
>AND the next release of DOS is supposed to have formal multitasking
>included.
If you're thinking of MS-DOS 7, you're talking about Chicago - which
is Windows. MS is combining DOS and Windows into one product. That's
how they're getting the multitasking.
---------------------+--------------------------------------------------------
David Charlap | The contents of this message are not the opinions of
da...@visix.com | Visix Software, or of anyone besides myself.
Visix Software, Inc. +--------------------------------------------------------
Member of Team-OS/2 | "...And the poet lifts his pen, as the soldier sheaths
---------------------+ his sword." -- Jethro Tull
David Charlap
>
>I would perfer to write my own scrollbars, menus, sound players and
>dialog boxes.
You prefer writing custom ones so users can't immediately figure out
how they work, eh? Not very user-friendly, if you ask me.
And if you only want to change the _look_ of them (as opposed to the
behavior), you can easily change the way Windows renders the various
controls. (MS does this all the time with their business apps -
compare a dialog in WinWord 6 with a standard Windows dialog.)
If you really want, you can even override the behavior of the
controls, but it isn't a good idea in most cases.
(BTW, OS/2 lets you do all of this as well.)
>Besides, once you have these routines coded, you can use them in
>future programs to save time but still retain maximum control over
>your program.
If you know how to use the Windows controls, you can customize them
all you want. You don't really lose any flexibility, and you don't
have to write anything that already exists within Windows.
>By the way, using the same windows interface for every game is boring.
You think it's better for a user to have to learn a completely new
interface with every program? Suit yourself.
Steven Michael Reddie
>would be nice. Like one that will would generate masks for sprites, and
>one for rotating sprites.
Win32 has a new function "MaskBlt" which will mask while it is blitting.
I have not been able to try it yet as it is not supported in Win32s, only
the full Win32 which comes with NT and Chicago.
Also, have a look at ftp.microsoft.com for the file gamesum.zip (i think
it's in the /peropsys/multimedia subdirectory, or nearby). This file is
the official documentation for WinG (its also available on CompuServe).
It contains some very interesting material. Also I have read a reply from
one of the people involved with creating DOOM (was it in this newsgroup?)
who said that they (with Microsoft's support I think) ported DOOM to
Windows and that it performed just as well as under DOS.
Steven Reddie.
Steven Michael Reddie
>Who do I ask for it?
Try ftp.microsoft.com. I think it is in the /peropsys/WIN3X/Multimedia
subdirectory. I could be wrong, but I'm positive it is somewhere under
the /peropsys subdirectory. I'm not sure, but I think the file may be
called 'wing.txt' or 'gamesum.zip'. Also, this file says that you can get
to the info through Compuserve (GO WINMM) or send info about what you
would like to see Windows support for game development to
mmd...@microsoft.com.
Steven Reddie.
Steve Withers
Ed Goldman <e...@Ingres.COM> wrote:
> cl...@montego.umcc.umich.edu (Clay Alberts) writes:
>
> As much as I like OS/2, IBM just hasn't yet been able to unseat Windows
> with it on John Q Public's desktops. If (and I emphasize if) Chicago
> lives up to spec, I predict slow deaths for OS/2, Windows 3.1 and DOS.
> I for one am going to be boning up a bit on the WIN32 API ...
One OS to rule them all and in the darkness, bind them.
If Chicago *does* crush all before it, we will still be using pretty much the
same version 20 years from now.
You heard it here. That's another reason why I use OS/2. Without
competition, look forward to paying a lot more for software.
Steve
Steve Withers
Clay Alberts <cl...@montego.umcc.umich.edu> wrote:
>
> Not for me. All of the Windows games I have tried so far have been deleted
> as soon I loaded them up and tried them out.
>
> Chad
I tried a few for the kids......dead boring. Same result as for
you....more free disk space.
I have never heard the word "good" applied to a Windows game....though I
am sure some, some where has said it......but they probably wrote it,
too. :-)
Steve
Lulu of the lotus-eaters
: In article <16FC9C124...@ysub.ysu.edu> wrote:
: >Actually, it is undocumented but DOS can do limited multitasking
: It's not undocumented. DOS 5.0 and later had built-in APIs for task
: switching. But only one app can run at a time anyway. (You can
: enable the task switching if you use the DOS shell, or some other
: shell that uses the API.)
I'm sure what the poster meant wasn't the task switching of Dosshell,
but rather the undocumented interupt which TSR's use to perform a number
of multitasking things. These are still officially undocumented, even
though they're built in to every language package for DOS by now.
: >AND the next release of DOS is supposed to have formal multitasking
: >included.
: If you're thinking of MS-DOS 7, you're talking about Chicago - which
: is Windows. MS is combining DOS and Windows into one product. That's
: how they're getting the multitasking.
The rumor I've heard VERY widely -- i.e. in _PCMag_ and the like -- is
that MS will release a product called DOS7, which will be Chicago MINUS
the GUI. I.e. text-mode multitasking. Obviously, I'll believe this (or
any unreleased product) when I see it. But assuming such a thing is
eventually released (to play catch-up with Novell DOS7), it really won't
be DOS+Windoze in one product, since it won't have *anything* in common
with Windoze3.1. It will share code with Chicago, of course -- although
it might make more sense to think of Chicago itself as MS-DOS7 PLUS a GUI
(either Win3.1-like, or something else). This is pretty much just like
the situation today, where Win3.1 is DOS plus a GUI.
Yours, Lulu...
--
_/_/_/ THIS MESSAGE WAS BROUGHT TO YOU BY: Postmodern Enterprises _/_/_/
_/_/ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~[qui...@philos.umass.edu]~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ _/_/
_/_/ The opinions expressed here must be those of my employer... _/_/
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ Surely you don't think that *I* believe them! _/_/
Clay Alberts
>In article <2sl80q$8...@acmez.gatech.edu>,
>[Stuff deleted]
>>
>>For an example of some fairly fast Windows action games, try Arcade from MS.
>>The aliens in Missle Command are extremely quick - this is on a 486/66
>>with a medium performance video card.
>>
>Actually ms-Arcade is an excellent example of games running under windows.
>First the person who wrote it, as an employee of Microsoft, had access to
>large amounts of knowledge about the internals. He then took 10 year old
>games that ran fast when they first came out, added some small changes, and
>then using really fast hardware was able to get the same speed that chips
>the speed of 286 were getting.
>You did get I nice little window around each game, but who cares for that.
Just out of curiosity, why would someone want a window around the screen
when you are playing a game. I can't concentrate on a game if it is being
played out of a window.
Chad
Ted Halmrast
>From: rsro...@wam.umd.edu (R S Rodgers)
>Subject: Re: Why DOS is still better than Microsoft Windows for Games... The sad truth.
>Date: 3 Jun 1994 16:12:33 GMT
>In article <Cqtt0...@nntpa.cb.att.com>, <n...@babel.cb.att.com> wrote:
>>A 486 DX 2/66 VL bus machine. They did NOT bring a Pentium precisely for
>>credibility reasons.
>>
>>THey were seeing performance very close to "native" speeds. I remember
>>numbers in the 90 to 100% range. In other words, as fast as it would go
>>under DOS for the same display size.
> Well, that depends. For one thing, the card that they were using
> (at least, at the games conference) was a Viper VLB, I'm told, which
> happens to be the same card as in this machine. One hell of a fast
> Windows card in terms of both accelleration and ->VRAM framebuffer
> performance. But it's not so hot under DOS. In fact, it's likely
> that the benefit of using the card in linear FB mode over the VLB
> is more than enough of a speed advantage over the relatively slow
> Weitek 5286 ISA VGA chip that even at ~twice the actual screen size
> (e.g., Doom runs @ 320x240, WinDoom running in a 600x400 window) to
> make WinDoom look "as fast as native."
> What would be more interesting is to hear how well WinDoom on an
> ET4000 VLB card compares to Doom with the same card under DOS.
> (Of course, all those users who have S3, P9000, Matrox and XGA cards
> with crummy VGA performance aren't going to compare if WinDoom runs
> as fast as native because of this catch or not, they'll just be glad
> that it is.)
Agreed.
I have a Viper VLB and the thing is a piece of #$#$@ for DOS. I'm running a
486DX/2 66 and my roommate with a 486DX/33 gets about 10-20% more frames per
second on games like DOOM with his _ISA_ no-name video card.
Anyone know of a PCI video card that gets great Windows AND DOS performance?
I want this Viper outta my system.
Ted Halmrast
win...@whale.micro.umn.edu
Clay Alberts
>>I would perfer to write my own scrollbars, menus, sound players and
>>dialog boxes.
>You prefer writing custom ones so users can't immediately figure out
>how they work, eh? Not very user-friendly, if you ask me.
These things are not very difficult to figure out. I would much rather have
the speed and control of DOS and have the user speed 10 seconds to figure
out a new GUI than use Window's slow and ugly GUI. I am however considering
switching to OS/2 since I hear it is a lot better than Windoze.
Chad
Brian Fane
> In conclusion, I think that for now, action games and the like
>are best suited for real mode OS's like DOS (in general). The guys who
>made DOOM (ID) are incredible wizards and could probably get the thing
>working well on any platform but I am talking in general.
I thought Doom, along with games like SimCity 2k, Mortal Kombat, Raptor, and
who knows what else, use a protected mode DOS extender (DOS/4GW?).
Is it just me, or does it look like Doom is threaded?
__________
Brian Fane
ccf...@amber.indstate.edu || mat...@indsvax1.indstate.edu
* Team OS/2
__________
CathrynM
>how they work, eh? Not very user-friendly, if you ask me.
I like to write custom menus and the like. Here's why. Cuz'
computer games aren't an application, they're art. And art is about
control. You see, however cool the OS/2 menu boxes look, us evil
game programmers are going to want to make menus, maybe with little
skulls instead of arrows to highlight menu items. Maybe you make a
horror game, where you toggle the giant electrical swicth on the
screen to say OK.
You see, the look of these things is part of the impact of the game.
When you pop up a Wind-oid menu, you break the spell.
People may still want to launch games from Windows, so perhaps
there's some point in making games Windows friendly. But, even so,
the first thing I do is toss all the user interface junk in the
trash.
R S Rodgers
Ted Halmrast <win...@mermaid.micro.umn.edu> wrote:
>I have a Viper VLB and the thing is a piece of #$#$@ for DOS. I'm running a
>486DX/2 66 and my roommate with a 486DX/33 gets about 10-20% more frames per
>second on games like DOOM with his _ISA_ no-name video card.
>
>Anyone know of a PCI video card that gets great Windows AND DOS performance?
>I want this Viper outta my system.
I've heard the new ATIGPT is quite good in DOS, but it _is_ an ATI
card. Maybe they've actually got _working_ drivers for this chip
on release--without the 8-12 month wait as with the GUP.
R S Rodgers
Rainer Deyke <rai...@mdddhd.fc.hp.com> wrote:
>DOS *is* the future platform for games, and here's why...
Whether or not MS finally releases a Chicago-derived "DOS," DOS is dead as a
standalone product.
>1. Consoles are too expensive for something that only plays games.
That explains why Nintendo sold more machines than the x86 industry,
I guess.
Rainer Deyke
: pardon???? Dos is the ideal developement area for games etc....???
: Surely you don't mean the crappy 16 bit dos we've had for fifteen years???
^^
DOS can run 32 bit apps. Windows is based on 16 bit shit.
: ick! Listen... If you want games for your little toy, buy a little toy.
: the Atari Jaguars are out an hot, get one of them for your infantile diversions.
: Okay, so doom is "kool". fine. good. keep dos around to run this version, but don't
: come crying when the Win4 version comes out in 32 bit mode and you still piddle with
Win4 isn't out yet. Neither is the 32 bit DOS 7.
: DOS, the OS for nitwits.
: PS, so what if Win runs over the New DOS, the new DOS will be (mostly) 32bit multiprocessing,
: more like UNIX, which kicks butt (but not for the little nintendo freaks who insist on games for
: their "developement tool") waaaahhhhh you lose your pacifier, hey, move up to the world of silverware,
: live with Win4 (or OS/2 or Linux or WinNT, or whatever, just not MS-DUHs)
UNIX is OK (no GUI). Win4, WinNT, and OS/2 are all GUI based. GUIs
suck for games. Unless Win4 is a *lot* better than Win3.1, I'll stick
with a real OS that can handle screen output at a reasonable speed on
a 386.
--
+---------------------------------------------------------+
|"Who made you God to say, 'I'll take your life from you'"|
| - Metallica, "Ride the Lightning" |
| "It feeds; it grows; it clouds all that you will know" |
| - Metallica, "The God that Failed" |
| Rainer Deyke - rai...@mdddhd.fc.hp.com |
+---------------------------------------------------------+
Rainer Deyke
1. Consoles are too expensive for something that only plays games.
2. DOS is still faster than Windows, OS/2, etc.
3. DOS 7 will have 32 bit multitasking.
4. DOS games can be run under Windows, OS/2, etc.
5. DOS doesn't have an ugly GUI.
6. DOS games can (in theory) use Windows drivers.
Rainer Deyke
: In article <wyman.770555554@sealion>,
: Mark S. Wyman <wy...@sealion.cig.mot.com> wrote:
: >ka...@Csli.Stanford.EDU (Ken Kahn) writes:
: >>I saw DOOM running under Windows and it was NOT slow. It is true that
: >>Microsoft seems to be encouraging one to run in a window but that window can
: >>be the size of the screen and one can write on the whole screen (even where
: >>the window frame is). Windows was painful to learn but I'm convinced Windows
: >>is the future of games programming on PCs.
: >
: >What was the (ahem) hardware that was running Doom in Windows?
: From what I understand, it was a Diamond Viper VLB 2MB and a
: 486 DX33.
Wolfenstein 3d, an id game that uses an engine very similar to Doom,
runs great on something as primitive as a 16MHz 386SX with 2Mb RAM.
I very much doubt that any Windows game runs as fast on the same
machine. In fact, Windows barely runs at all on this computer.
Rainer Deyke
: 0018...@ysub.ysu.edu writes:
: > Yes DOS still kicks butt in anything that requires true innovation, power,
: >or speed.
: Innovative? What these DOS games need is their very own operating system -
: insert CD-ROM and let it COMPLETELY take over the hardware. I'm so sick
: of having a worse time trying to configure a system to run a stupid game
: than virtually anything else (including installing network support). Just
: take over the whole damn machine, then let me go back to a normal config.
: Or maybe ship boot floppies along with the game.
: For an example of some fairly fast Windows action games, try Arcade from MS.
: The aliens in Missle Command are extremely quick - this is on a 486/66
: with a medium performance video card.
You're kidding, right? The DOS equivalent of MS Arcade could run on an
8088 and still be faster.
Rainer Deyke
: In article <2sihld$f...@montego.umcc.umich.edu>,
: Clay Alberts <cl...@montego.umcc.umich.edu> wrote:
: >
: > Not for me. All of the Windows games I have tried so far have been deleted
: > as soon I loaded them up and tried them out.
: >
: > Chad
: I tried a few for the kids......dead boring. Same result as for
: you....more free disk space.
: I have never heard the word "good" applied to a Windows game....though I
: am sure some, some where has said it......but they probably wrote it,
: too. :-)
The newer Sierra games, which run under DOS and Windows, are pretty
good (At least when run from DOS). Doom under Windows is good. Of
course Doom is still faster when run from DOS. With sufficient
hardware, it is quite possible to make a good Windows game, but it
is also possible to make a better DOS game.
Rainer Deyke
: ste...@actrix.gen.nz (Steve Withers) writes:
: > In article <2sihld$f...@montego.umcc.umich.edu>,
: > am sure some, some where has said it......but they probably wrote it,
: > too. :-)
: OK. I'll do so now: the Maxis games (such as SimCity for Windows) are
: good games. Perhaps Windows isn't currently the best best platform
: for fast action shoot-em-ups. But it's great for Simulation games, for
: strategy games, an so forth.
Maxis games suck because they are GUI based! Even if you like GUIs,
DOS is still faster and better for all kinds of games.
Rainer Deyke
: wdie...@rainbow.sosi.com (William Dieterich) writes:
: >In article <2sl80q$8...@acmez.gatech.edu>,
If people didn't want the window around the game, they'd buy the DOS
version of the game. You know, the one that runs on a 286 as fast as
the Windows version runs on a 486. I personally hate Windows, which
is why I didn't buy Microsoft Arcade.
Rainer Deyke
: In article <16FC9C124...@ysub.ysu.edu>, <0018...@ysub.ysu.edu> wrote:
: >
: >Actually, it is undocumented but DOS can do limited multitasking
: It's not undocumented. DOS 5.0 and later had built-in APIs for task
: switching. But only one app can run at a time anyway. (You can
: enable the task switching if you use the DOS shell, or some other
: shell that uses the API.)
: >AND the next release of DOS is supposed to have formal multitasking
: >included.
: If you're thinking of MS-DOS 7, you're talking about Chicago - which
: is Windows. MS is combining DOS and Windows into one product. That's
: how they're getting the multitasking.
I heard that they would release a version of Chicago without the GUI
as the new DOS. I'm really looking forward to it.
Rainer Deyke
: Clay Alberts <cl...@montego.umcc.umich.edu> wrote:
: >
: >I would perfer to write my own scrollbars, menus, sound players and
: >dialog boxes.
: You prefer writing custom ones so users can't immediately figure out
: how they work, eh? Not very user-friendly, if you ask me.
: And if you only want to change the _look_ of them (as opposed to the
: behavior), you can easily change the way Windows renders the various
: controls. (MS does this all the time with their business apps -
: compare a dialog in WinWord 6 with a standard Windows dialog.)
: If you really want, you can even override the behavior of the
: controls, but it isn't a good idea in most cases.
: (BTW, OS/2 lets you do all of this as well.)
: >Besides, once you have these routines coded, you can use them in
: >future programs to save time but still retain maximum control over
: >your program.
: If you know how to use the Windows controls, you can customize them
: all you want. You don't really lose any flexibility, and you don't
: have to write anything that already exists within Windows.
: >By the way, using the same windows interface for every game is boring.
: You think it's better for a user to have to learn a completely new
: interface with every program? Suit yourself.
Writing your own menus, etc. in DOS is a lot faster than in Windows.
One idea I really like that cannot be implemented in Windows is
switching to a special screen (help, inventory, etc.) by moving the
mouse over the edge od the screen. Besides, writing menus is fun. :-)
Rainer Deyke
: Rainer Deyke <rai...@mdddhd.fc.hp.com> wrote:
: >R S Rodgers (rsro...@wam.umd.edu) wrote:
: >: >What was the (ahem) hardware that was running Doom in Windows?
: >
: >:From what I understand, it was a Diamond Viper VLB 2MB and a
: >:486 DX33.
: >
: >Wolfenstein 3d, an id game that uses an engine very similar to Doom,
: >runs great on something as primitive as a 16MHz 386SX with 2Mb RAM.
: Yes, but Doom doesn't run on a 386sx-16 with 2MB at all. And if
: it did run (as it does on the 386sx-20 notebook machine next to
: me), it would run so slowly and so poorly that the only thing
: fast about it would be the "del *.*" command executed after
: you managed to quit.
Doom is too slow because id concentrated on portability instead of
speed. Wolfenstein 3d runs very fast on my 16MHz 386SX.
: >I very much doubt that any Windows game runs as fast on the same
: >machine. In fact, Windows barely runs at all on this computer.
: Yes, well, that's nice. What you've done is said "a is like
: b even though a can run on this and b cant, so C running b is
: obviously going to be awful."
What you're saying is that Windows is cool because Doom also sucks
under DOS. If id optimized Doom, it would run very fast under DOS
and just as slow under Windows.
Rainer Deyke
: Rainer Deyke <rai...@mdddhd.fc.hp.com> wrote:
: >Ian Young (iyo...@buddywright.edu) wrote:
: >: pardon???? Dos is the ideal developement area for games etc....???
: >: Surely you don't mean the crappy 16 bit dos we've had for fifteen years???
: > ^^
: >DOS can run 32 bit apps. Windows is based on 16 bit shit.
: Always the literate one. WinDoom is a 32bit application.
So is Doom for DOS, if I am not mistaken.
Rainer Deyke
: Rainer Deyke <rai...@mdddhd.fc.hp.com> wrote:
: >DOS *is* the future platform for games, and here's why...
: Whether or not MS finally releases a Chicago-derived "DOS," DOS is dead as a
: standalone product.
: >1. Consoles are too expensive for something that only plays games.
: That explains why Nintendo sold more machines than the x86 industry,
: I guess.
Even if Nintendo did sell more machines than to x86 industy, Nintendo
is still cheaper than the consoles that can match PCs in games.