DOS: Reasons to prefer it above Windowz

[WMD]

quote:Originally posted by Aloone:
How can a crappy 400MHz game console run better games than an 1GHz PC running Linux?

Because it has a very small and compact-mono tasking operating system.

Possibly, but also, that 400Mhz CPU isn't an x86: most consoles used to run on 65c02 and Z80, and now they run some other similar CPU on a custom architecture.  All games are thus optimized for the exact console hardware and nothing else.  That's the bigger reason.

[mobrien_12]

quote:Originally posted by Aloone:

How can a crappy 400MHz game console run better games than an 1GHz PC running Linux?

Because it has a very small and compact-mono tasking operating system.

An OS like DOS has the potential to be a great for gaming, the only problems are drivers and the lack of a standard graphics API. If it were possible to write a standard API and port drivers for the latest accelerated 3D graphics and sound cards to FreeDOS, then DOS could be the next big thing. Come to think of it DOS is so small it could be on the same CD as the game, all you would have to do is boot from the CD and the game would automatically load there could be a problem with saving games though.

Pretty much, I agree, but a console could also have a Linux-based OS with no other programs running and it would be fast too.    

Anyway... In the old days when 3dFX was king, the Glide API was available for DOS.  Games like the first Tomb Raider offered specially compiled executables to call it.

Today, that could be done with AllegroGL for DOS.  The hardware manufacturere would need to write a MESA-compatible allegro driver.

[Refalm]

quote:M. O'Brien: Pretty much, I agree, but a console could also have a Linux-based OS with no other programs running and it would be fast too.    

Anyway... In the old days when 3dFX was king, the Glide API was available for DOS.  Games like the first Tomb Raider offered specially compiled executables to call it.

Today, that could be done with AllegroGL for DOS.  The hardware manufacturere would need to write a MESA-compatible allegro driver.

It would be awesome if modern games came out for DOS. All you have running on your computer is a very light OS, the game and only what's required to play the game (hardware drivers). 99,9% of CPU dedicated to the game itself.

[qbasic]

Troll removed.

[ August 26, 2004: Message edited by: d00g33 :: doogee.is.dreaming.org ]

[insomnia]

quote:Originally posted by Refalm / BOB:


It would be awesome if modern games came out for DOS. All you have running on your computer is a very light OS, the game and only what's required to play the game (hardware drivers). 99,9% of CPU dedicated to the game itself.

Making your PC an outdated game console...

[ShawnD1]

DOS better than Windows? That's just crazy! In 1995 I bought a computer that came with Windows 95 (Windows based on DOS). To give you an idea of how much a POS DOS really is, that computer had a sticker on it showing the com, PCI, ISA, and IRQ numbers of all the hardware. To setup the sound for games like Duke Nukem, I actually had to look at that sticker to assign the IRQ value of my sound card. That is absolutely pathetic. Even Linux, the "I'm not going to wipe your ass for you" OS, does not ask you to remember IRQ values.

 

quote:It would be awesome if modern games came out for DOS. All you have running on your computer is a very light OS, the game and only what's required to play the game (hardware drivers). 99,9% of CPU dedicated to the game itself.

OS was a major slowdown in the early 90's because everything was software rendered. If 20% of your CPU was being wasted on something other than the game, like Winamp, you frame rate would really drop 20%. Today, the major factor is video card. Today, if I have a program running that takes 20% of my CPU power, I don't actually see a 20% drop in frame rate. The drop in frame rate probably wouldn't even be noticable unless the game requires a lot of CPU power for something like bots.
The major thing about using a small OS would be the extra RAM available. Having to resort to using the swap file when gaming is what will kill the smoothness of the game you're playing. Try playing Doom 3 with only 256MB of RAM and you'll understand.

[ August 24, 2004: Message edited by: ShawnD1 ]

[Aloone_Jonez]

You shouldn't need 1GB of ram to play decent games, 64 MB DDR should be enough. The XBOX only has 64MB and the Playstation has a mere 32MB, and neither of these consoles needed a swap file. A swap file is only used on multitasking operating systems and DOS is single tasking.

Games consoles run single tasking operating systems. I hear what your saying about the IRQ problems you had but I have never had such problems. I used to play Quake in DOS mode because Windows kept disk swapping making the game slow and jerky. The IRQ problems could be solved by writing a separate program to detect all that stuff on boot up and save it the DOS environment table.

I'm not saying that DOS is better than Windows & Linux overall, I just prefer it for some things.

[ShawnD1]

Those consoles don't need lots of RAM because they use technology that's ~8 years old. To compare how old school consoles are, just look at the video quality. TV quality is only 640 x 480 which is 307200 pixels. Doom 3 for computer has textures with resolutions up to 2048 x 2048 which is 4194304 pixels. Doom 3's textures have 13.6 times as many pixels. When using ultra high quality (uncompressed textures), Doom 3 requires 512MB of video RAM.

here's a picture of Halo for Xbox.



Halo has no shaders, no AA, no AF, no bump mapping, incredibly low resolution, and only runs at 30FPS. Halo uses as much memory as any other game that uses 1996 (Quake 1) technology.

[ August 25, 2004: Message edited by: ShawnD1 ]

[ August 25, 2004: Message edited by: ShawnD1 ]

[Refalm]

quote:ShawnD1: Doom 3 for computer has textures with resolutions up to 2048 x 2048 which is 4194304 pixels. Doom 3's textures have 13.6 times as many pixels. When using ultra high quality (uncompressed textures), Doom 3 requires 512MB of video RAM. (...) Halo has no shaders, no AA, no AF, no bump mapping, incredibly low resolution, and only runs at 30FPS. Halo uses as much memory as any other game that uses 1996 (Quake 1) technology.

I had to tweak Doom 3 because there was no "Ultra Low" setting. My Geforce 4 MX is too old for it I guess.

I don't get the Xbox. It's basically a 700 MHz computer, right? So why can't it do at least 2x anti-aliasing?

[WMD]

Xbox is 733Mhz, 64MB RAM, 8GB hard drive, custom Nvidia video chip (GF3 type?).  Based on my experiences with it, I think it runs Win 95b on an x86 chip     So, AA and AF are probably out of the league

[Aloone_Jonez]

I was told that it ran a very minimalistic stripped down single tasking NT kernel.

[mobrien_12]

quote:Originally posted by ShawnD1:
To setup the sound for games like Duke Nukem, I actually had to look at that sticker to assign the IRQ value of my sound card. That is absolutely pathetic.

That kind of stuff is not a necessity in DOS anymore.  Take a look at the Allegro libraries.

[mobrien_12]

[ August 26, 2004: Message edited by: M. O'Brien ]

[WMD]

quote:Originally posted by Aloone:
I was told that it ran a very minimalistic stripped down single tasking NT kernel.

That could be, but it was definately Windows, because it crashed 3 times in a 5-hour period.