From:	leathm AT solwarra DOT gbrmpa DOT gov DOT au (Leath Muller)
Message-Id:	<199705140533.PAA05313@solwarra.gbrmpa.gov.au>
Subject:	Re: OpenDOS graphics drivers
To:	pierre AT tycho DOT com
Date:	Wed, 14 May 1997 15:33:20 +1000 (EST)
Cc:	opendos AT delorie DOT com
In-Reply-To:	<Pine.LNX.3.95.970513214434.6283A-100000@55-174.hy.cgocable.ca> from "Pierre Phaneuf" at May 13, 97 10:02:32 pm

> But given hardware not prone to hardware acceleration very much (like an
> old Trident card for example), DOS will bury DirectX deep into the ground,
> because DOS doesn't multitask, the game have 100% of the CPU time to
> render the screens. A 16-bit DOS program technically *is* faster than a
> 32-bit Windows program (or even a Linux program!), because it runs like a
> crazed devil, without any scheduling to slow it down or steal it of
> precious CPU time... So if you devise a similar driver system for a 32-bit
> single tasking OS (like an improved OpenDOS), you'd get stellar
> performance even from specialized hardware. 

Even though a DOS 16bit program doesn't have scheduling to worry about,
it still only runs at half the speed of a 32bit program; under NT and Win95
you can also set the priority of a program to 'real-time' which pretty much
takes over the operating system completely.
 
> There's a Quake version for S3 ViRGE chipsets, this is what you should
> compare a WinQuake using DirectX 3.0 drivers, on the same system (using a
> ViRGE video card, of course!). 

Are you talking about 3D acceleration in hardware? I Don't have that yet... :)
I am talking sheer CPU power...

Leathal.

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