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: from "Pierre Phaneuf" at May 13, 97 10:02:32 pm Content-Type: text Precedence: bulk > 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.