Message-ID: Date: Wed, 21 May 1997 07:43:23 From: "Joseph Morris" To: opendos AT delorie DOT com Subject: Re: A clarification (was "Re: X -- ugh") Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Precedence: bulk On Tue, 20 May 1997, Mr M S Aitchison wrote: >> I think what is needed is not just a GUI like X11 but a program >> developement system to allow everybody from novices to experts create >> a wide range of software. To begin to decide on something like that >> we have to look really hard at what it is that people who use systems >> like X11, OS/2's object-oriented GUI, NeXTSTEP, etc appreciate, and >> then look at what is going to be doable and popular in a MS-led >> world. > > Ok, I think we need a clarification here... > We were talking about game performance between DOS games and DirectX > games running on either Windows 95 or Windows NT. One pro of DirectX > games over DOS games is that DirectX gives abstracted use of > accelerated hardware to games, but a con is that it is running in a > multitasking environment that isn't very good for games. In fact it > has been accepted (by?) Microsoft that DirectX is meant as an > "equalizer" to get gaming performance closer to DOS. > What I and some other proposed was some library that would use > DirectX-like "drivers" to give the same abstraction layer of > accelerated hardware DirectX gives. This would have all the > advantages of DOS games and DirectX games! > Where the thing mixed up is where someone (obviously not > knowledgeable of what we were talking about) proposed we should > instead use an already existing standard like OpenGL or X Window. > The problem is, while OpenGL could be used as a basis for the call > interface of the 3D part of such a library, X Window doesn't have > heck to do with fast games! Though the library *ITSELF*, once > finished, could be used to build a X compatible windowing system or > whatever... > IMHO, we should develop such a library before getting to a GUI system, > but before developing such a library, we need a dynamic loader system > to load the various drivers and probably have the library itself > shared between the games that use it. Let us consider SDD. Scitech would appear to be in a good position. They have hundreds of video cards and they know them all inside out. They have even managed to extract the specs from Matrox, something I am lead to believe is hard to do. If anyone is going to produce drivers for OpenDOS, it is probably going to be them. The problem is money. Univbe is a serious cash-cow for them, and they are not likely to part with it for the purposes of OpenDOS. OTOH, it is hard to get outside the US. By the way, does anyone know what the DirectX emulation of 5.3 does? It could be exactly _what_ we are looking for. > Pierre Phaneuf > "The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, > be regarded as a criminal offense." - Edsger W. Dijkstra.