Is there a new one in the works?
Well leave it to ‘the Magic Kingdom’ to want to try peaceful global domination, well at least market domination all for the ‘sake of the children’. Doesn’t surprise me they would try to control the market that way though, I heard they once turned down the movie Back to the Future because they thought there was a scene of incest in it. Shows how much they understood the script.
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Originally posted by Benoit:
I very much doubt that. I study Computer Science and the end of all the CPU and graphic cards shit is not in sight. At least not before Micro$oft stop dominating the industry.
What has microsoft got to do with anything. They have helped PC gaming more than any other company in recent years. With the domination of windows and directx (by microsoft) virtually all games should run on all pc's if they are programmed correctly.
Do you remember getting games to work back in the dos days? It wasn't pretty. Without microsoft, pc gaming could well have floundered and died after the mid '90's. But I still don't get it, what has microsoft got to do with CPU and GPU development (apart from creating the main API for the latter)?
[This message has been edited by dco_chris (edited 03-24-2004).]
However, Microsoft’s domination for the industry has also restricted other development, lead people to a particular type of computer system instead of a choice between say PC and Apple, they are forced mostly down one road. By forcing all products to work directly with ‘Windows’ Microsoft has further restricted the types of programs that can be released by forcing people to create programs that are restricted and might in fact work better if they could work outside of windows.
Some is theory but most of that is fact that anytime you restrict innovation by forcing it to be linked to one other company you are in the long running harming the industry.
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Originally posted by SCDawg:
However, Microsoft's domination for the industry has also restricted other development, lead people to a particular type of computer system instead of a choice between say PC and Apple, they are forced mostly down one road. By forcing all products to work directly with 'Windows' Microsoft has further restricted the types of programs that can be released by forcing people to create programs that are restricted and might in fact work better if they could work outside of windows.Some is theory but most of that is fact that anytime you restrict innovation by forcing it to be linked to one other company you are in the long running harming the industry.
To be fair though, Apple had an early lead as far as technology and innovation are concerned but pretty much blew it and have never been able capture the whole market. The people chose what they wanted and for games it wasn't a mac. Remember windows wasn't even all that popular until 3.1, and didn't really hit the big time until 95. Apple does have a lead in other areas though (aesthetic appearance ,music production software, video editing etc) and it's not as if people can't choose to buy them if they want. Hell, you can even get some games for them [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/biggrin.gif[/img]
[This message has been edited by dco_chris (edited 03-24-2004).]
Yes but Gates, it is said, also stole a lot from Apple in the beginning backstab them as it were; and once more if you corner the market which is what was started with the games being ‘better’ on PC rather then Apple, people are more or less forced to choose one option. Now it is finally starting to even out a slight bit, but it has taken almost 14 years to even out.
Though which computers do schools and offices use the most? From my experience it is not Apple computers but the other type. They might lead in some industry, but until they are at least vying to be equal on all levels on side will dominate the market.
[This message has been edited by SCDawg (edited 03-24-2004).]
Like I said. Windows was not totally dominating the market until 95. Windows 1 and 2 pretty much sucked, and no OS gained a clear advantage at that time (except for DOS). I fail to understand the hate for microsoft. They are a business and have got into a dominant position. They are now fully entrenched in their position but this wasn’t always so. Should they give up the market they captured to encourage competition? Would computing (and more specifically gaming) be so much better if there were a half dozen closely competing OS’ (or systems, which would be even worse from a programming perspective) with software split between them?
[This message has been edited by dco_chris (edited 03-24-2004).]
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What has microsoft got to do with anything. They have helped PC gaming more than any other company in recent years. With the domination of windows and directx (by microsoft) virtually all games should run on all pc's if they are programmed correctly.
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Do you remember getting games to work back in the dos days? It wasn't pretty. Without microsoft, pc gaming could well have floundered and died after the mid '90's.
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and it's not as if people can't choose to buy them if they want. Hell, you can even get some games for them
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Yes but Gates, it is said, also stole a lot from Apple in the beginning backstab them as it were
The next Windows released is codenamed Longhorn. Summarized, it will monitor everything you do on your PC, just like IE already does while you surf the web, and send it to Microsoft. They will also make you pay for all the times you use their programs, updates, etc.
I hope it will fail.
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Originally posted by Benoit:
I don't know if that really helped. Windows is more hungry in system resources with every release. I can run stuff on my Win95 Pentium II 233 Mhz that someone with a WinXP OS needs 450 Mhz for. You also have to remember that DirectX, while a good tool, slows down the game too. Before an instruction is processed, it has to be translated first. This is why emulators ran on DOS back in the day. It's faster to give direct instructions to the computer parts.
Yeah it is faster. It is also near impossible to do with modern games. How the heck would you code to the metal for every single 3D card, sound card etc? Without some kind of unified API modern game coding would become a nightmare.
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Originally posted by Benoit:
I've never had a problem running DOS games. Windows hasn't made it any easier. Look at the Help forum and you'll see loads of problems with running bishoujo games on Windows; most of those being WinXP problems. What innovation (/sarcasm). There have always been driver problems. There have been in DOS, there are in Windows. It's not that much difference.
Is that a problem with XP, or the games not being tested well enough with it? Besides, some stuff won't work on 95 now either. The NT core is more stable than the 9X core, but if games were not developed with it in mind there can be occasional problems. In windows I don't have to worry about IRQ conflicts, or needing an external VESA driver, or memory manager conflicts, altering config.sys and autoexec.bat (that became a major pain in the ass when I had very old and newer games) etc. In a well setup system, windows requires very little maintanence.
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Originally posted by Benoit:
While Microsoft doesn't have anything to do with GPU's, it has a deal with Intel, the leading CPU producer. Why do you think each Windows is more hungry? Because Microsoft made it that way, so it would require a stronger CPU, forcing people to buy a newer one, and getting Intel money. Intel 'pays back' Microsoft by making Office work better on Intel chips by involving him with the development.
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Originally posted by Benoit:
The next Windows released is codenamed Longhorn. Summarized, it will monitor everything you do on your PC, just like IE already does while you surf the web, and send it to Microsoft. They will also make you pay for all the times you use their programs, updates, etc.
I hope it will fail.
AFIAK IE does not send information about your surfing habits back to microsoft. That would show up on traffic logs, it doesn't. You don't have to use IE either. Other than that, what you are talking about sounds like Palladium, which I agree is a very bad idea. Matters are not at all being helped my the movie and record industries who are putting pressure on computer technology companies to cut down on piracy. Some of the measures seem pretty draconian. However, Longhorn probably won't be out until 2006 at the earliest, plenty of time to see what happens.
I think I'm going to shut up now. The topic turned left a couple of miles down the road.
[This message has been edited by dco_chris (edited 03-24-2004).]
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Originally posted by dco_chris:
Would computing (and more specifically gaming) be so much better if there were a half dozen closely competing OS' (or systems, which would be even worse from a programming perspective) with software split between them?
Very possibly, it is an age old truth that competition breeds innovation. If you control a majority of the market you can be sloppy and slipshod and lazy in advancements so long as you hold your control. If you have 40 fighting for the top, you will have amazing new ideas, some will be flops some will push technology further ahead, but yes I think it is very possible it would be better with more competition.
Without the DOS games at first we would not have the games we do today, or so I think. Let's remember if someone had not sold the idea of Pong to the world computer games might never have existed, and if someone had not sold the idea of white blobs running around a sort of diamond shape while the computer spit out static, games where we can see dirt on the uniforms and read the players names as fans call out that name most likely would not exist. Each step is an evolution Windows forced the evolution down one path which allows for development but only of a particular type.
It might be a conspiracy, until Bush took office Microsoft was facing heavy investigations from the Justice Department for violating many anti-trust laws, and is still facing similar investigations in other nations.
Yeah topics around here have a tendacy to go off topic a lot of times. If someone wants it back to topic I think they will head it that way.
[This message has been edited by SCDawg (edited 03-24-2004).]
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Is that a problem with XP, or the games not being tested well enough with it?
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Besides, some stuff won't work on 95 now either. The NT core is more stable than the 9X core, but if games were not developed with it in mind there can be occasional problems. In windows I don't have to worry about IRQ conflicts, or needing an external VESA driver, or memory manager conflicts, altering config.sys and autoexec.bat (that became a major pain in the ass when I had very old and newer games) etc. In a well setup system, windows requires very little maintanence.
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This is beginning to sound like conspiricy theory talk. Each new version of windows isn't that much more power hungry really. 98 was pretty much on a par with 95 (for me at least). Even ME was ok once the crap was disabled. XP has a lot more eye candy, which require more CPU or graphics grunt, but really it is memory hungry more than anything. On my 3.5 year old system, XP is no slower than ME, and it is considerably more stable. All the games run at the same speed or even faster on occasions.
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You don't have to use IE either.
Well, I said that I’d shut up but I’ll respond to these first.
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Originally posted by Benoit:
It’s an XP problem. Compatibility sucks on it.
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Originally posted by Benoit:
I never had any of those problems. Everything runs fine.
Almost everything from before 95 can work on it.
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Originally posted by Benoit:
That’s why I use the superior Mozilla.
http://www.mozilla.org
Yeah. I use Firefox personally, but they both rock
[This message has been edited by dco_chris (edited 03-25-2004).]
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Originally posted by dco_chris:
XP is virtually not related to 3.1, 9x or dos. Windows went two ways after 3.1. 3.1 was built upon to create the 9x versions of windows, and OS/2 was built upon to create windows NT. XP is Windows NT 5.1. It is not too surprising that it is not 100% compatible with things that it is not related too. Also note 9x was sloppy in the way it handled certain things. Things that worked on 9x will not always work on NT because of this.[This message has been edited by dco_chris (edited 03-25-2004).]
The original poster's statement - that XP's backwards compatibilty is spotty when it comes to games - is not coutered by anything you said. You are 100% correct - but the reasons WHY compatibility isn't 100% don't really matter if you have a program that won't run on XP but will on a prior OS, and you really like said program.
[This message has been edited by Nandemonai (edited 03-25-2004).]
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Originally posted by dco_chris:
95 was almost 10 years ago.[This message has been edited by dco_chris (edited 03-25-2004).]
Now cut that out. You're making me feel old, and I'm only 23.
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Originally posted by Nandemonai:
The original poster's statement - that XP's backwards compatibilty is spotty when it comes to games - is not coutered by anything you said. You are 100% correct - but the reasons WHY compatibility isn't 100% don't really matter if you have a program that won't run on XP but will on a prior OS, and you really like said program.[This message has been edited by Nandemonai (edited 03-25-2004).]
True, but it isn't that spotty for windows games (every Windows game I have thrown at it dating back to around 97 works, including some that did not work on ME), and like I also said, there are other options for running dos games within windows (some will work anyway). Some games don't work properly because of bugs in the games, not the OS. The bugs may not show up on 9x because of the way it handles them (and this is also why they may not have been found in testing), XP handles them differently so they appear. I just think it is slightly unfair to always blame the OS. No totally seperate OS will be ever be 100% compatible with another. Even the closely related 95 and 98 were not 100% compatible (99.9999999999999% but not 100%)
How did this topic get onto this anyway? I forget.... [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/confused.gif[/img]
[This message has been edited by dco_chris (edited 03-25-2004).]
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Originally posted by Nandemonai:
Now cut that out. You're making me feel old, and I'm only 23.
[img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/biggrin.gif[/img] I know the feeling. I remember buying Sonic the Hedgehog 3 like it was yesterday, and then I remember that it was 1994.
That XP is built starting from the NT kernel doesn’t matter, because it’s an OS for home computers, hence why they should be compatible with releases for previous home editions.
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9x was built on top of DOS, XP isn’t.
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95 was almost 10 years ago.
That has to be the biggest nonsense I ever heard in terms of gaming.
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Originally posted by Benoit:
That has to be the biggest nonsense I ever heard in terms of gaming.
Play some first person shoot'em ups. Pads do not have the required precision to play them well. Keyboards aren't too good for fighting games though.
[This message has been edited by dco_chris (edited 03-28-2004).]
I’ll give you that, but for anything else than that and strategy games, the game pad is the way to go.
Yeah, I like pads most of the time. I just wish someone would make one as comfortable as the Sega 6 button megadrive pad. I loved that thing.