🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <rdippold.726349867@cancun> rdippold@cancun.qualcomm.com (Ron Dippold) writes:
>I write:
>>And now we are back to one standard to write games for.  It used to be CGA,
>>then EGA, then VGA.  But there are numerous SVGA engines out there; S3,
>>Mach8, Mach32, ET4000, etc.  What is that one standard?
>
>>WINODWS.
>
>This is because as far as Windows is concerned, all these are pretty
>similar.  You manipulate a bitmap.  Some have more colors.  Some have
>less.  Now, add the game card with true sprites, fast bitmap rotation,
>etc.  These are radical changes compared to SVGA-CGA.  What does
>Windows know of sprites other than the occasional hardware cursor?
>Can you write a game that makes enough use of the special features of
>the game card to make it especially attractive to gameplayers, yet
>still have your game run well enough on SVGA-CGA that they will want
>to buy it as well?  If yes, then you're set.

It's a multi-faceted task.  The people who make the video card know what
calls a Windows programmer can make.  It is then up to them to make the
hardware and driver software make these operations fast.  If they are
smart, they might even note in the cases where there are two different ways
of doing the same thing which one os faster,etc, in the doc.  But if the
new radical card does Windows calls faster than what is already out there,
the game designer (along with everybody else) wins.  

But the big point is that the GAME PROGRAMMER is no longer tasked with
writing video device code directly (and thus being unable to exploit SVGA).
It is the task of the video card shop to make their card and drivers run
Windows fast - a task they have a vital interest in doing well.


It's an open question if the Windows calls themselves provide the game
writer with sufficient support to make good games.