15 Feb
1999
15 Feb
'99
12:48 p.m.
At 06:22 PM 2/15/99 -0800, Derek Peschel wrote:
Are you saying that Descent doesn't take over the
machine? (I'm not being
sarcastic -- I don't know either way, mainly because I use a Mac most of the
time.) I've seen some vey badly-behaved Windows programs, and tons of DOS
ones. I don't think Windows 95 or NT are very efficient, so I'd say that
when performance counts, the truth is sometimes closer to the
game-programmers' side than the users'.
What I'm saying is that Descent asks the OS for the machine and the OS
gives it to the game in a controlled way that does not disturb other
applications that are running. (I had an explorer up and a web browser).
During the game I can "alt-tab" to a different application and then click
on the program bar to resume it. While the game is running I can download
software from the network, while the game is running other machines can
print on the printer attached to this machine and shared over the network.
Its not a "DOS" mode game, it uses DirectX and Win32 calls.
It is pretty interesting.
--Chuck