Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!microsoft!w-stephm From: w-stephm@microsoft.UUCP (Stephan MUELLER) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech Subject: Re: Game vs Multitasking Message-ID: <54988@microsoft.UUCP> Date: 31 May 90 23:05:08 GMT References: Reply-To: w-stephm@microsoft.UUCP (Stephan MUELLER) Distribution: comp Organization: Microsoft Corp., Redmond WA Lines: 64 In article mt87692@tut.fi (Mikko Tsokkinen) writes: %1. Should game be HD-installable? Yes. My word processor is HD-installable. My compilers are HD-installable. My terminal emulator is HD-installable. The games I play are HD-installable. I see no fundamental difference between them as far as hard disks go. All are applications. There is no reason why I shouldn't want to simultaneously use any combination of them. %2. Should game multitask? % - IMHO I at least don't want to play those shit games with multitasking on. The quality of a game is independent of whether it multitasks or not. There are good games that do multitask (Tetrix. MindWalker, for example) There are bad games that do not multitask. Take up the challenge: write a truly awe-inspiring game that *does* multitask. Give us fabulous performance by using brilliant algorithms, not by nuking the OS. % But if we are talking about for example following "Multitasking": Game % disables interrupts while playing but for example if you pause it it will % turn interrupts back on. I would like to make my game work like this. But % there are few drawbacks: Copy-protection is alot harder to make and you % very easily run out of memory. If you copy-protect it, I will not buy it. "You don't even know me, but you don't trust me" is the message I get from copy-protection. %3. Should game detect extra memory/diskdrives/processors? Yes. As I stated above, games are in my mind equivalent to other applications. What good are extra memory/drives/processors if no application uses them? If memory/drives/processors are useful to some applications, why not all? %4. Should game be exitable? Yes. % And I would like also to know how many of you people really play % games while doing something else? If you do, do you really like % those every now and then updating % games with poor graphics (thanks to memory shortage). All the time. Tetrix is a great way to kill time while downloading/ compiling/TeXing etc. Simcity is great to run in the background while doing anything. I even run games while running other games: while playing Tetrix I get called to the phone. Someone else can start up another copy of Tetrix and play, without affecting my game in progress. In a nutshell: multitasking is a fabulous tool. Please don't assume I don't need it/don't use it/don't want it. % I provide some examples what I think of games just for fun: There are many games, not action-oriented, which are equally fun. Try Shanghai sometime. As for performance: there are games with fabulous graphics and high performance running on the lowly C-64. Surely, on the Amiga, running at 7x the speed, with our favourite anthropomorphic chip set, we can do the same without trashing the OS. Please. Just say no to concurrency-hostile software. Leave the games that take over the whole machine on the Nintendos. %Mikko "Assembler rules OK!" Tsokkinen stephan(Nothing personal against the Nintendos);