From: blp01 AT uow DOT edu DOT au (Brett Porter)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Subject: Re: Is Allegro up to speed?
Date: Sat, 04 Jul 1998 03:32:01 GMT
Organization: University of Wollongong, NSW, Australia.
Lines: 65
Message-ID: <359d9df6.3223804@news.uow.edu.au>
References: <00ac01bda38e$578d3f40$364e08c3 AT arthur> <NZjl#D DOT 7MC AT csh-newsserver DOT csh DOT rit DOT edu>
Reply-To: blp01 AT uow DOT edu DOT au
NNTP-Posting-Host: ceast15.uow.edu.au
To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
DJ-Gateway: from newsgroup comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Precedence: bulk

On Tue, 30 Jun 1998 09:21:11 +0100, "John R."
<jjrtch AT osfmail DOT isc DOT rit DOT edu> wrote:

>>I disagree. I refer you to a certain game - you've probably never heard of
>>it - called Quake. And there are others - look for all the games which
>>require CWSDPMI in their runtime directory. And DOS is far more efficient
>at
>>what it does than Win 95.
>
>I agree... As long as certain OSes still run dos programs, its not dead. And
>beyond that, Allegro is portable to linux or atleast somewhat portable (or
>atleast from my understanding they plan it to be...) , and linux isn't dead.
>
>johnr
>
>
Uh oh... here we go again. Another "can you make a commercial game for
DOS" argument. Nobody is ever going to win a debate like this because
there are no right or wrong arguments. People like myself with a 486
can't buy DirectX games, so yes there is still a market for DOS games,
and it is shrinking... and that invalidates the original argument (oh,
but Quake was DOS)... Quakes more than 3 years old now and Q2 is the
primary game in that respect.

I'm a huge fan of programming in DOS (and moreso Linux), but it is
tough to say whether it will be viable much longer, for games
especially. But in relation to the original question, as far as DOS
game programming libraries go, Allegro is the best, no two ways about
it. And it is being ported to DirectX and Linux currently, so it is
also becoming moderately portable.

So for anyone starting a new project such as myself here's my advice.
Unless the game is 90% hardware oriented, aim for portability. I'm
writing an adventure game engine that is currently only supporting
DJGPP in 320x200 mode. But I'm abstracting all the display code down
to certain primitives (like blitting rectangles to a screen), and then
later I could implement it in Allegro to get higher resolution (the
other parts of the engine must not rely on the resolution then).
Finally when I get a brand new PentiumII or such, I might learn the
interface of DirectX or some other Win32 graphics lib. and write the
blitting functions with that. If the rest of my code meets the aims I
have set it will definately be achievable. Its just a matter of good
design.

I realise this won't work for all games, but it should be a least
moderately attainable for most. Take Quake as an example: you've got
your stock DOS Quake, but the same source will compile for Linux, AIX,
Windows, NeXT, ... all with just the inclusion of a different C file
for video, sound, etc. All the rendering and module communication is
done seperately.

Anyway, I hope this input is useful to someone. But lets not have this
thread turn into one like on r.g.p: Windows Rulez, DOS is dead! Or
Windoze Sucks! Long live DOS! We've heard it all before.

Cheers,
Brett

---------------------------------------------------
        Brett Porter <blp01 AT uow DOT edu DOT au>
      http://members.xoom.com/brett_porter

"I always like to do a first draft before being
 spontaneous." -- The Sandman
---------------------------------------------------