🚀 go-pugleaf

On 5 Oct 1995 02:57:25 GMT, cste...@panix.com (Christopher Stetson)
wrote:

>In article <Pine.SV4.3.91.951004190751.13355B-100000@curly>, Alexei
>Vyacheslavovich Novikov <ano...@emory.edu> wrote:
> 
>>         You don't seem to know the reason. DOOM and DF (DOS vesrions) are
>> done in 320x200x256 standard VGA mode. For better compatibility/lower
>> system requirement/higher speed reasons. And that's the only cause. Look
>> at DF for Mac. Same graphics data but better resolution - almost no
>> blockiness. So Windows 95 in a mode suitable for games certainly can
>> afford more than 320x200. I'll tell you more - next widely available
>> resolution - 640x480. Right like DF for Mac/bigger than Marathon screen
>> size. So no problem here. 
>
>A cross-platform 1pp developer (Havoc?) and LA have both said that Mac
>graphics are faster at higher resolutions, by a wide margin. PCs do
>320x200 like nobodies business, but Macs do high res graphics _much_
>faster. This is not going to change with Win95.
>

First off, not true.  Check out Withchaven, with a VERY complex engine
in SVGA on a P-90.  Dark Forces and Marathon certainly were _not_
smooth in their high res settings on a 66mhz 601 or the 75mhz 603 I
used, became acceptable on a 80mhz but still a little rough.

And this will change with Win95.  First off, to do SVGA many cards
have to use a very slow emulation method with a VESA bios.  With
Directdraw, the graphics can be coded far closer to the metal without
having to go through the VESA routines- not to mention the support of
graphics accelerators, both 2D and 3D.  The slight speed difference
you _may_ get on a Power Mac at high resolutions is negligable when
compared to what 3D accelerators will bring to the PC and Mac
platform, that's where the future is.