🚀 go-pugleaf

>Of course, until Warp, the user base of OS/2 is not big enough to
>support commercial games nor did IBM take any effort to advertise
>OS/2.  Some IBMer have taken a hostile view of somebody developing
>games for their mission critical platform!  But things have
>changed now, although I don't think everybody under the sun will
>develop games for OS/2, but it's a viable game platform now.

I have generally heard and thought that Warp was just an inbetween
OS for a lot of people.  DOS/Windows combination is just a pain and
NT is not for everyone (especially gamers).  I am sure that a lot
of companies will wait to see what happens after august when Win95
is out (hopefully).  Then, and only then will anyone be able to 
evaluate how much of a viable platform OS/2 is.





>>If you count all of the DOS and Windows game on the market now, there is
>>probably around 99% market share.  This is because these two OS's are
>>dominant.  I am saying that the dominant OS will get most of the games.
>
>Most != 99%.  I highly doubt DOS/Win have 99% of games market,
>what happened to the Mac?  I trust about 80% is closer.  And the
>point is, even DOS/Win is dominant now, Mac is still a viable
>platform.  In the same way, even if Win95 dominates, OS/2 will
>still be a viable platform.  And porting from Win95 to OS/2 is
>*much* easier than DOS/Win to OS/2, due the similarities in design
>(flat application address, multithreading, etc).


Most == 99% when you are talking about PC games and not including Mac.
Mac is viable, but that isn't where the war is about to begin.  For
anyone with an IBM PC, the choice is between Win95 and OS/2.  OS/2 is
viable presently, but, if Win95 takes over (like MS wants), then IBM
might just give up on OS/2.  I have heard some reports of this happening
in magazines.  The porting problem might not even be an issue though.
How long did it take for Sim City to come out for OS/2?  A lot of
companies want to develope for Win95 and NT and hardly want to waste
any time developing for OS/2.  Porting may be easier from Win95 - OS/2
than from DOS - OS/2 but I hardly think it will be easy.


>>>No, I don't know that there will be a huge amount of games
>>>developed for Win95, I have yet to see even *one* that is more
>>>than just a DOS port.  Perhaps you have a crystal ball showing you
>>>the future, I don't have one.
>>
>>If the current state of OS/2 development of games does not change, Win95
>>will have a huge amount of games for it in the future.  Certainly in a 
few
>
>I don't think OS/2 games development will not change, IBM is
>starting to push game developments in OS/2, released a game
>development kits, more advertising, etc.

Fine, if it changes it changes, it can only promote good competition
across platforms.  We will soon see though how much people believe
enough in OS/2 to develope for it like they now develope for Windows/DOS.


>>I hardly think that this is true by now.  There are roughly 500,000 beta
>>testers now which is the largest testing program for a piece of software
>
>Nope, not beta testers.  That 50k copies is called "Preview", it's
>for you to *evaluate* Win95, not for you to give bug reports.

NOT TRUE.  With Win95 there comes Microsoft Network and special editors
for you to fill in bug reports.  In fact, giving a bug report is just
as easy as going onto MSN, pressing a button and typing in what is wrong.
Anyone who cared enough to get the Beta version surely is considering
the full version when it is released... and if things aren't right in
the Beta, they will submit reports to get them right in the final release.





>>That is not really true though.  Have you ever gotten Under a Killing
>>Moon to work in OS/2?  There are games that do not work for OS/2 and you
>>have to reboot anyway.  In Dos, the worst that you have to do is get 
QEMM,
>>and reboot if a program doesn't like memory managers.
>
>In DOS, you almost always have to reboot to play a game and then
>reboot after it.  In OS/2, the worst case is reboot to DOS to play
>the game and boot back to OS/2 later, looks similar to me.  BTW, I
>don't have UKM, I did played XCOM(CD), Arena, Star Trail(CD), AOE,
>LOL, 7th Guest and Descent in OS/2 tho' (and of course GalCiv).

I don't know what version of DOS you are running, but I had to reboot
DOS only for wierd games such as Ultima 7 or Comanche which don't like
memory managers. I have dozens of other games that all work correctly
on one boot.  Anyway, booting to DOS under OS/2 is a very risky thing in
my encounters.  I once booted to DOS, installed 200 megs on the drive
with OS/2 installed on it, and booted back to OS/2.  My OS/2 would not
find any files it was using previously giving me shared space errors.
Sometimes, OS/2 would get back to its normal desktop and just stop.  The
dual boot for OS/2 needs  a lot of work.  In DOS, you just press reset
and everything is great.

One other thing about OS/2 that upsets me is the fact that they make you
pay for simple utilities.  With competitive gaming against others becoming
so popular, a link to the internet is vital.  I am not saying that the
OS/2 bonus pack isn't good - BUT, they can't even include a simple tcp/ip
startup pack.  You have to buy that for an extra $150.00.  Without it, no
Networking (with ethernet cards) over the Inet is allowed.  For me, that
was a major reason to try alternatives... BTW, MS releases all of their
TCP/IP drives as shareware (so much for being totally monopolistic I 
guess).

John Marconi 
UIUC Computer Science