I''ve been wondering, why aren''t games being written in DOS anymore? DOS game programming was so much easier than windows game programming. Sure, windows has DirectX which in turn gives a lot of hardware support. But why can''t that be done in dos? I mean, why not have the equivalent of DX in DOS? The closest thing to a decent game library in DOS is Allegro. It''s easy to use, *portable*(when the next version comes out) and it supports quite a lot of sound hardware. IMHO commercial 2D games can still be made in DOS with allegro or other game librarys(please correct me if I''m wrong). Maybe when more games are written for DOS, and an OpenGl port may be made for DOS. I hope the experts can help me out here. **NOTE:- When I say DOS, i mean DOS32. DOS16 is really dead

I don''t think direct X and other Windows APIs are the real reason DOS is not being used any more. The reason is, if you want to actually sell your game to people other than advanced computer users, you have to use Windows. Too many people don''t like using DOS. If you want to make a DOS game, you have to make the install program a windows program, and you have to allow the user to believe the program is a windows program.

BTW, Windows programming is not that much harder. ALl you have to do is take care of a little overhead in setting up your windows. You only have to write that code once and then use it as a shell for your other programs. The core of my windows graphics library that I am building that hides all the Direct X calls and windows overhead was developed around a hello windows program. The overhead is taken care of basically the same way in every windows program.

Domini

vesa is hardware acceleration for dos. i think they had vesa 2.0, vesa 3.0, and vesa/af. i think vesa/af had 3d acceleration. 3dfx has dos glide support in glide2x. they dropped it in glide3x.

either it was easier for microsoft to have hardware support through windows, or they didnt want to push dos. or both. i''m guessing it was both.

btw, allegro has problems with some video cards.

for advanced games and other software, dos just doesnt cut it anymore. of course, you can still write for dos if you feel windows programming is too much of a pain. you''ll still learn a lot about programming.

I have to admit that dos programming are alot more fun than dos programing... but if you want to make commercial games for dos you have to write support for many different graphics cards and soundcards (wich windows has) and then you got the memory problem.. ive spent hours to optimate my autoexec.bat and config.sys files just to getting it start..

and most of the ones that buy games dont know that much about how to optimate their autoexec and config.sys...

windows is after all more userfriendly.. even if it sucks with its instability... =)

- mathias

I actually think that DOS is more difficult to program then windows. Sure, it''s easy if your using libraries, but if you go it alone it can be a pain.

But really, the reason why you shouldn''t write DOS programs is because:
1) You have to worry about compatability and other headaches
2) It''s not that much easier
3) Even if your program is great, it will seem dated if you write it in DOS. And you will scare most users away.

--TheGoop

I think everything said here is correct. DOS was Hell with compatibility, especially in SVGA mode. Sound cards were also just as bad. Surprizingly, no one here mentioned networking. With multiplayer gaining so much popularity recently, has everyone forgotten the difficulty of true multiplayer in DOS?

Windows offers so much today. Joystick support, USB support, advanced hardware support, etc... It''s hard to imagine going back to DOS. Also, the Win32 memory space is great. No more near and far pointers or quirky DOS extenders.

The final nail in the coffin is the user. Many people buying games today couldn''t use DOS to save their lifes. Hell, who hasn''t had to go tweak their autoexec.bat to get some new game working. I still have to do it when I want to crank up X-Wing.

i use DOS for all my utility programming, but i use Windows for programming games. making utility programs for DOS is fine because they don''t need the best graphics card, or the most powerful api. they just need to get done what needs to be done, and trying to do this in windows would be more time consuming than nesscessary. sure, windows has MFC and the form designer and all that jazz, but is it really worth learning all that extra stuff, when using Allegro in dos would be just as easy if not easier? it just makes sense to me that if you''re writing a program for a specific purpose, write it for the platform that would be the easiest to implement what you want. just because it doesn''t use the lastest development kits, doesn''t mean that it isn''t good or useful software...

.. ok, glad i got that out ..

anything worth doing is difficult.

-uncreativ

I for got all about that, but what I-Shaolin said about DOS networking is what actually got me to leave DOS. Networking is possible on DOS, but I couldn''t figure out how to use TCP/IP over a dail up connection over DOS. I figured it would be easier to use a win socket.

Domini

Why don''t people use horse and cart anymore? They use cars. (I''m using this from the technonolgy aspect, not the speed aspect although the latest versions of direct x run just as fast or faster as the DOS way.

-David