There should be a Gamer OS.

HangTime · 23 Apr 2006 at 12:24

I don't disagree with any of that (the most modern console I've ever owned is a Super Nintendo Entertainment System, which came out around 13(?) years ago). I've yet to see a console which could replace my PC.

However, if there was a gaming OS, would you be able to do things like read about, sign up for, download MMORPG betas? Or play ancient games from the early 90s?

WatchTower · 23 Apr 2006 at 12:27

I'm sure theer could be a web browser put into a gamer OS and like I said before you can always put a partion on your Harddrive so you can still boot in to XP if you wanted to.

HangTime · 23 Apr 2006 at 12:35

I just think there wouldn't be enough demand to make it commercially viable. While people are this forum are generally quite clued up about PCs, Joe Public won't be too happy shelling out a wad more $$$$ to have two OS' on their computer (GE and XP), plus all the messing about with dual boot configurations etc.

In general, new consumers who are purely interested in games will buy a console. Otherwise they want a versatile system such as WinXP. Of course there are a few seasoned veterans like ourselves who wouldn't mind a turbocharged high performance version of windows for gaming, but that's not enough to entice M$ into devoting more resources into developing it - their time is better spent on console development.

WatchTower · 23 Apr 2006 at 12:38

Is there anything we the users can do to windows to make it less demanding?

dirtydog · 23 Apr 2006 at 12:46

HangTime said:
Windows XP is reasonably configurable if you start using nlite to strip bits out, then shutdown services, use gpedit/regedit/tweakui etc. OK so it's not overly efficient as a gaming OS but it's not all that bad.

But does any of that actually make games any faster? Not in my experience

It might save a bit of RAM but that's it. I think the whole idea of a gaming OS is flawed and something advocated by people who don't really understand why consoles are so much quicker relative to the same-spec PC. The OS is only a tiny part of that.

afraser2k · 23 Apr 2006 at 13:28

kdd said:
There's going to be a gaming version of Vista isn't there?

Vista will have a lot of tools to help gamers and game developers, though likely in the "home" edition(s) of the o/s as I doubt business will want the stuff. Microsoft seem to be making thing's a lot simpler for Windows gaming.

HangTime · 23 Apr 2006 at 13:45

dirtydog said:
But does any of that actually make games any faster? Not in my experience It might save a bit of RAM but that's it. I think the whole idea of a gaming OS is flawed and something advocated by people who don't really understand why consoles are so much quicker relative to the same-spec PC. The OS is only a tiny part of that.

The OS does play some part; when win2000 was released I did quite a bit of benchmarking to compare performance between win98se and win2kpro. Now of course part of that performance differential may have been down to driver immaturity, but at the end of the day, if those issues are never fixed then whether it is down to the driver or OS itself is somewhat irrelevant (i.e. drivers are an integral part of the OS).

I think what you are driving at in this thread is that the primary reason PCs give 'bad' performance is because it is 'impossible' to optimise for specific hardware, because of the wide range of configurations people have. Ironically if you go back 10+ years to when DOS was still used for quite a few games, developers were actively coding for specific pieces of hardware (soundcards, graphics cards, displays etc). Even under windows we had this to some extent with proprietary graphics APIs like Glide, before D3D/OGL took over. Anyway, point being that even as late as 1998 I was actively choosing to run some games under DOS due to the superior performance relative to the win95 version. So in actual fact we could consider MS-DOS to be a gamers OS with it's low memory footprint and direct hardware access

Ruhbarb · 23 Apr 2006 at 13:58

So in actual fact we could consider MS-DOS to be a gamers OS with it's low memory footprint and direct hardware access
23rd Apr 2006 13:28

I allways thought windows deficient for not having a proper game mode, the compatability mode is a joke since it is software only.

So how hard would it be to say set up something like open gem dos or open dos to work for a specific game say quake ? anyone have some answers?

dirtydog · 23 Apr 2006 at 14:14

HangTime said:
The OS does play some part; when win2000 was released I did quite a bit of benchmarking to compare performance between win98se and win2kpro. Now of course part of that performance differential may have been down to driver immaturity, but at the end of the day, if those issues are never fixed then whether it is down to the driver or OS itself is somewhat irrelevant (i.e. drivers are an integral part of the OS).

I think what you are driving at in this thread is that the primary reason PCs give 'bad' performance is because it is 'impossible' to optimise for specific hardware, because of the wide range of configurations people have. Ironically if you go back 10+ years to when DOS was still used for quite a few games, developers were actively coding for specific pieces of hardware (soundcards, graphics cards, displays etc). Even under windows we had this to some extent with proprietary graphics APIs like Glide, before D3D/OGL took over. Anyway, point being that even as late as 1998 I was actively choosing to run some games under DOS due to the superior performance relative to the win95 version. So in actual fact we could consider MS-DOS to be a gamers OS with it's low memory footprint and direct hardware access

Yes I remember DOS games asking you what soundcard you used

Ah those were the days eh. The glide thing is interesting too because it was a LOT faster and smoother than anything at the time from DirectX or openGL in my experience. I accept that the OS plays a part, I just think it's a very small part

UOcUK Poopscoop · 23 Apr 2006 at 15:14

Craig321 said:
Why?

All someone would need to do it make and OS that supported games, MS don't have to do that

Craig.

To make the OS viable it would have to run existing games too and games developers would want to only code one version that would run on XP/ vista and this "new" gaming OS.

To make all that happen the OS programmers would have to have full access to all the coding of Vista etc.

Thats why I said that only MS could pull it off in my opinion.

Its all a moot point anyway really.

Jack Bauer · 23 Apr 2006 at 15:34

It aint all that bad, XPs pritty good for games compaired with the OS of the past. I remember when I change, got an extra 25% performance from my 4200.

MossyUK · 23 Apr 2006 at 15:40

UOcUK Poopscoop said:
Basically you would have Xbox 360 performance with all the usability/ modscene of a PC.

Doesnt the 360 hold back a %age for the OS which is running all the time in the background anyway? So basically your in a PC situation there. I read the PS3 is reserving one cell processor for OS things - such as VoIP which can be called by the OS at any time thus reducing the available power to any games.

tickle me elmo · 23 Apr 2006 at 15:47

just use windows 2000

PinkPig · 23 Apr 2006 at 15:53

This has already become a "gamer OS with a web browser". For that to work we need to add full network functionality. Most gamers want to listen to music, sometimes while they're playing, lets add a media player too. Lots of games use various devices attached to the computer, we need to get those working as well, so we need USB support and driver functionality for just about everything. We can't have network functionality without supporting Windows firewall and anti-virus solutions. Readme files for games need Adobe Reader and Microsoft Office sometimes, lets have those too.

What exactly isn't going to be in a (feasible) "gaming OS"? It's either a games console or it's a PC, I don't see any middle ground.

GSXRMovistar · 23 Apr 2006 at 16:04

If you are setting up a gaming only PC I'd recommend nLite for cutting out the rubbish from XP you don't need.

Roduga · 23 Apr 2006 at 16:12

"Start" -> "Turn Off Computer" -> "Restart In Gaming Mode"

(I wish)

james.miller · 23 Apr 2006 at 16:17

windows uses very little resources anyway when your gaming. hell im sitting here right now and my cpu usage is spiking to an unbelievable....4%. ram is the only thing that windows can really eat up while your gaming, but most of us have plenty of ram anyway.

Personally, i see no point in it.

Boogle · 23 Apr 2006 at 17:30

There was a gaming OS, it was called DOS. There were no drivers, no APIs, each game had to program seperately for each piece of hardware.

Ultimately for PCs something like that is unfeasable (how many different graphics cards are there from ONE family (different unit counts, different architectures, all require custom code), let alone all of the cards from all the different manufacturers. Then there are sound cards, keyboards, mice, etc.

DX is very, VERY fast. Far faster than you would think. However it can't make up for bugs in drivers, optimisations that result in bugs (too many of those), or obscure configurations.

Psyk · 23 Apr 2006 at 19:31

What exactly would be missing from a gaming OS that something like XP has? Giving direct hardware access would be pretty useless if you ask me because developers would have to program for every possible piece of hardware and your just asking for all sorts of compatibility problems. What is that uses up resources while you're playing a game? You can't really disable net services and I'm sure most things you can just turn off if you want to get that 0.01% of CPU time back.

Rincewind · 23 Apr 2006 at 23:02

in reply to a few people, google are apparently devving an OS. it has possibilities of greatness.

There should be a Gamer OS.

Gangster