From: jbodnar@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (John Bodnar)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: Windows NT humor
Date: 14 Dec 92 03:03:18 GMT
Reply-To: jbodnar@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (John Bodnar)
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin TX

According to kovarski@zooid.guild.org (Mark Kovarski):
>>	WINOS2 is bad, pure and simple.  Once most users have really
>>	used Win3.1 with proper drivers, they find WINOS2 agonizingly
>>	slow in comparison.  At this point,  I reboot to use Win31 because
>>	there aren't any drivers that scream like my ATI Mach32 drivers
>>	for Win31 do.

Ahem....

BULL SHIT!

Take my Tseng ET4000 card and use it with the most recent Windows 3.0
drivrs for WIN-OS/2 and with the most recent Windows 3.1 drivers for
Windows 3.1.  I want you to conclusively prove that the performance
differences are very noticeable.

You can't do it!  Even Ziff-Davis' WinBench program bears this out.
WIN-OS/2 3.0 is slower than Windows 3.1, but the differences are just not
that noticeable, certainly not enough to prevent users from feeling slowed
down or unproductive.

Now, you may not have Windows 3.0 drivers for your Mach32, and that's your
problem, but you show me a video card with both drivers for Windows 3.0 and
Windows 3.1, and I'll show that the performance differences are too small
to affect usage.

Oh, I seem to keep reading that the Mach32 drivers for Windows 3.1 are
buggy (not to mention the card itself).  This must not be a concern for
you.

>>	WinOS23.1 (unavailable) is _much_ better, but it's still
>>	slower (especially--in drivers--where it counts).

Rubbish.  Your Windows 3.1 drivers will work under WIN-OS/2 3.1 and the
difference will be even smaller yet.  Your drivers crap is just plain
wrong.  You cannot prove this, the benchmarks (and reported feel) bear this
out, and you know it!

>>	WINOS23.1 is _still_ not up to par with Win31.  The problemisn't
>>	just compatibility (geesh, want an example of a 386enhanced
>>	mode program that a huge number of users are using now or 
>>	will be soon?  The ATI drivers (mach32) run only in 386e mode..).

A huge number of users run in 386 Enhanced mode, but most don't "use" it.
You show me your average Word and Excel user running in 386 Enhanced Mode,
and I bet that if they used Standard Mode, they wouldn't notice much.  In
fact, Microsoft even says that Standard Mode is faster for people not
multitasking DOS applications (I can document this).

As for your drivers working in 386 Enhanced Mode only, then that's ATI's
problem.  There are still too many people running Windows in Standard Mode
(how about all of those 286s and 386 machines with only 2M of RAM).  In
fact, I don't know of anyone other than ATI who requires 386 Enhanced Mode
for their drivers.  This has only happened with the Mach32 chip.  Previous
drivers did not require 386 Enhanced Mode.  Even TIGA based cards (the most
complex out there) do not require 386 Enhanced Mode.

>>	3.0 was utter garbage--the only reason it did so well
>>	was MS's incredible marketing strategy and the pent up
>>	frustration most users were feeling about the garbage
>>	of having to fiddle with DOS to get more free memory, conflicts
>>	with EMS drivers, the whole spiel.

People still do this with DOS and Windows 3.1.  Nothing has changed here.
-- 
John Bodnar                          : Friends don't let friends use Windows!
The University of Texas at Austin    : But I'm still waiting for Microsoft
Internet: jbodnar@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu : Solitaire NT!  Heaven forbid, another
UUCP: ....!cs.utexas!ut-ccwf!jbodnar : productive user of OS/2 v2.0!
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy