From: garyrich@qdeck.com (Gary Rich)
Subject: Re: Game problems with Desqview
Organization: Quarterdeck Office Systems, Santa Monica CA
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 20:32:03 GMT

In article <6949@dove.nist.gov> livigni@bldrdoc.gov (David livigni 303-497-5898) writes:
>In article <mike03175921013225052@batpad.lgb.ca.us>, mike@batpad.lgb.ca.us (mike batchelor) writes:
>> livigni@bldrdoc.gov (David livigni 303-497-5898) writes:
>> >
>> > I am having problems running games under Desqview.  I use a large
>> > graphics window with no virtualization, no background processing,
>> > displays graphics, writes directly to screen, don't share CPU,
>> > don't share EGA, etc.  When I run BLOCKS (a 3-d tetris thing) or
>> 
>> You've got two of those parameters set up in such a way as to ensure that
>> DV will not save any graphics screens.  Turn on virtualization, turn
>> on shares EGA when foreground/zoomed.  On F1 advanced options, give
>> the games 8 graphics pages.  DV can save and restore standard
>> 640x480x16 VGA screens.
>> 
>Virtualization on, are you kidding?  I wanted to play it, not sit there
>watching it draw all day!  To say that DV doesent save graphics screens
>without virtualization on is a gigantic ERROR or I have been living in an
>alternate universe!  I NEVER use graphics virtualization and run graphics
>all the time.  Note I am NOT running them in the background.

You are correct.  DV will save and restore standard VGA graphics, even
with virtualization turned off.

>
>8 graphics pages?  I thaught the only logical options were 0, 1, or 2 (so
>I read in a manual somewhere). 

Setting a larger # of graphics pages will sometime allow DV to save and
restore VGA modes that would otherwise fail.  This works fairly often for
programs running in 800x600x16.  It almost never works for 1024x768.

 Sim City ran OK with 2-pages, for a while 
>anyway.  Then all the sudden the screen began rolling uncontrollably.  It
>would be fine for an instant when you switch away and back, but then would
>start rolling again.  This happened once before in a CAD program, and I had 
>to position the cursor in that instant of stability to save a days work.
>My conclusion - forget anything but the simplest games in Desqview.  Sim
>City seems to work OK in DVX, but I don't use it much because its slow.

needless to say, games are not the #1 priority for our testing dept. to
ensure compatibility with.  They get looked at, but they aren't normally
part of any official test suite.  I've seen many of out local time wasters
running SIM city/ant/earth with no problems though.  Personally, I keep
my venerable tandy 100 ('84 vintage) in a corner at home for running games on.

>It is faster than WIndows though, but what was wrong with text mode for
>text based processes?  I think I'll try OS/2 when they get Windows 3.1 support,
>it's presently a better DOS than DOS, and now I have the hardware to run it.

You're kidding.  I would be very very surprised if OS/2 ran the collection
of games that are popular.  It crashes so easily for me doing simple things
that I've never been brave enough to run something like Links386 or a good 
flight simulator.


>
>Strange to hear this nonsense from someone at quarterdeck. 

Mike's new here, but he's smart.  Cut him a little slack.  Most of his
posts he does from home on his own time.  I wish everyone were that 
dedicated.

 Interesting
>that the only response I got about my open floppy disk bug was from other
>users with the same problem... is there no solution?

Things posted to the newsgroup are not gauranteed a response from Quarterdeck
Tech support.  We assume that the reason they are posted here is so that you
can get responses from other users and not just the "official line" from us.
If you want to make sure we reply to it, send mail to support@qdeck.com.

  The best suggestion I
>heard was that DV was running out of SYSTEM memory (specified with Desqview
>Setup) when it tried to open the little window with the Abort Retry Fail
>options.  This bug was very inconsistant, and I can't get it to do it again
>now...

This showed up on a few machines with a certain revision of DV 2.4x.  It was
very inconsistent but seems fixed in 2.42.

> why no upgrade of text mode DV Classic?  Was it abandoned for DVX?

Don't believe that for a second!  We have NO intention of abandoning classic
DV.  There WILL be new versions with new capabilities.

>David Livigni

Gary Rich	<support@qdeck.com>
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.desqview