A Game With Its Own Os?

[The Scottish Raven]

probably a n00b question, so i appolagise, but i was thinking how restrictive windows is for many games. then my brain came out with "what if the game came with it's own OS? it's not like you need to support word processing for a game, and if you make an OS you could probably access more than 256mb of RAM

this have any possibilities? or am i thinking crap (as usual. lol)

[JPickford (retired mod)]

Windows isn't restrictive. It doesn't stop you doing anything; it's just that there's a bit of a learning curve if you want to write something that behaves properly. Writing an Operating System - even a simple one would invlove a steeper learning curve.

Old systems like Speccy, SNES etc, either didn't have an operating system or just allowed you to take over completely. But a PC is more complex than that, using a modern graphics card means communicating via drivers which are written for the operating system. If you booted out the OS you'd have to write a driver for every card out there; same with sound etc. Not to mention accessing the CD.

Whats this 256mb you talk about? Windows doesn't have Word Processing support at OS level.

[Flockheart]

I'd be just like windows and direct X never happened, you'd have to manually support and code for all available PC hardware in which case you'd probably end up just coding another OS anyway and thered be no time for the actual games development. It's totally impractical unless you want to use that extra RAM normally used by Windows for a text adventure, so you're think crap

Windows doesn't limit games to 256megs of RAM anyway does it?

[Flockheart]

Beaten to it

[pelago]

Back in the early days of PC, there were a few games that booted directly from floppy, and the floppy didn't have DOS on it, but instead an OS 'built-in'. But I can't see that happening these days with modern PC hardware. As other people have pointed out, you'll have driver problems. If you're pissed off with Windows maybe you should try coding for consoles, as they may be less annoying for you.

[JPickford (retired mod)]

It's probably impossible to write your own drivers for recent graphics cards; I doubt Nvidia & ATI will even release the information needed to write directly to the hardware.

[MemoryLeak]

Depends what you wanted to do. I think all modern cards are still vga and vesa compatable, but you definitely won't be able to do anyhing clever with 3d.

It'd be quite funny to use a modern card just for vga though, like driving a porshe using the starter motor...

[JPickford (retired mod)]

Depends what you wanted to do. I think all modern cards are still vga and vesa compatable, but you definitely won't be able to do anyhing clever with 3d.

It'd be quite funny to use a modern card just for vga though, like driving a porshe using the starter motor...

OBVIOUSLY I meant to use the cards as intended.

[The Scottish Raven]

ahhh. ok

only just started learning games development (ust started it at uni)

just a passing thought. at least now i won't look like a gimp in front of my fellow students. lol

[Flockheart]

ahhh. ok

only just started learning games development (ust started it at uni)

just a passing thought. at least now i won't look like a gimp in front of my fellow students. lol

What uni you at?

[Colonel Panic]

Back in the early days of PC, there were a few games that booted directly from floppy, and the floppy didn't have DOS on it, but instead an OS 'built-in'. But I can't see that happening these days with modern PC hardware. As other people have pointed out, you'll have driver problems. If you're pissed off with Windows maybe you should try coding for consoles, as they may be less annoying for you.

The guys doing the Gentoo Linux distro have something like this going on... IIRC they had a bootable CD that ran America's Army for Linux on GeForce and ATI hardware.

[connerfitzgerald]

There is a copy of Quake going around that boots off of CD and has an inbuilt OS. Its pretty cool as it all fits on a business card sized CD, so you can carry it around in your wallet and whip it out at work/school/college for some instant network deathmatch

[The Scottish Raven]

What uni you at?

Glasgow Calendonian

[Flockheart]

Glasgow Calendonian

Ah a myself and a few other forumites graduated in games tech at abertay a few months back, I was just wondering if you were at the same place.

[U2031]

Glasgow Calendonian

Is that Ritchie?

[dan_tm]

There is a copy of Quake going around that boots off of CD and has an inbuilt OS. Its pretty cool as it all fits on a business card sized CD, so you can carry it around in your wallet and whip it out at work/school/college for some instant network deathmatch

Linky?

[DarhkFox]

yeah i wouldnt mind trying that too...