windows vs. dos

[JuddWack]

Just wondering some of the pros and cons of mame in windows and in dos, specificly in a cabinet when a keyboard is going to be out unless absolutly necesary.

[Jakobud]

There was a thread about this like a week ago.

[eightbit]

The only reasons for Dos used to be an arcade monitor. Andy's new video card takes most of that arguement away. Now you can easily run windows on an arcade onitor.

Another reason for dos would be a sub 133mhz PC with little ram or devices that won't work under Windows.

The arguements for Windows are better performance on most PC's except those mentioned above. Mame is now being developed under Windows so it is being optimized for the Windows build. Windows can address a lot more ram.

As far as which version of Windows is best depends on how fast your PC is and how much ram. The only reasons I see to run 98 are slower PC's with less ram and if you want to run dual trackballs. Win2k is a more stable choice that is able to address more ram. WinXP is even more stable, more compatible with new PC's and devices and more efficient with more ram.

[Grasshopper]

There are three other main advantages to DOS:

1. Fast booting
2. Fast shut down i.e. you can just switch the machine off.
3. More stability

Some people might also pick MSDOS for idealogical reasons.

Microsoft has a near monopoly on the operating system used on home PCs. Many people (myself included) are concerned about their abuse of this monopoly, and also their attempt to switch people to their new licensing system that forces people to register their copy of Windows, and upgrade at regular intervals.

The best way to fight this is to use MSDOS (or Linux) whenever possible.

Incidentally I know that MSDOS is also a Microsoft product but there are several PD clones available.

I tend to use MAME in DOS simply because the sound is better on my machine.

[eightbit]

Grasshopper can you play the newer Mame games?

Another problem with running Dos is there are more emulators available for Windows if your interested in playing things other than Mame. You can also play PC games in Windows, Dos is limited in what else you can do with it.

[Chris]

I'm in the minority here.  I ran a DOS cabinet for a long time... I recently switched to Windows and I regret it.  My daughter has gotten addicted to the Act-Labs gun, though, which only works in Windows, so now I have to stay there....

DOS, to me, felt more like a real arcade machine.  In Windows, every now and then a mouse pointer seems to appear out of nowhere.  Moving the trackball makes it disappear, but it's distracting.  I don't like the fuzzy display of the default hardware stretch.  I get occassional hangups that I never did in DOS.  I seem to get more trackball backspin in Windows than I did in DOS.  I have to wait longer for my cabinet to start up now.

Personally, I think it's pointless to run Windows just to run MAME.  (Yes, Howard, that's your cue to rip me a new one.   )  The big strength of Windows, in  my mind, is being able to run more than just MAME: Windows games like Golden Tee, other emulators like DAPHNE, Visual Pinball, more frontend choices, more jukebox choices, USB controllers, easier networking for updates, etc.

If I were starting on a new cabinet from scratch and wasn't going to put a lightgun in it, I'd definately use DOS.  But, again, I'm heavily in the minority, and I was using DOS long before there was a such thing as Windows, so I'm comfortable in that environment.  If you are not familiar with the vagaries of DOS such as configuring cards without Plug and Play, memory management, etc., the configuration hassles probably aren't worth it.

[SirPoonga]

There are three other main advantages to DOS:

1. Fast booting
2. Fast shut down i.e. you can just switch the machine off.
3. More stability

Windows can be fast booting, you gott aknow how windows works though to optimize it.

To Chris, hey, now that oyu have windows on it, you can play PC games, and cool pinball sims like the pro-pinball series

Incidentally I know that MSDOS is also a Microsoft product but there are several PD clones available.

M$ stole dos.  PCDOS, IBM's, is the original.
Also there is freedos (www.freedos.org) which is very good.

[Chris]

M$ stole dos.  PCDOS, IBM's, is the original.

Actually, PCDOS was licensed from Microsoft.  Microsoft bought MS-DOS from Seattle Computer Systems (then called, I believe, QDOS) and licensed it to IBM for the first PC back in 1981.

MS stole lots of things, but not DOS.  They just bought it dirt cheap.

[Chris]

To Chris, hey, now that oyu have windows on it, you can play PC games, and cool pinball sims like the pro-pinball series

Yes, the tricky part is making sure the games are control-panel friendly.  It annoys me that games that are otherwise cabinet-perfect like Happyland and Golden Tee insist on using the keyboard entry for high score names....

I'd love to be able to disable the Gibberish Questions in You Don't Know Jack so I could put that in my cabinet!

--Chris

[SirPoonga]

To Chris, hey, now that oyu have windows on it, you can play PC games, and cool pinball sims like the pro-pinball series

Yes, the tricky part is making sure the games are control-panel friendly.  It annoys me that games that are otherwise cabinet-perfect like Happyland and Golden Tee insist on using the keyboard entry for high score names....

I'd love to be able to disable the Gibberish Questions in You Don't Know Jack so I could put that in my cabinet!

--Chris

Two solutions, with golden tee golf who cares about the name, I just press some buttons to input letters so I can get by the first hole.

Or a RF keyboard:)

[Chris]

That's what I do... I just wish it supported both trackball and keyboard entry.

Ooh, I wonder if there's a little keyboard simulator program that you could bind to a hotkey and run with a mouse...

[SirPoonga]

That's what I do... I just wish it supported both trackball and keyboard entry.

Ooh, I wonder if there's a little keyboard simulator program that you could bind to a hotkey and run with a mouse...

yeah, but it will be slow, not good for gibberish.  There is the accessability keyboard in windows.

[Chris]

I completely forgot about the Accessibility Keyboard!

[Dartful Dodger]

 
How come there aren't any Mac guys speaking up for OS10?

[Chris]

Heck, I'm stunned the Linux crowd is silent....

[rampy]

That's what I do... I just wish it supported both trackball and keyboard entry.

Ooh, I wonder if there's a little keyboard simulator program that you could bind to a hotkey and run with a mouse...

Someone should hack a blackberry/RIM type thumbkeyboard up for a YDKJ experience... like those addons for palmpilots (or Zaurus handheld)

plug it in via usb or some sort of extension cable...

probably not practical, but hte form factor would be kinda neat... IMHO

rampy

[eightbit]

Tough to type on one of that mini keyboards in a hurry. I got one for my ipac and it works way better than the on screen one or the handwritting recognition but I don't know how I'd do under pressure.

I think the wireless RF KB is the best option for YDKJ.

I got some servers at work now that are quad 2.8ghz processors and those things barely show the Windows 2000 server logo screen before the login box pops up. They actually take longer to post and initiliaze the hardware than they do to load Windows. Of course they'd probably load Dos in the time of a screen refresh.  

[rampy]

Tough to type on one of that mini keyboards in a hurry. I got one for my ipac and it works way better than the on screen one or the handwritting recognition but I don't know how I'd do under pressure.

I think the wireless RF KB is the best option for YDKJ.

Just to be contentious... you can type pretty quickly with those thumb keyboards once you get used to 'em...  I used to be able to do around 30 wpm when I had a wyndtell "interactive" pager... great for passing snide comments during meetings...

*shrug* but that's a digression of a digression... so....

I use DOS cause I have a lower end computer... but for USB stuff/win games I have a gamelauncher menu to start windows... not super elegant... but when I get some bread and get something speedier in there I'll switch to winbloze... FWIW

Rampy

[SirPoonga]

Once I get some money I am going wireless.  My cocktail wil have a flexible keyboard in it , just for management purposes.

[Odonadon]

I use DOS cause I have a lower end computer... but for USB stuff/win games I have a gamelauncher menu to start windows... not super elegant... but when I get some bread and get something speedier in there I'll switch to winbloze... FWIW

What is the system that you're using, Rampy?  Is lower end like a P133, or are we talking PIII 500?

Odonadon

[rampy]

I use DOS cause I have a lower end computer... but for USB stuff/win games I have a gamelauncher menu to start windows... not super elegant... but when I get some bread and get something speedier in there I'll switch to winbloze... FWIW

What is the system that you're using, Rampy?  Is lower end like a P133, or are we talking PIII 500?

Odonadon

mine is a celeron 366@550 ... trying to eak out all hte performance I can (for now)

rampy

[Odonadon]

mine is a celeron 366@550 ... trying to eak out all hte performance I can (for now)

rampy

Excellent.  I've been trying to figure out what OS I want with my K6-3 450 .  If DOS does give even a teensy bit of more performance than Windows, then I'll use it.

Tanks,
Odonadon

[OSCAR]

One of my test machines is a K6-2 500 and I ran DOS MAME under a true DOS 7 installation (not a gui-less 98 install) on it for performance reasons.  BTW, anyone that wants to use a pure DOS system may want to consider this type of installation.  Basically it is a 'rip' of Win98 that creates a bootable floppy and installation.  Details are on my bartop cab Software & Downloads pages,  www.skum.org/bartop  [note:  the rip batch file was created by EmuMannen, not me.  ]

However, somewhere around version .55 I decided to install Win98 and try the Windows version of MAME on this machine.  I actually noticed an increase in framerate on larger roms like MSH running in Windows.

I still believe that there is a fine line (cpu-wise) between DOS & Windows with regard to which MAME version operates more efficiently, but from my experience an AMD K6-2 500 falls just to the Windows side of it.

I will agree with Chris, I never had a moment

[Grasshopper]

M$ stole dos.  PCDOS, IBM's, is the original.

Actually, PCDOS was licensed from Microsoft.  Microsoft bought MS-DOS from Seattle Computer Systems (then called, I believe, QDOS) and licensed it to IBM for the first PC back in 1981.

MS stole lots of things, but not DOS.  They just bought it dirt cheap.

Yes, I think that's correct. I read somewhere that QDOS stood for quick and dirty operating system, it was basically a rip-off of 16 bit CP/M.

It's hard to believe that an operating system that was pretty crude even in 1980 is still around and widely used (buried in Windows 98) over 20 years later. However because of its simplicity, it does make a good launcher for emulators.

Eightbit: The processor in my machine is an AMD K6/2 350 mhz. Unsurprisingly DOS MAME runs significantly faster on my system. However I have compared DOS and Windows MAME on faster systems (>900 mhz) and I've never noticed that Windows MAME is actually faster than the DOS version.

I've just been given a new motherboard and once I've bought a processor to go with it (probably an Athlon 2100+) I may try setting up a barebones Linux system to run MAME. Basically what I am after is DOS with drivers for modern devices e.g. USB.

For me DOS MAME is the obvious first choice for stand alone cabinets and slower computers. However, if like most people you also use your computer for wordprocessing, spreadsheets, internet etc. then it is convenient to fire up a Windows version of MAME to play the occasional game. You can also run DOS MAME from a command line prompt from within Windows.

[menace]

My motivating factors were speed (running a p3-450), shutdown (on/off--no wait) and the ability to play old DOS games that i really liked, but are not easily suited to the windows environment--before anyone pipes up, I know you can get them to work on windows but I find that process annoying--just my .02.

I don't think i will switch to windows until there comes a game that i really want to play but can't play in DOS for whatever reason--controller/memory/whatever.