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Why weren't bootable game disks ever a thing on the IBM PC?


Why did moving the mouse cursor cause Windows 95 to run more quickly?First commercial DOS game?Building a DOS/Win95/98 computer from scratchDoes “Disk Operating System” imply that there was a “non-disk” Operating System?Windows 98 / XP Dual bootWhy did CP/M and MS-DOS use the BIOS instead of their own drivers to access hardware?How do I create a boot menu to select between Windows and DOS?How to put a delay in AUTOEXEC.BATFiguring out size of Device Drivers and where they are loaded in High Memoryqemu emulating MS-DOS cannot access CD-ROMSet screen resolution in DOS-only PCExtracting files from a Windows 3.1 (16bit) install/archive (game)






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5















While for other platforms of that era (primarily, Amiga), putting a game on a bootable disk was quite a normal practice, this approach never taken off on IBM PC. Why not?



I do remember people having multiple menu-driven autoexec.bat and config.sys configurations because one would have to boot MS-DOS with only the bare minimum to satisfy the requirements of some memory-demanding games. Since MS-DOS was by and large a single-task operating system, wouldn't booting a game directly from disk be more efficient than going through all the hassle of finding a working configuration of HIMEM, EMM386 and whatever else?



Even when Windows took over, would there be benefits for a demanding game to have full control over the PC resources as opposed to competing with a multitude of random background processes potentially spoiling the smooth FPS?



I understand that games in such a scenario would have to include a minimalist operating system, but I guess a carefully tuned Linux kernel along with drivers for all the popular graphics cards would be enough? This is for the Windows era, that is - for MS-DOS, I guess all the essentials games of that time needed were available directly from BIOS (well, file system support could have been an issue but I recall Amiga games of that time used to read the game data directly from sectors on the disk).










share|improve this question



















  • 2





    Note hard disks (in various forms) spread relatively early in the PC world, much earlier than on other platforms. Hard disk based games would have ben a nightmare to handle without the OS and its drivers.

    – tofro
    10 hours ago






  • 4





    en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_PC_booter_games lists over 200, including at least one from as late as 1988.

    – Tommy
    9 hours ago











  • The Apple 2 world also had this, iirc 95%+ of games were "booters" until the advent of the //gs, and even then it was pretty common. Business software as well tended to be boosters. On a ][, ][+, //e, or //c, the only typical reason to boot from your basic DOS disk was to access utilities and BASIC programming.

    – Robert Columbia
    7 hours ago











  • Would you really want to reboot Windows just to play a game? The were a few games that you had to, and not just booters, but why would you think this would be something that gamers would want? DirectX was invented so games could have more or less direct access to the hardware, and in the Windows 95/98 days there weren't a multitude of random background processes like there are today.

    – Ross Ridge
    32 mins ago

















5















While for other platforms of that era (primarily, Amiga), putting a game on a bootable disk was quite a normal practice, this approach never taken off on IBM PC. Why not?



I do remember people having multiple menu-driven autoexec.bat and config.sys configurations because one would have to boot MS-DOS with only the bare minimum to satisfy the requirements of some memory-demanding games. Since MS-DOS was by and large a single-task operating system, wouldn't booting a game directly from disk be more efficient than going through all the hassle of finding a working configuration of HIMEM, EMM386 and whatever else?



Even when Windows took over, would there be benefits for a demanding game to have full control over the PC resources as opposed to competing with a multitude of random background processes potentially spoiling the smooth FPS?



I understand that games in such a scenario would have to include a minimalist operating system, but I guess a carefully tuned Linux kernel along with drivers for all the popular graphics cards would be enough? This is for the Windows era, that is - for MS-DOS, I guess all the essentials games of that time needed were available directly from BIOS (well, file system support could have been an issue but I recall Amiga games of that time used to read the game data directly from sectors on the disk).










share|improve this question



















  • 2





    Note hard disks (in various forms) spread relatively early in the PC world, much earlier than on other platforms. Hard disk based games would have ben a nightmare to handle without the OS and its drivers.

    – tofro
    10 hours ago






  • 4





    en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_PC_booter_games lists over 200, including at least one from as late as 1988.

    – Tommy
    9 hours ago











  • The Apple 2 world also had this, iirc 95%+ of games were "booters" until the advent of the //gs, and even then it was pretty common. Business software as well tended to be boosters. On a ][, ][+, //e, or //c, the only typical reason to boot from your basic DOS disk was to access utilities and BASIC programming.

    – Robert Columbia
    7 hours ago











  • Would you really want to reboot Windows just to play a game? The were a few games that you had to, and not just booters, but why would you think this would be something that gamers would want? DirectX was invented so games could have more or less direct access to the hardware, and in the Windows 95/98 days there weren't a multitude of random background processes like there are today.

    – Ross Ridge
    32 mins ago













5












5








5








While for other platforms of that era (primarily, Amiga), putting a game on a bootable disk was quite a normal practice, this approach never taken off on IBM PC. Why not?



I do remember people having multiple menu-driven autoexec.bat and config.sys configurations because one would have to boot MS-DOS with only the bare minimum to satisfy the requirements of some memory-demanding games. Since MS-DOS was by and large a single-task operating system, wouldn't booting a game directly from disk be more efficient than going through all the hassle of finding a working configuration of HIMEM, EMM386 and whatever else?



Even when Windows took over, would there be benefits for a demanding game to have full control over the PC resources as opposed to competing with a multitude of random background processes potentially spoiling the smooth FPS?



I understand that games in such a scenario would have to include a minimalist operating system, but I guess a carefully tuned Linux kernel along with drivers for all the popular graphics cards would be enough? This is for the Windows era, that is - for MS-DOS, I guess all the essentials games of that time needed were available directly from BIOS (well, file system support could have been an issue but I recall Amiga games of that time used to read the game data directly from sectors on the disk).










share|improve this question
















While for other platforms of that era (primarily, Amiga), putting a game on a bootable disk was quite a normal practice, this approach never taken off on IBM PC. Why not?



I do remember people having multiple menu-driven autoexec.bat and config.sys configurations because one would have to boot MS-DOS with only the bare minimum to satisfy the requirements of some memory-demanding games. Since MS-DOS was by and large a single-task operating system, wouldn't booting a game directly from disk be more efficient than going through all the hassle of finding a working configuration of HIMEM, EMM386 and whatever else?



Even when Windows took over, would there be benefits for a demanding game to have full control over the PC resources as opposed to competing with a multitude of random background processes potentially spoiling the smooth FPS?



I understand that games in such a scenario would have to include a minimalist operating system, but I guess a carefully tuned Linux kernel along with drivers for all the popular graphics cards would be enough? This is for the Windows era, that is - for MS-DOS, I guess all the essentials games of that time needed were available directly from BIOS (well, file system support could have been an issue but I recall Amiga games of that time used to read the game data directly from sectors on the disk).







ms-dos ibm-pc gaming boot






share|improve this question















share|improve this question













share|improve this question




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edited 1 hour ago









RonJohn

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asked 10 hours ago









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  • 2





    Note hard disks (in various forms) spread relatively early in the PC world, much earlier than on other platforms. Hard disk based games would have ben a nightmare to handle without the OS and its drivers.

    – tofro
    10 hours ago






  • 4





    en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_PC_booter_games lists over 200, including at least one from as late as 1988.

    – Tommy
    9 hours ago











  • The Apple 2 world also had this, iirc 95%+ of games were "booters" until the advent of the //gs, and even then it was pretty common. Business software as well tended to be boosters. On a ][, ][+, //e, or //c, the only typical reason to boot from your basic DOS disk was to access utilities and BASIC programming.

    – Robert Columbia
    7 hours ago











  • Would you really want to reboot Windows just to play a game? The were a few games that you had to, and not just booters, but why would you think this would be something that gamers would want? DirectX was invented so games could have more or less direct access to the hardware, and in the Windows 95/98 days there weren't a multitude of random background processes like there are today.

    – Ross Ridge
    32 mins ago












  • 2





    Note hard disks (in various forms) spread relatively early in the PC world, much earlier than on other platforms. Hard disk based games would have ben a nightmare to handle without the OS and its drivers.

    – tofro
    10 hours ago






  • 4





    en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_PC_booter_games lists over 200, including at least one from as late as 1988.

    – Tommy
    9 hours ago











  • The Apple 2 world also had this, iirc 95%+ of games were "booters" until the advent of the //gs, and even then it was pretty common. Business software as well tended to be boosters. On a ][, ][+, //e, or //c, the only typical reason to boot from your basic DOS disk was to access utilities and BASIC programming.

    – Robert Columbia
    7 hours ago











  • Would you really want to reboot Windows just to play a game? The were a few games that you had to, and not just booters, but why would you think this would be something that gamers would want? DirectX was invented so games could have more or less direct access to the hardware, and in the Windows 95/98 days there weren't a multitude of random background processes like there are today.

    – Ross Ridge
    32 mins ago







2




2





Note hard disks (in various forms) spread relatively early in the PC world, much earlier than on other platforms. Hard disk based games would have ben a nightmare to handle without the OS and its drivers.

– tofro
10 hours ago





Note hard disks (in various forms) spread relatively early in the PC world, much earlier than on other platforms. Hard disk based games would have ben a nightmare to handle without the OS and its drivers.

– tofro
10 hours ago




4




4





en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_PC_booter_games lists over 200, including at least one from as late as 1988.

– Tommy
9 hours ago





en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_PC_booter_games lists over 200, including at least one from as late as 1988.

– Tommy
9 hours ago













The Apple 2 world also had this, iirc 95%+ of games were "booters" until the advent of the //gs, and even then it was pretty common. Business software as well tended to be boosters. On a ][, ][+, //e, or //c, the only typical reason to boot from your basic DOS disk was to access utilities and BASIC programming.

– Robert Columbia
7 hours ago





The Apple 2 world also had this, iirc 95%+ of games were "booters" until the advent of the //gs, and even then it was pretty common. Business software as well tended to be boosters. On a ][, ][+, //e, or //c, the only typical reason to boot from your basic DOS disk was to access utilities and BASIC programming.

– Robert Columbia
7 hours ago













Would you really want to reboot Windows just to play a game? The were a few games that you had to, and not just booters, but why would you think this would be something that gamers would want? DirectX was invented so games could have more or less direct access to the hardware, and in the Windows 95/98 days there weren't a multitude of random background processes like there are today.

– Ross Ridge
32 mins ago





Would you really want to reboot Windows just to play a game? The were a few games that you had to, and not just booters, but why would you think this would be something that gamers would want? DirectX was invented so games could have more or less direct access to the hardware, and in the Windows 95/98 days there weren't a multitude of random background processes like there are today.

– Ross Ridge
32 mins ago










5 Answers
5






active

oldest

votes


















15














Bootable game disks do exist for the IBM PC. Conflict in Vietnam is an example of such a game. As can be seen on page 8 of the manual, the game boots directly without loading DOS first.



The main reason it wasn't common was for compatibility. A self booting game has to have its own drivers for all the hardware it wants to support. As PCs quickly diversified and software was used to provide compatibility with the original IBM hardware, it became much easier to use DOS drivers instead. In comparison the Amiga hardware was largely fixed and compatible through it's entire commercial lifespan under Commodore, and no clones ever gained significant market share.






share|improve this answer


















  • 2





    I had quite a number of bootable game disks for my old PC XT clone. It was fairly common back in the day.

    – Brian Knoblauch
    7 hours ago











  • There weren't really any DOS drivers for anything games typically used. The main disadvantage is that these games couldn't read or write from FAT formatted drives, which meant they couldn't be installed on hard disks and usually had a simple or non-existent save mechanism.

    – Ross Ridge
    38 mins ago


















5














Well there were some PC booter titles (MobyGames lists 249), but most of these were quite early games, even before hard drives, XMS or EMS even existed. These were almost always self contained single floppy games, that could run on the very specific hardware that existed. All they used was BIOS for disk access. Also DOS was not the only operating system, so it sort of made sense to have a simple booter game that could be booted from a single floppy, without a specific OS. As the game itself does not require DOS for anything, it would have taken too much floppy space to include DOS just for the purpose of loading a game.



When games became larger and hard drives mainstream, and in practice the consumer OS had settled to DOS, it was much simpler to boot the PC to DOS as usual and then run the game executables either from floppy directly or from the hard drive. Also games that have multiple files like graphics and sound files can just very easily read those files under DOS, without understanding anything about the actual file system structures.



Even later, with 386 and 32-bit protected mode games, DOS was just used as the platform that was able to execute the DOS extender and load the 32-bit game executable into memory for the purpose of running it.






share|improve this answer




















  • 1





    If it helps for perspective, I think there are even a couple of booters for the original Macintosh — not just titles with an appropriate version of the System already on the disk, but that don't use the RAM-resident parts of Mac OS at all. My point being: some people will ship a booter no matter how unsuitable the idea is for the platform.

    – Tommy
    9 hours ago


















4














The IBM PC was NOT a Game Machine



Plenty of people played plenty of games on IBM & compatible computers. But the IBM PC was designed as a business machine, not a game machine.



This is most obvious with audio capabilities. Where Atari 400/800, VIC-20, Commodore 64, Amiga and many other machines of the era included some (for the time) serious sound capabilities, the IBM PC did not. As a result, within a short amount of time, there were a number of different sound cards available, each of which needed a driver or specific application programming to work.



Video was not quite as bad, but even there, the original PC had a choice of two very different video cards (MDA & CGA) and soon EGA and others came along, each with their own video modes (bit depth, resolution, memory-mapped video RAM location, etc.), while many of the other popular machines had video, often with better support for games (e.g., sprites), built in to the motherboard.



Due to the sheer size of the market, there were many games available for the IBM PC. But due to design issues, many of these games needed either extra hardware (e.g., sound card) or extra software (to support different sound, video, extended/expanded memory), all of which was a lot easier to support by booting into MS/PC-DOS first. In addition, hard drives were quite common with the IBM PC (at least after the introduction of the XT), so installation of a game onto the hard drive, sometimes with insertion of the original floppy at the beginning of the game for copy protection, made a lot more sense than trying to cram everything into one or two bootable floppy disks.






share|improve this answer




















  • 2





    Confusingly enough, one of the PC’s launch titles was a game, Microsoft Adventure (which also happens to be a booter). So while the PC wasn’t designed as a games machine, IBM did intend people to play (some) games on it...

    – Stephen Kitt
    8 hours ago






  • 1





    @StephenKitt No question they wanted the PC to be used for games, as well as business. But this was also a text based game, which didn't have the issues of video, audio, etc. which became much bigger issues as the game software market evolved. Plus no hard drives on that first day. Etc.

    – manassehkatz
    8 hours ago






  • 2





    I’m not disagreeing with your answer (although comparing booter-period PCs to the Amiga is anachronistic; and sound cards only appeared in 1987), I’m just saying that the messaging was confusing right from the outset.

    – Stephen Kitt
    8 hours ago











  • No time to research & revise now. But you're right - Amiga is not he best comparison because it was a few years later, but even the VIC-20 (a year earlier and a LOT cheaper) had better sound hardware than the IBM PC.

    – manassehkatz
    8 hours ago






  • 1





    Yes, many home micros had better graphics and sound than the PC ;-). 8-bit Ataris for example...

    – Stephen Kitt
    8 hours ago


















3














Games that were designed to be run from floppy were usually self-booting, and often could only be run by booting from floppy. In many cases, the game code could be stored in ways that would not be understood by MS-DOS (using things like non-standard sector sizes), and booting into a game would be faster than booting MS-DOS and then booting the game. The big problem was that a self-booting game would be generally be able to access anything that required any sort of loadable device driver, nor--in most cases--any information that was stored on a normal MS-DOS disk. If one wanted to save one's progress in Zork I or Wizardry, one would have to format a disk specifically for that purpose, as opposed to merely being able to store a file on an existing MS-DOS volume [I think Wizardry used disks formatted to the UCSD P-system standard, and its save files might have been able to co-exist with files for other P-system applications, but Wizardry is the only one I know of].



Note that if a game knows that it will need to use a certain specific set of files, it can simply have a list of files and their locations built into the game's code. If a game were using MS-DOS and wanted to read foo.dat, it would need to read one or more sectors of directory information, then one or more sectors of the FAT, before finally being able to read the data for the file of interest. If instead the game code is hard-coded table that says file #23 is stored from sectors 293 to 299, the code can simply read those sectors directly, thus offering faster performance than if the game were using DOS to read the information from floppy (though probably slower than using DOS to read from a hard drive).






share|improve this answer























  • I've got a copy of the original 1987 PC version of Pirates! and its copy protection and save game system was exactly this. I'm glad that the disks never became unreadable when I owned computers that were slow enough to play the game! It did boot very quickly however.

    – ErikF
    1 hour ago


















1














I'd like to question the premise, here.




I understand that games in such a scenario would have to include a minimalistic operating system, but I guess a carefully tuned Linux kernel along with drivers for all the popular graphics cards would be enough?




Space is an issue, so it would be beneficial if it were possible to have the kernels separately, or else have multiple different copies of the game with different sets of drivers. The "separate kernel" model seems more efficient, and what is DOS if not this?




Now, even when Windows took over, would there be benefits for a demanding game to have full control over the PC resources as opposed to competing with a multitude of random background processes potentially spoiling the smooth FPS?




There is a convenience in being able to start your games quickly, and to Alt-Tab, and to use the network you've already configured your computer to use, etcetera. And computers powerful enough to run Windows were often powerful enough to run most games without stuttering, especially since Windows gave priority to the programs the user was interacting with.



Nevertheless, many games on my Arcade ClassiX CD-ROM required me to boot into single-process (MS-DOS) mode in order to run properly; it appears that such games existed. It wouldn't surprise me if such bootable disks as you describe in your question also existed. But such launch systems reduce the target audience with very little benefit, so I wouldn't expect many to exist.






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    5 Answers
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    5 Answers
    5






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    15














    Bootable game disks do exist for the IBM PC. Conflict in Vietnam is an example of such a game. As can be seen on page 8 of the manual, the game boots directly without loading DOS first.



    The main reason it wasn't common was for compatibility. A self booting game has to have its own drivers for all the hardware it wants to support. As PCs quickly diversified and software was used to provide compatibility with the original IBM hardware, it became much easier to use DOS drivers instead. In comparison the Amiga hardware was largely fixed and compatible through it's entire commercial lifespan under Commodore, and no clones ever gained significant market share.






    share|improve this answer


















    • 2





      I had quite a number of bootable game disks for my old PC XT clone. It was fairly common back in the day.

      – Brian Knoblauch
      7 hours ago











    • There weren't really any DOS drivers for anything games typically used. The main disadvantage is that these games couldn't read or write from FAT formatted drives, which meant they couldn't be installed on hard disks and usually had a simple or non-existent save mechanism.

      – Ross Ridge
      38 mins ago















    15














    Bootable game disks do exist for the IBM PC. Conflict in Vietnam is an example of such a game. As can be seen on page 8 of the manual, the game boots directly without loading DOS first.



    The main reason it wasn't common was for compatibility. A self booting game has to have its own drivers for all the hardware it wants to support. As PCs quickly diversified and software was used to provide compatibility with the original IBM hardware, it became much easier to use DOS drivers instead. In comparison the Amiga hardware was largely fixed and compatible through it's entire commercial lifespan under Commodore, and no clones ever gained significant market share.






    share|improve this answer


















    • 2





      I had quite a number of bootable game disks for my old PC XT clone. It was fairly common back in the day.

      – Brian Knoblauch
      7 hours ago











    • There weren't really any DOS drivers for anything games typically used. The main disadvantage is that these games couldn't read or write from FAT formatted drives, which meant they couldn't be installed on hard disks and usually had a simple or non-existent save mechanism.

      – Ross Ridge
      38 mins ago













    15












    15








    15







    Bootable game disks do exist for the IBM PC. Conflict in Vietnam is an example of such a game. As can be seen on page 8 of the manual, the game boots directly without loading DOS first.



    The main reason it wasn't common was for compatibility. A self booting game has to have its own drivers for all the hardware it wants to support. As PCs quickly diversified and software was used to provide compatibility with the original IBM hardware, it became much easier to use DOS drivers instead. In comparison the Amiga hardware was largely fixed and compatible through it's entire commercial lifespan under Commodore, and no clones ever gained significant market share.






    share|improve this answer













    Bootable game disks do exist for the IBM PC. Conflict in Vietnam is an example of such a game. As can be seen on page 8 of the manual, the game boots directly without loading DOS first.



    The main reason it wasn't common was for compatibility. A self booting game has to have its own drivers for all the hardware it wants to support. As PCs quickly diversified and software was used to provide compatibility with the original IBM hardware, it became much easier to use DOS drivers instead. In comparison the Amiga hardware was largely fixed and compatible through it's entire commercial lifespan under Commodore, and no clones ever gained significant market share.







    share|improve this answer












    share|improve this answer



    share|improve this answer










    answered 10 hours ago









    useruser

    7,4531 gold badge12 silver badges32 bronze badges




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    • 2





      I had quite a number of bootable game disks for my old PC XT clone. It was fairly common back in the day.

      – Brian Knoblauch
      7 hours ago











    • There weren't really any DOS drivers for anything games typically used. The main disadvantage is that these games couldn't read or write from FAT formatted drives, which meant they couldn't be installed on hard disks and usually had a simple or non-existent save mechanism.

      – Ross Ridge
      38 mins ago












    • 2





      I had quite a number of bootable game disks for my old PC XT clone. It was fairly common back in the day.

      – Brian Knoblauch
      7 hours ago











    • There weren't really any DOS drivers for anything games typically used. The main disadvantage is that these games couldn't read or write from FAT formatted drives, which meant they couldn't be installed on hard disks and usually had a simple or non-existent save mechanism.

      – Ross Ridge
      38 mins ago







    2




    2





    I had quite a number of bootable game disks for my old PC XT clone. It was fairly common back in the day.

    – Brian Knoblauch
    7 hours ago





    I had quite a number of bootable game disks for my old PC XT clone. It was fairly common back in the day.

    – Brian Knoblauch
    7 hours ago













    There weren't really any DOS drivers for anything games typically used. The main disadvantage is that these games couldn't read or write from FAT formatted drives, which meant they couldn't be installed on hard disks and usually had a simple or non-existent save mechanism.

    – Ross Ridge
    38 mins ago





    There weren't really any DOS drivers for anything games typically used. The main disadvantage is that these games couldn't read or write from FAT formatted drives, which meant they couldn't be installed on hard disks and usually had a simple or non-existent save mechanism.

    – Ross Ridge
    38 mins ago













    5














    Well there were some PC booter titles (MobyGames lists 249), but most of these were quite early games, even before hard drives, XMS or EMS even existed. These were almost always self contained single floppy games, that could run on the very specific hardware that existed. All they used was BIOS for disk access. Also DOS was not the only operating system, so it sort of made sense to have a simple booter game that could be booted from a single floppy, without a specific OS. As the game itself does not require DOS for anything, it would have taken too much floppy space to include DOS just for the purpose of loading a game.



    When games became larger and hard drives mainstream, and in practice the consumer OS had settled to DOS, it was much simpler to boot the PC to DOS as usual and then run the game executables either from floppy directly or from the hard drive. Also games that have multiple files like graphics and sound files can just very easily read those files under DOS, without understanding anything about the actual file system structures.



    Even later, with 386 and 32-bit protected mode games, DOS was just used as the platform that was able to execute the DOS extender and load the 32-bit game executable into memory for the purpose of running it.






    share|improve this answer




















    • 1





      If it helps for perspective, I think there are even a couple of booters for the original Macintosh — not just titles with an appropriate version of the System already on the disk, but that don't use the RAM-resident parts of Mac OS at all. My point being: some people will ship a booter no matter how unsuitable the idea is for the platform.

      – Tommy
      9 hours ago















    5














    Well there were some PC booter titles (MobyGames lists 249), but most of these were quite early games, even before hard drives, XMS or EMS even existed. These were almost always self contained single floppy games, that could run on the very specific hardware that existed. All they used was BIOS for disk access. Also DOS was not the only operating system, so it sort of made sense to have a simple booter game that could be booted from a single floppy, without a specific OS. As the game itself does not require DOS for anything, it would have taken too much floppy space to include DOS just for the purpose of loading a game.



    When games became larger and hard drives mainstream, and in practice the consumer OS had settled to DOS, it was much simpler to boot the PC to DOS as usual and then run the game executables either from floppy directly or from the hard drive. Also games that have multiple files like graphics and sound files can just very easily read those files under DOS, without understanding anything about the actual file system structures.



    Even later, with 386 and 32-bit protected mode games, DOS was just used as the platform that was able to execute the DOS extender and load the 32-bit game executable into memory for the purpose of running it.






    share|improve this answer




















    • 1





      If it helps for perspective, I think there are even a couple of booters for the original Macintosh — not just titles with an appropriate version of the System already on the disk, but that don't use the RAM-resident parts of Mac OS at all. My point being: some people will ship a booter no matter how unsuitable the idea is for the platform.

      – Tommy
      9 hours ago













    5












    5








    5







    Well there were some PC booter titles (MobyGames lists 249), but most of these were quite early games, even before hard drives, XMS or EMS even existed. These were almost always self contained single floppy games, that could run on the very specific hardware that existed. All they used was BIOS for disk access. Also DOS was not the only operating system, so it sort of made sense to have a simple booter game that could be booted from a single floppy, without a specific OS. As the game itself does not require DOS for anything, it would have taken too much floppy space to include DOS just for the purpose of loading a game.



    When games became larger and hard drives mainstream, and in practice the consumer OS had settled to DOS, it was much simpler to boot the PC to DOS as usual and then run the game executables either from floppy directly or from the hard drive. Also games that have multiple files like graphics and sound files can just very easily read those files under DOS, without understanding anything about the actual file system structures.



    Even later, with 386 and 32-bit protected mode games, DOS was just used as the platform that was able to execute the DOS extender and load the 32-bit game executable into memory for the purpose of running it.






    share|improve this answer















    Well there were some PC booter titles (MobyGames lists 249), but most of these were quite early games, even before hard drives, XMS or EMS even existed. These were almost always self contained single floppy games, that could run on the very specific hardware that existed. All they used was BIOS for disk access. Also DOS was not the only operating system, so it sort of made sense to have a simple booter game that could be booted from a single floppy, without a specific OS. As the game itself does not require DOS for anything, it would have taken too much floppy space to include DOS just for the purpose of loading a game.



    When games became larger and hard drives mainstream, and in practice the consumer OS had settled to DOS, it was much simpler to boot the PC to DOS as usual and then run the game executables either from floppy directly or from the hard drive. Also games that have multiple files like graphics and sound files can just very easily read those files under DOS, without understanding anything about the actual file system structures.



    Even later, with 386 and 32-bit protected mode games, DOS was just used as the platform that was able to execute the DOS extender and load the 32-bit game executable into memory for the purpose of running it.







    share|improve this answer














    share|improve this answer



    share|improve this answer








    edited 8 hours ago









    Stephen Kitt

    46.8k8 gold badges195 silver badges197 bronze badges




    46.8k8 gold badges195 silver badges197 bronze badges










    answered 10 hours ago









    JustmeJustme

    1,2273 silver badges10 bronze badges




    1,2273 silver badges10 bronze badges







    • 1





      If it helps for perspective, I think there are even a couple of booters for the original Macintosh — not just titles with an appropriate version of the System already on the disk, but that don't use the RAM-resident parts of Mac OS at all. My point being: some people will ship a booter no matter how unsuitable the idea is for the platform.

      – Tommy
      9 hours ago












    • 1





      If it helps for perspective, I think there are even a couple of booters for the original Macintosh — not just titles with an appropriate version of the System already on the disk, but that don't use the RAM-resident parts of Mac OS at all. My point being: some people will ship a booter no matter how unsuitable the idea is for the platform.

      – Tommy
      9 hours ago







    1




    1





    If it helps for perspective, I think there are even a couple of booters for the original Macintosh — not just titles with an appropriate version of the System already on the disk, but that don't use the RAM-resident parts of Mac OS at all. My point being: some people will ship a booter no matter how unsuitable the idea is for the platform.

    – Tommy
    9 hours ago





    If it helps for perspective, I think there are even a couple of booters for the original Macintosh — not just titles with an appropriate version of the System already on the disk, but that don't use the RAM-resident parts of Mac OS at all. My point being: some people will ship a booter no matter how unsuitable the idea is for the platform.

    – Tommy
    9 hours ago











    4














    The IBM PC was NOT a Game Machine



    Plenty of people played plenty of games on IBM & compatible computers. But the IBM PC was designed as a business machine, not a game machine.



    This is most obvious with audio capabilities. Where Atari 400/800, VIC-20, Commodore 64, Amiga and many other machines of the era included some (for the time) serious sound capabilities, the IBM PC did not. As a result, within a short amount of time, there were a number of different sound cards available, each of which needed a driver or specific application programming to work.



    Video was not quite as bad, but even there, the original PC had a choice of two very different video cards (MDA & CGA) and soon EGA and others came along, each with their own video modes (bit depth, resolution, memory-mapped video RAM location, etc.), while many of the other popular machines had video, often with better support for games (e.g., sprites), built in to the motherboard.



    Due to the sheer size of the market, there were many games available for the IBM PC. But due to design issues, many of these games needed either extra hardware (e.g., sound card) or extra software (to support different sound, video, extended/expanded memory), all of which was a lot easier to support by booting into MS/PC-DOS first. In addition, hard drives were quite common with the IBM PC (at least after the introduction of the XT), so installation of a game onto the hard drive, sometimes with insertion of the original floppy at the beginning of the game for copy protection, made a lot more sense than trying to cram everything into one or two bootable floppy disks.






    share|improve this answer




















    • 2





      Confusingly enough, one of the PC’s launch titles was a game, Microsoft Adventure (which also happens to be a booter). So while the PC wasn’t designed as a games machine, IBM did intend people to play (some) games on it...

      – Stephen Kitt
      8 hours ago






    • 1





      @StephenKitt No question they wanted the PC to be used for games, as well as business. But this was also a text based game, which didn't have the issues of video, audio, etc. which became much bigger issues as the game software market evolved. Plus no hard drives on that first day. Etc.

      – manassehkatz
      8 hours ago






    • 2





      I’m not disagreeing with your answer (although comparing booter-period PCs to the Amiga is anachronistic; and sound cards only appeared in 1987), I’m just saying that the messaging was confusing right from the outset.

      – Stephen Kitt
      8 hours ago











    • No time to research & revise now. But you're right - Amiga is not he best comparison because it was a few years later, but even the VIC-20 (a year earlier and a LOT cheaper) had better sound hardware than the IBM PC.

      – manassehkatz
      8 hours ago






    • 1





      Yes, many home micros had better graphics and sound than the PC ;-). 8-bit Ataris for example...

      – Stephen Kitt
      8 hours ago















    4














    The IBM PC was NOT a Game Machine



    Plenty of people played plenty of games on IBM & compatible computers. But the IBM PC was designed as a business machine, not a game machine.



    This is most obvious with audio capabilities. Where Atari 400/800, VIC-20, Commodore 64, Amiga and many other machines of the era included some (for the time) serious sound capabilities, the IBM PC did not. As a result, within a short amount of time, there were a number of different sound cards available, each of which needed a driver or specific application programming to work.



    Video was not quite as bad, but even there, the original PC had a choice of two very different video cards (MDA & CGA) and soon EGA and others came along, each with their own video modes (bit depth, resolution, memory-mapped video RAM location, etc.), while many of the other popular machines had video, often with better support for games (e.g., sprites), built in to the motherboard.



    Due to the sheer size of the market, there were many games available for the IBM PC. But due to design issues, many of these games needed either extra hardware (e.g., sound card) or extra software (to support different sound, video, extended/expanded memory), all of which was a lot easier to support by booting into MS/PC-DOS first. In addition, hard drives were quite common with the IBM PC (at least after the introduction of the XT), so installation of a game onto the hard drive, sometimes with insertion of the original floppy at the beginning of the game for copy protection, made a lot more sense than trying to cram everything into one or two bootable floppy disks.






    share|improve this answer




















    • 2





      Confusingly enough, one of the PC’s launch titles was a game, Microsoft Adventure (which also happens to be a booter). So while the PC wasn’t designed as a games machine, IBM did intend people to play (some) games on it...

      – Stephen Kitt
      8 hours ago






    • 1





      @StephenKitt No question they wanted the PC to be used for games, as well as business. But this was also a text based game, which didn't have the issues of video, audio, etc. which became much bigger issues as the game software market evolved. Plus no hard drives on that first day. Etc.

      – manassehkatz
      8 hours ago






    • 2





      I’m not disagreeing with your answer (although comparing booter-period PCs to the Amiga is anachronistic; and sound cards only appeared in 1987), I’m just saying that the messaging was confusing right from the outset.

      – Stephen Kitt
      8 hours ago











    • No time to research & revise now. But you're right - Amiga is not he best comparison because it was a few years later, but even the VIC-20 (a year earlier and a LOT cheaper) had better sound hardware than the IBM PC.

      – manassehkatz
      8 hours ago






    • 1





      Yes, many home micros had better graphics and sound than the PC ;-). 8-bit Ataris for example...

      – Stephen Kitt
      8 hours ago













    4












    4








    4







    The IBM PC was NOT a Game Machine



    Plenty of people played plenty of games on IBM & compatible computers. But the IBM PC was designed as a business machine, not a game machine.



    This is most obvious with audio capabilities. Where Atari 400/800, VIC-20, Commodore 64, Amiga and many other machines of the era included some (for the time) serious sound capabilities, the IBM PC did not. As a result, within a short amount of time, there were a number of different sound cards available, each of which needed a driver or specific application programming to work.



    Video was not quite as bad, but even there, the original PC had a choice of two very different video cards (MDA & CGA) and soon EGA and others came along, each with their own video modes (bit depth, resolution, memory-mapped video RAM location, etc.), while many of the other popular machines had video, often with better support for games (e.g., sprites), built in to the motherboard.



    Due to the sheer size of the market, there were many games available for the IBM PC. But due to design issues, many of these games needed either extra hardware (e.g., sound card) or extra software (to support different sound, video, extended/expanded memory), all of which was a lot easier to support by booting into MS/PC-DOS first. In addition, hard drives were quite common with the IBM PC (at least after the introduction of the XT), so installation of a game onto the hard drive, sometimes with insertion of the original floppy at the beginning of the game for copy protection, made a lot more sense than trying to cram everything into one or two bootable floppy disks.






    share|improve this answer















    The IBM PC was NOT a Game Machine



    Plenty of people played plenty of games on IBM & compatible computers. But the IBM PC was designed as a business machine, not a game machine.



    This is most obvious with audio capabilities. Where Atari 400/800, VIC-20, Commodore 64, Amiga and many other machines of the era included some (for the time) serious sound capabilities, the IBM PC did not. As a result, within a short amount of time, there were a number of different sound cards available, each of which needed a driver or specific application programming to work.



    Video was not quite as bad, but even there, the original PC had a choice of two very different video cards (MDA & CGA) and soon EGA and others came along, each with their own video modes (bit depth, resolution, memory-mapped video RAM location, etc.), while many of the other popular machines had video, often with better support for games (e.g., sprites), built in to the motherboard.



    Due to the sheer size of the market, there were many games available for the IBM PC. But due to design issues, many of these games needed either extra hardware (e.g., sound card) or extra software (to support different sound, video, extended/expanded memory), all of which was a lot easier to support by booting into MS/PC-DOS first. In addition, hard drives were quite common with the IBM PC (at least after the introduction of the XT), so installation of a game onto the hard drive, sometimes with insertion of the original floppy at the beginning of the game for copy protection, made a lot more sense than trying to cram everything into one or two bootable floppy disks.







    share|improve this answer














    share|improve this answer



    share|improve this answer








    edited 7 hours ago

























    answered 9 hours ago









    manassehkatzmanassehkatz

    4,1491 gold badge9 silver badges29 bronze badges




    4,1491 gold badge9 silver badges29 bronze badges







    • 2





      Confusingly enough, one of the PC’s launch titles was a game, Microsoft Adventure (which also happens to be a booter). So while the PC wasn’t designed as a games machine, IBM did intend people to play (some) games on it...

      – Stephen Kitt
      8 hours ago






    • 1





      @StephenKitt No question they wanted the PC to be used for games, as well as business. But this was also a text based game, which didn't have the issues of video, audio, etc. which became much bigger issues as the game software market evolved. Plus no hard drives on that first day. Etc.

      – manassehkatz
      8 hours ago






    • 2





      I’m not disagreeing with your answer (although comparing booter-period PCs to the Amiga is anachronistic; and sound cards only appeared in 1987), I’m just saying that the messaging was confusing right from the outset.

      – Stephen Kitt
      8 hours ago











    • No time to research & revise now. But you're right - Amiga is not he best comparison because it was a few years later, but even the VIC-20 (a year earlier and a LOT cheaper) had better sound hardware than the IBM PC.

      – manassehkatz
      8 hours ago






    • 1





      Yes, many home micros had better graphics and sound than the PC ;-). 8-bit Ataris for example...

      – Stephen Kitt
      8 hours ago












    • 2





      Confusingly enough, one of the PC’s launch titles was a game, Microsoft Adventure (which also happens to be a booter). So while the PC wasn’t designed as a games machine, IBM did intend people to play (some) games on it...

      – Stephen Kitt
      8 hours ago






    • 1





      @StephenKitt No question they wanted the PC to be used for games, as well as business. But this was also a text based game, which didn't have the issues of video, audio, etc. which became much bigger issues as the game software market evolved. Plus no hard drives on that first day. Etc.

      – manassehkatz
      8 hours ago






    • 2





      I’m not disagreeing with your answer (although comparing booter-period PCs to the Amiga is anachronistic; and sound cards only appeared in 1987), I’m just saying that the messaging was confusing right from the outset.

      – Stephen Kitt
      8 hours ago











    • No time to research & revise now. But you're right - Amiga is not he best comparison because it was a few years later, but even the VIC-20 (a year earlier and a LOT cheaper) had better sound hardware than the IBM PC.

      – manassehkatz
      8 hours ago






    • 1





      Yes, many home micros had better graphics and sound than the PC ;-). 8-bit Ataris for example...

      – Stephen Kitt
      8 hours ago







    2




    2





    Confusingly enough, one of the PC’s launch titles was a game, Microsoft Adventure (which also happens to be a booter). So while the PC wasn’t designed as a games machine, IBM did intend people to play (some) games on it...

    – Stephen Kitt
    8 hours ago





    Confusingly enough, one of the PC’s launch titles was a game, Microsoft Adventure (which also happens to be a booter). So while the PC wasn’t designed as a games machine, IBM did intend people to play (some) games on it...

    – Stephen Kitt
    8 hours ago




    1




    1





    @StephenKitt No question they wanted the PC to be used for games, as well as business. But this was also a text based game, which didn't have the issues of video, audio, etc. which became much bigger issues as the game software market evolved. Plus no hard drives on that first day. Etc.

    – manassehkatz
    8 hours ago





    @StephenKitt No question they wanted the PC to be used for games, as well as business. But this was also a text based game, which didn't have the issues of video, audio, etc. which became much bigger issues as the game software market evolved. Plus no hard drives on that first day. Etc.

    – manassehkatz
    8 hours ago




    2




    2





    I’m not disagreeing with your answer (although comparing booter-period PCs to the Amiga is anachronistic; and sound cards only appeared in 1987), I’m just saying that the messaging was confusing right from the outset.

    – Stephen Kitt
    8 hours ago





    I’m not disagreeing with your answer (although comparing booter-period PCs to the Amiga is anachronistic; and sound cards only appeared in 1987), I’m just saying that the messaging was confusing right from the outset.

    – Stephen Kitt
    8 hours ago













    No time to research & revise now. But you're right - Amiga is not he best comparison because it was a few years later, but even the VIC-20 (a year earlier and a LOT cheaper) had better sound hardware than the IBM PC.

    – manassehkatz
    8 hours ago





    No time to research & revise now. But you're right - Amiga is not he best comparison because it was a few years later, but even the VIC-20 (a year earlier and a LOT cheaper) had better sound hardware than the IBM PC.

    – manassehkatz
    8 hours ago




    1




    1





    Yes, many home micros had better graphics and sound than the PC ;-). 8-bit Ataris for example...

    – Stephen Kitt
    8 hours ago





    Yes, many home micros had better graphics and sound than the PC ;-). 8-bit Ataris for example...

    – Stephen Kitt
    8 hours ago











    3














    Games that were designed to be run from floppy were usually self-booting, and often could only be run by booting from floppy. In many cases, the game code could be stored in ways that would not be understood by MS-DOS (using things like non-standard sector sizes), and booting into a game would be faster than booting MS-DOS and then booting the game. The big problem was that a self-booting game would be generally be able to access anything that required any sort of loadable device driver, nor--in most cases--any information that was stored on a normal MS-DOS disk. If one wanted to save one's progress in Zork I or Wizardry, one would have to format a disk specifically for that purpose, as opposed to merely being able to store a file on an existing MS-DOS volume [I think Wizardry used disks formatted to the UCSD P-system standard, and its save files might have been able to co-exist with files for other P-system applications, but Wizardry is the only one I know of].



    Note that if a game knows that it will need to use a certain specific set of files, it can simply have a list of files and their locations built into the game's code. If a game were using MS-DOS and wanted to read foo.dat, it would need to read one or more sectors of directory information, then one or more sectors of the FAT, before finally being able to read the data for the file of interest. If instead the game code is hard-coded table that says file #23 is stored from sectors 293 to 299, the code can simply read those sectors directly, thus offering faster performance than if the game were using DOS to read the information from floppy (though probably slower than using DOS to read from a hard drive).






    share|improve this answer























    • I've got a copy of the original 1987 PC version of Pirates! and its copy protection and save game system was exactly this. I'm glad that the disks never became unreadable when I owned computers that were slow enough to play the game! It did boot very quickly however.

      – ErikF
      1 hour ago















    3














    Games that were designed to be run from floppy were usually self-booting, and often could only be run by booting from floppy. In many cases, the game code could be stored in ways that would not be understood by MS-DOS (using things like non-standard sector sizes), and booting into a game would be faster than booting MS-DOS and then booting the game. The big problem was that a self-booting game would be generally be able to access anything that required any sort of loadable device driver, nor--in most cases--any information that was stored on a normal MS-DOS disk. If one wanted to save one's progress in Zork I or Wizardry, one would have to format a disk specifically for that purpose, as opposed to merely being able to store a file on an existing MS-DOS volume [I think Wizardry used disks formatted to the UCSD P-system standard, and its save files might have been able to co-exist with files for other P-system applications, but Wizardry is the only one I know of].



    Note that if a game knows that it will need to use a certain specific set of files, it can simply have a list of files and their locations built into the game's code. If a game were using MS-DOS and wanted to read foo.dat, it would need to read one or more sectors of directory information, then one or more sectors of the FAT, before finally being able to read the data for the file of interest. If instead the game code is hard-coded table that says file #23 is stored from sectors 293 to 299, the code can simply read those sectors directly, thus offering faster performance than if the game were using DOS to read the information from floppy (though probably slower than using DOS to read from a hard drive).






    share|improve this answer























    • I've got a copy of the original 1987 PC version of Pirates! and its copy protection and save game system was exactly this. I'm glad that the disks never became unreadable when I owned computers that were slow enough to play the game! It did boot very quickly however.

      – ErikF
      1 hour ago













    3












    3








    3







    Games that were designed to be run from floppy were usually self-booting, and often could only be run by booting from floppy. In many cases, the game code could be stored in ways that would not be understood by MS-DOS (using things like non-standard sector sizes), and booting into a game would be faster than booting MS-DOS and then booting the game. The big problem was that a self-booting game would be generally be able to access anything that required any sort of loadable device driver, nor--in most cases--any information that was stored on a normal MS-DOS disk. If one wanted to save one's progress in Zork I or Wizardry, one would have to format a disk specifically for that purpose, as opposed to merely being able to store a file on an existing MS-DOS volume [I think Wizardry used disks formatted to the UCSD P-system standard, and its save files might have been able to co-exist with files for other P-system applications, but Wizardry is the only one I know of].



    Note that if a game knows that it will need to use a certain specific set of files, it can simply have a list of files and their locations built into the game's code. If a game were using MS-DOS and wanted to read foo.dat, it would need to read one or more sectors of directory information, then one or more sectors of the FAT, before finally being able to read the data for the file of interest. If instead the game code is hard-coded table that says file #23 is stored from sectors 293 to 299, the code can simply read those sectors directly, thus offering faster performance than if the game were using DOS to read the information from floppy (though probably slower than using DOS to read from a hard drive).






    share|improve this answer













    Games that were designed to be run from floppy were usually self-booting, and often could only be run by booting from floppy. In many cases, the game code could be stored in ways that would not be understood by MS-DOS (using things like non-standard sector sizes), and booting into a game would be faster than booting MS-DOS and then booting the game. The big problem was that a self-booting game would be generally be able to access anything that required any sort of loadable device driver, nor--in most cases--any information that was stored on a normal MS-DOS disk. If one wanted to save one's progress in Zork I or Wizardry, one would have to format a disk specifically for that purpose, as opposed to merely being able to store a file on an existing MS-DOS volume [I think Wizardry used disks formatted to the UCSD P-system standard, and its save files might have been able to co-exist with files for other P-system applications, but Wizardry is the only one I know of].



    Note that if a game knows that it will need to use a certain specific set of files, it can simply have a list of files and their locations built into the game's code. If a game were using MS-DOS and wanted to read foo.dat, it would need to read one or more sectors of directory information, then one or more sectors of the FAT, before finally being able to read the data for the file of interest. If instead the game code is hard-coded table that says file #23 is stored from sectors 293 to 299, the code can simply read those sectors directly, thus offering faster performance than if the game were using DOS to read the information from floppy (though probably slower than using DOS to read from a hard drive).







    share|improve this answer












    share|improve this answer



    share|improve this answer










    answered 8 hours ago









    supercatsupercat

    10.2k2 gold badges14 silver badges46 bronze badges




    10.2k2 gold badges14 silver badges46 bronze badges












    • I've got a copy of the original 1987 PC version of Pirates! and its copy protection and save game system was exactly this. I'm glad that the disks never became unreadable when I owned computers that were slow enough to play the game! It did boot very quickly however.

      – ErikF
      1 hour ago

















    • I've got a copy of the original 1987 PC version of Pirates! and its copy protection and save game system was exactly this. I'm glad that the disks never became unreadable when I owned computers that were slow enough to play the game! It did boot very quickly however.

      – ErikF
      1 hour ago
















    I've got a copy of the original 1987 PC version of Pirates! and its copy protection and save game system was exactly this. I'm glad that the disks never became unreadable when I owned computers that were slow enough to play the game! It did boot very quickly however.

    – ErikF
    1 hour ago





    I've got a copy of the original 1987 PC version of Pirates! and its copy protection and save game system was exactly this. I'm glad that the disks never became unreadable when I owned computers that were slow enough to play the game! It did boot very quickly however.

    – ErikF
    1 hour ago











    1














    I'd like to question the premise, here.




    I understand that games in such a scenario would have to include a minimalistic operating system, but I guess a carefully tuned Linux kernel along with drivers for all the popular graphics cards would be enough?




    Space is an issue, so it would be beneficial if it were possible to have the kernels separately, or else have multiple different copies of the game with different sets of drivers. The "separate kernel" model seems more efficient, and what is DOS if not this?




    Now, even when Windows took over, would there be benefits for a demanding game to have full control over the PC resources as opposed to competing with a multitude of random background processes potentially spoiling the smooth FPS?




    There is a convenience in being able to start your games quickly, and to Alt-Tab, and to use the network you've already configured your computer to use, etcetera. And computers powerful enough to run Windows were often powerful enough to run most games without stuttering, especially since Windows gave priority to the programs the user was interacting with.



    Nevertheless, many games on my Arcade ClassiX CD-ROM required me to boot into single-process (MS-DOS) mode in order to run properly; it appears that such games existed. It wouldn't surprise me if such bootable disks as you describe in your question also existed. But such launch systems reduce the target audience with very little benefit, so I wouldn't expect many to exist.






    share|improve this answer



























      1














      I'd like to question the premise, here.




      I understand that games in such a scenario would have to include a minimalistic operating system, but I guess a carefully tuned Linux kernel along with drivers for all the popular graphics cards would be enough?




      Space is an issue, so it would be beneficial if it were possible to have the kernels separately, or else have multiple different copies of the game with different sets of drivers. The "separate kernel" model seems more efficient, and what is DOS if not this?




      Now, even when Windows took over, would there be benefits for a demanding game to have full control over the PC resources as opposed to competing with a multitude of random background processes potentially spoiling the smooth FPS?




      There is a convenience in being able to start your games quickly, and to Alt-Tab, and to use the network you've already configured your computer to use, etcetera. And computers powerful enough to run Windows were often powerful enough to run most games without stuttering, especially since Windows gave priority to the programs the user was interacting with.



      Nevertheless, many games on my Arcade ClassiX CD-ROM required me to boot into single-process (MS-DOS) mode in order to run properly; it appears that such games existed. It wouldn't surprise me if such bootable disks as you describe in your question also existed. But such launch systems reduce the target audience with very little benefit, so I wouldn't expect many to exist.






      share|improve this answer

























        1












        1








        1







        I'd like to question the premise, here.




        I understand that games in such a scenario would have to include a minimalistic operating system, but I guess a carefully tuned Linux kernel along with drivers for all the popular graphics cards would be enough?




        Space is an issue, so it would be beneficial if it were possible to have the kernels separately, or else have multiple different copies of the game with different sets of drivers. The "separate kernel" model seems more efficient, and what is DOS if not this?




        Now, even when Windows took over, would there be benefits for a demanding game to have full control over the PC resources as opposed to competing with a multitude of random background processes potentially spoiling the smooth FPS?




        There is a convenience in being able to start your games quickly, and to Alt-Tab, and to use the network you've already configured your computer to use, etcetera. And computers powerful enough to run Windows were often powerful enough to run most games without stuttering, especially since Windows gave priority to the programs the user was interacting with.



        Nevertheless, many games on my Arcade ClassiX CD-ROM required me to boot into single-process (MS-DOS) mode in order to run properly; it appears that such games existed. It wouldn't surprise me if such bootable disks as you describe in your question also existed. But such launch systems reduce the target audience with very little benefit, so I wouldn't expect many to exist.






        share|improve this answer













        I'd like to question the premise, here.




        I understand that games in such a scenario would have to include a minimalistic operating system, but I guess a carefully tuned Linux kernel along with drivers for all the popular graphics cards would be enough?




        Space is an issue, so it would be beneficial if it were possible to have the kernels separately, or else have multiple different copies of the game with different sets of drivers. The "separate kernel" model seems more efficient, and what is DOS if not this?




        Now, even when Windows took over, would there be benefits for a demanding game to have full control over the PC resources as opposed to competing with a multitude of random background processes potentially spoiling the smooth FPS?




        There is a convenience in being able to start your games quickly, and to Alt-Tab, and to use the network you've already configured your computer to use, etcetera. And computers powerful enough to run Windows were often powerful enough to run most games without stuttering, especially since Windows gave priority to the programs the user was interacting with.



        Nevertheless, many games on my Arcade ClassiX CD-ROM required me to boot into single-process (MS-DOS) mode in order to run properly; it appears that such games existed. It wouldn't surprise me if such bootable disks as you describe in your question also existed. But such launch systems reduce the target audience with very little benefit, so I wouldn't expect many to exist.







        share|improve this answer












        share|improve this answer



        share|improve this answer










        answered 10 hours ago









        wizzwizz4wizzwizz4

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