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 OD-90228                         SUGGESTION                       "PRIDE"-IF
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 JUN 16, 1997                   RELEASE  1.2.0                        PAGE  1

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       *                MI-10012 GAME SUPPORT FOR OS/2                *
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 REQUIRED DATE- OPEN          USER PRIORITY WEIGHT-  75    RANKING-  0038
 DATE RECEIVED- APR 17, 1997  REQUEST STANDING  - REVIEW   AS OF- JUN 16, 1997
                              TYPE- MOD/IMP

 DESCRIPTION-

        Although OS/2 has been effectively taken out of the home user
        market, I think that it is still a viable option for the casual
        user.  The non-business (let's call it "casual") software market
        is made up mostly of games.  Honestly, next to the Internet,
        what does the casual user spend most of his/her computing time
        doing?  Microsoft displayed their knowledge of the public's
        computing desires by making gaming capabilities a prominent and
        integral part of Windows 95.

        How does IBM set OS/2 up as a game playing platform?  Adding
        game friendly features to the next release of Warp; such things
        as joystick support, audio/video standards, and autoplay
        CD-ROMs.  Sure, these features are superficial and chrome,
        but chrome is always appealing! and does nothing to hamper
        the operating system.

        The next and most important thing that IBM would need to do
        is make Warp appeal to the game developers, they would have
        to woo the companies to get their latest game ported to OS/2
        I have heard IBM say that porting Windows programs to OS/2
        is fairly easy, now they need to go out and convince companies
        to put their products out on Warp.

        ATTRIBUTES:

        MEDIUM Value
        Desired NEXT full release

        Submitted by:
        Dale Alling
        Spokane, WA, USA
        OmniSource
        shyguy6@ix.netcom.com

        Supplemental text:

        IBM should finish the work on the full screen DIVE for OS/2.
        This would obviously benefit games.  However, there are many
        times when full screen, fast video is desirable in business
        like for presentations.  Find out what Creative Labs wants
        in the OS/2 sound system and add it!  Under DOS, many games
        use the CD drive to access files and the user must have the
        CD in as a form of copy protection.  However, some games
        can't find the CD due to incompatibilities between OS/2's
        CD-ROM DOS support and DOS's MSCDEX CD-ROM driver.

        Submitted by:

        Chris Smith
        Cleveland, TN, USA
        smit467@ibm.net


        It's sad that IBM discontinued the development of FullScreen
        DIVE (in their own words it was becuase it was a bad
        implementation).  If OS/2 would have FS-DIVE, OS/2 would be
        a no-brainer for Games development (Together with Stardock
        cross-platform game library).

        Submitted by:

        Jeppe Cramon
        Lyngby, Denmark
        jcramon@kampsax.dtu.dk

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