Forums > MobyGames > Stupid Question.
Scott Monster (986) on 6/16/2006 2:39 AM · Permalink · Report
I noticed that there are a lot of games that can run either dos or Windows mode. Of course, I see a lot of screen captures for Dos or Windows but not both.
Some games, like Lighthouse,Return to Zork and Zork Nemesis have only Dos screen shots, would it be redundant to supply screen shots from the windows installation since they are the the same basic images?
Servo (57070) on 6/16/2006 2:54 AM · Permalink · Report
I think it's ok to also supply screenshots for a different platform even if it looks the same as another platform on file (for example add Windows screenshots even if it looks the same as the DOS version on file, etc...) after all, you know they look the same, but if I haven't played both versions of the game I wouldn't know that with nothing to compare.
Unicorn Lynx (181775) on 6/16/2006 3:25 AM · Permalink · Report
It's legitimate to supply screenshots for different platforms, even if they look identical. There are many such examples in the database.
Riamus (8480) on 6/16/2006 12:22 PM · Permalink · Report
Yeah. Of course, some games in the database seem to have Windows 3.x and Windows (or DOS and Windows) marked, but they were probably released as having the system requirements of "DOS or Windows" or "Windows 3.x or Windows 95" compatibility. Then, they get added with both attributes, even though they were not ported or anything... just compatible with both. I'm not sure that those should have 2 entries to begin with.
Servo (57070) on 6/16/2006 1:42 PM · Permalink · Report
If it's just compatible with both (say a win 3.x program advertised as win 95 compatible) it shouldn't be added for both platforms, but a lot of those do have win 3.x and win 95 native versions though which is fine. What's often done is the data files are generic and then different executables for each platform are included. Seems fine to add that case as each individual platform.
Игги Друге (46653) on 6/16/2006 2:46 PM · Permalink · Report
I see no reason whatsoever that the PC should be four platforms instead of one. This is just another of those non-reasons.
Servo (57070) on 6/16/2006 4:49 PM · Permalink · Report
The problem often is the same game was released for dos, windows, windows 95 and as one platform we would have a mess of tech info, and in those situations would typically "lose" the windows info. For example, a game for dos and windows would have the dos version as min os, min cpu, min memory, etc. There's no way to add in the win information except in the comments which is less useful. How would you search for games that had Windows 95 native versions? you couldn't. Also becomes a mess when different platforms support different hardware as often happened with booter and dos games, here the tech info would be merged and you couldn't really tell what version supported what without some comments (though this is already a problem in some rare instances). Likewise screenshots often varied between the different versions, it's nice to have those split up so you can see the different versions easily.
As the system currently stands, I think it's much better to have them separate. If it was possible to better handle items like tech info, screenshots, etc. then maybe a single platform would make more sense.
MDMaster (164) on 6/18/2006 3:28 PM · Permalink · Report
Oh btw, I guess someone'd better update your Megadrive/Genesis screenshot policy cause very few people would be actually interested in grabbing screenshots from Kgen98 and Genecyst (since they do not work on xp, and newer emulators have come out).
Riamus (8480) on 6/19/2006 11:14 PM · Permalink · Report
All emulated screenshots are supposed to be accurate to the original image when viewed from the original system. As such, if you are using the "original color" settings and no special image editing options, then it won't matter what emulator you are using. They should all give the same screenshots.
Riamus (8480) on 6/21/2006 12:36 PM · Permalink · Report
I would have to see that particular emulator. Usually you can choose graphics modes, such as full screen or stretched or whatever and those will make the screenshot be at your full resolution, but you can also choose a 1:1 image that might look really small on the screen, but will give a normal screenshot.
You can also just use another software app to take the screenshots if you make the image 1:1, then just crop out the black border so it's the correct size. As long as the image is centered (it should be), then good capture utilities will allow you to automatically crop images when you capture, so this can be very easily accomplished.
Trixter (8952) on 6/22/2006 12:08 AM · Permalink · Report
This is the biggest casualty of the original MobyGames design spec 7+ years ago. I was initally only going to support PC, hence the PC wackiness.
At some grand point in the far future, DOS/Booter/Win3x/Windows will eventually be merged into a single platform. But don't hold your breath :-)
n][rvana (1823) on 7/10/2006 5:35 AM · Permalink · Report
I would like to see a single platform PC for those DOS/Booter/Win3x/Windows games... as long as you keep the details of each platform available too. There were games that had native code for DOS and Windows but at the core both versions were inmensely different.
My idea is something like:
IBM PC (as a platform)
|
|---- DOS
|---- Booter
|---- Win3.x
|---- Windows
|---- (fill here future OSes like Vista)
However keeping the details of every OS separated. There were times where the DOS version didn't support accelerated graphics and the Windows version of the same game did. That's why it's important to keep the OSes as sub-platforms, with every detail intact, and contributable. I have faith that the MG staff will figure this out for the better. Being detail junkies as we are, I doubt they will do any mistakes here ;-) Two thumbs up, MG!!!
Marko Poutiainen (1151) on 7/10/2006 2:03 PM · Permalink · Report
This reminds me... what about games that work in Win95/98 but not NT (2000, XP)? There is no way of distinguishing these. I run into this a few days ago when I thought I'd take a few screenshots of Championship Manager 3. I installed it, and tried running. "NT not supported". I tried all the compatibility options that XP offers, and either the game crashed right after starting or told me NT was not supported.