CompuServe Messages

I would highly recommend OS/2 to anyone who has only one (useful) PC. I haven't run any benchmarks, but my old scenes render faster under OS/2 with R3 than they did in DOS under R2. The interactive response is as good as dos, as long as you turn the OS/2 dos setting called TRAP_8514_XGA_IO or something like that OFF. I have an S3 805 card but I think that means that if you have this setting ON, then it traps to the OS/2 kernel whenever 3DS's driver tries to poke any extended register on the graphics card. Somebody said they were getting screen corruption if they turned if off, but I've had no problems. The only Windows programs that won't run under OS/2 are Win32s programs like the new version of MathCad. I've also heard that Photostyler won't run because it uses it's own memory manager that OS/2 doesn't like. My guess is that it wouldn't run under NT either. The new version of PS may fix this. I use WinRix and have PhotoShop on the way. The only lockups I've had have been when running CorelDraw. About 80% of the time hitting ctrl+esc will bring up the task list and I can kill it. The other 20% of the time I have to reboot. This lockup happens about 1 out of ten times I try to use Corel. OS/2 supports the ATI Ultra Pro. You would have to run 3DS in VGA mode to have it run in the background with that card. I have to run it in VESA 256 color mode to get it to execute in the background with my S3 card. Using the ATI Pro drivers should not be a problem for a foreground-only session. I use the S3 drivers. OS/2 lets you switch back and forth between 3DS using the accel. drivers and OS/2 but it suspends a 3DS session using the accel. drives when you switch away from it. I don't know about the MGA. If you've got only one useful machine, you've GOT to try OS/2. Even if you have several machines, it is nice to be able to run Windows apps, dos apps, and 3DS all at the same time on the same machine. Response is good for scene editing even when rendering the background from another copy of 3DS, and some things like recording to VTR take about 0% of the cpu so you don't even notice them going in the background.