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Re: [pygame] Some problem with WinXP Home and PyGame 1.7.1



On Sun, 2006-10-29 at 12:17 -0600, Luke Paireepinart wrote:
> Tomasz Primke wrote:
> > Eventually I might end up with making my own Linux Live-CD distro,
> that runs 
> > my PyGame apps directly after booting (for all those poor people,
> who use 
> > Windows systems ;-) ).
> >   
> No offense,but if I have to reboot my computer to test your game, in 
> addition to having to burn a CD for it,
> I almost definitely won't.
> Whenever I get the urge to play a game, I'm usually right in the
> middle 
> of a bunch of stuff, and I can't just
> close everything and reboot.
> I think you should try to fix these performance problems instead :)
> Imagine if I asked you to reboot into Windows from Linux to try my
> game ;) 

I've been thinking about this recently as well, would a Live CD provide
a better gaming experience.
The pros and cons as far as I can see, include:
pros:
You know exactly what versions of python, pygame, sdl etc are installed.
Plus fixed drivers for hardware
Game can run straight from boot, even on PC's that are dead, have no
hard drive, only have a crippled OS installed (such as Vista in I.E.
only mode) etc.
Essentially makes a PC into a games console.  Insert disc, start it up
and play immediately

cons:
Will people reboot their PC to play a game?
Where to save files?  USB stick, file on first partition on first hard
drive, not at all, make own PCGameConsole partition?
Getting a Live CD that runs on all PC configurations.
Redistributable issues with proprietary drivers like NVidia, ATI etc.

In general I quite like the idea of producing a Live CD called the say
Pc Game Station or something.  It should boot into X, but with no window
manager needed, instead just booting straight into the Game.
I think using a USB stick to save games / data is probably the best
idea, that is the closest to the Console system.
Should not ask any questions about configuring your system, trying to
autodetect everything as much as possible.

Does anybody know if this style of thing has been done?  I found a
couple of bootable game live distributions, but from what I can see they
are generally just a version of knoppix with a whole bunch of games
installed, which isn't quite the same thing.

I think the biggest thing that I've heard so far is that a lot of people
are going to say things like Luke did, I run a lot of apps, and dont
want to reboot my computer to play a game.  But then I think about
casual gamers, family gamers, non-hardcore gamers like my mother.  When
my mother wants to play a game, she's been told time and time again that
the more programs are running the slower the computer goes, so she shuts
down every application.
Of course the other alternative is to make the CD bootable, and also
have the game on it, with linux and windows autorun scripts, so the CD
can also be popped in to play the game without booting it.

Anyway thats enough of me rambling, 

Michael Brunton-Spall
MiB Games