jcoper@ccu.umanitoba.ca (D. Joseph Creighton) (12/18/90)
I recently (and finally!) saw a demo of the game SimEarth on the PBS show Computer Chronicles this past weekend. The machine they were running it on was definately of a Mac II lineage. The multiple windows seemed to be making the program run somewhat slow or "choppy," most likely because all windows were being updated at the same time. What I'd like to know is this: Does this game run well on the older SE? I mean, *really* well? Any problems whatsoever? I don't want to go out and order a game that's going to take 30 full seconds to refresh the screen because of many background tasks. --- +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ | D. Joseph Creighton | Department of Computer Services | | <jcoper@ccu.umanitoba.ca> | University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada | +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
jas@ISI.EDU (Jeff Sullivan) (12/18/90)
In article <1990Dec17.163657.14194@ccu.umanitoba.ca> jcoper@ccu.umanitoba.ca (D. Joseph Creighton) writes: >I recently (and finally!) saw a demo of the game SimEarth on the PBS show >Computer Chronicles this past weekend. The machine they were running it >on was definately of a Mac II lineage. The multiple windows seemed to be >making the program run somewhat slow or "choppy," most likely because all >windows were being updated at the same time. > >What I'd like to know is this: Does this game run well on the older SE? I >mean, *really* well? Any problems whatsoever? > >I don't want to go out and order a game that's going to take 30 full seconds >to refresh the screen because of many background tasks. >--- >+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ >| D. Joseph Creighton | Department of Computer Services | >| <jcoper@ccu.umanitoba.ca> | University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada | >+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ There is an option in SImEarth where only the forground window is updated contstantly. This keeps you from hanging around while background windows update. On my Mac II, the delay for the latter is erceptible. On a Plus or 512, I assume it would be annoying. jas -- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jeffrey A. Sullivan | Senior Systems Programmer jas@venera.isi.edu | Information Sciences Institute jas@isi.edu DELPHI: JSULLIVAN | University of Southern California
c60a-cz@danube.Berkeley.EDU (Donald Burr) (12/18/90)
SimEarth works well on my Classic. I've got a 30 MB drive on it, and
of course things are somewhat slow, but that's to be expected on a
68000. Plus, the black-and-white characters in the game are SLIGHTLY
hard to read. But, the game is so addictive (to me, at least) and I
enjoy it so much that I don't much care for these minor inconveniences.
______________________________________________________________________________
Donald Burr, Univ of California, Berkeley | "I have a seperate mail-address
INTERNET: c60a-cz@danube.Berkeley.edu | for flames and other such nega-
or: 72540.3071@compuserve.COM | tive msgs; it's called /dev/null."ce1zzes@prism.gatech.EDU (Eric Sheppard) (12/18/90)
I spent a few sleepless nights this week learning the ins and outs of
SimEarth. Maybe I'm a total enviro-idiot, but I can't seem to plug the right
combinations of gases and biomass to attain the goals of the terraforming
scenarios in the allotted time limit. I could warm up Mars to an average of
-45 degrees and cool down Venus to about 100 degrees, but in each case, the
temperature practically hits a brick wall. Planting biomes causes violent
swings in Oxygen/CO2 levels, but the temp then stabilizes at the previous
levels. Forget about land life! How can the levels be stabilized, or made
a little less sensitive to minor changes?
Other problems:
Air pressure. After I cool down Venus, I've got an enormous amount of
Oxygen in the atmosphere, at elevated pressures. How can I vent off the
excess and reduce the pressure?
What's the fastest way to build air pressure on Mars? How long will it
take?
I had more fun building a planet from scratch, though. I can imagine the
controversy it could cause with the fundamentalist crazies (Build your own
Planet! Be your own God! Build life from nothing! All from the comfort of
your own computer!) Heh...
Eric, tinkerer-at-large
--
Eric Sheppard Georgia Tech | "Of course the US Constitution isn't
Atlanta, GA | perfect; but it's a lot better than what
ARPA: ce1zzes@prism.gatech.edu | we have now." -Unknown
uucp: ...!{allegra,amd,hplabs,seismo,ut-ngp}!gatech!prism!ce1zzesken@slhisc.uucp (Ken Stamm) (12/19/90)
In article <1990Dec17.163657.14194@ccu.umanitoba.ca> jcoper@ccu.umanitoba.ca (D. Joseph Creighton) writes: >I recently (and finally!) saw a demo of the game SimEarth on the PBS show >Computer Chronicles this past weekend. The machine they were running it >on was definately of a Mac II lineage. The multiple windows seemed to be > >What I'd like to know is this: Does this game run well on the older SE? I >mean, *really* well? Any problems whatsoever? > If you are interested, SimEarth Color is running on my plain-vanilla original un-enhanced, un-accelerated MAC II with original Apple RGB card. In 16 color mode (recommended by Maxis) it runs very nicely, even with several windows open and updating simultaneously. In 256 color mode, it runs noticeably slower, but still what I would consider within the bounds of acceptable. I run it in 256 mode, mostly because I'm lazy and dont want to keep switching monitor modes. Anyone else care to comment on their SimEarth performance? -- Ken Stamm (ken@slhisc.uucp, sun.com!gotham!slhisc!ken) (212)341-3868 Shearson Lehman Brothers, 390 Greenwich St. 4W, New York NY 10013 Views expressed here are opaque to the above corporation.