MORE INFORMATION
Although business applications such as word processors and
spreadsheets have moved from MS-DOS to Windows, MS-DOS remains the operating
system of choice for high-volume, high-performance, action games and innovative
graphics applications for PCs. These applications have not made the transition
to Windows because of restrictions placed on the programmer by GDI device
independence, by the windowed environment, and by the inability of general
graphics libraries to provide the necessary speed.
The display
techniques used by high-performance graphics applications have two
characteristics in common. First, the application hides the frame composition
process by double buffering in software or hardware. Second, programmers use
knowledge specific to the problem at hand to optimize their graphics routines
in ways a general graphics library can't do.
Hiding frame
composition eliminates flicker by presenting only completed frames to the user.
Under MS-DOS, a VGA card can accomplish the display in hardware by page
flipping or the buffer can reside in main memory that is copied to the screen.
Some applications further optimize display access by copying only the areas of
the buffer that have changed since the last frame, a process called dirty
rectangle animation. Today, high-performance MS-DOS games use all of these
techniques.
In short, most MS-DOS games programmers use knowledge
specific to their application and their hardware to write optimized graphics
routines. Until now, Windows programmers could not use such methods because GDI
prevents access to device-specific surfaces, so programmers cannot draw
directly onto the surface of a GDI device context.
WinG (pronounced
"Win Gee") is an optimized library designed to enable these high-performance
graphics techniques under Windows version 3.x, Win32s, Windows NT version 3.5,
Windows 95, and future Windows releases.
WinG allows the programmer
to create a GDI-compatible HBITMAP with a Device Independent Bitmap (DIB) as
the drawing surface. Programmers can use GDI or their own code to draw onto
this bitmap, then use WinG to transfer it quickly to the screen. WinG also
provides halftoning APIs that use the standard Microsoft halftone palette to
support simulation of true color on palette devices.
How to Obtain the Microsoft WinG SDK
WinG is not included as a part of Windows version 3.1, Windows
95, or Windows NT. In order to run applications that use WinG, you will either
have to install it yourself (see below) or rely on a third-party application
that uses WinG to install it as part of its setup process.
The following
files are available for download from the Microsoft Download
Center:
For
additional information about how to download Microsoft Support files, click the
following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
119591 How to Obtain Microsoft Support Files from Online Services
Microsoft scanned this file for viruses. Microsoft used the most
current virus-detection software that was available on the date that the file
was posted. The file is stored on security-enhanced servers that help to
prevent any unauthorized changes to the file.
This file contains the version 1.0 release of the WinG
graphics libraries. Unzip the file into a temporary directory, and then run
SETUP.EXE. The setup program will create a program group with icons for the
samples and the WinG help file.
NOTE: Setup will also install a file called README.TXT that contains
information on known bugs and limitations. For more up to date information on
known problems or conflicts with WinG, please see the following article in the
Microsoft Knowledge Base:
Please report bugs to this Internet email address: