RE: [GD-Windows] Terminating a program

[George G. <ge...@ba...>]

> > resources allocated and configured by drivers are beyond the direct 
> > control of the kernel, and as such can very often be left in
unstable 
> > states when an app is terminated.
> 
> This should simply not be true.

Ah, many things in life "should" not be true, but unfortunately are.

> The reason that you have to do this (and we do when we terminate 
> normally) is because of bugs in the implementation of the drivers. 
> Sadly, such bugs are so common, that they contribute to the 
> perception that Windows is unstable and computers just crash all the 
> time. 

Exactly, and of course in a user's eyes a driver bug = a bug in the app
that was using the driver.  (Mind you, this falsehood isn't helped any
by new software that mucks about with drivers and the O/S as part of
their lame copy protection schemes, but that is ENTIRELY a different
topic...)

Video and Sound driver bugs (such as terminate/cleanup bugs) are just SO
common that, for all intents and purposes, the termination issues have
to be assumed to be the "status quo" and apps have to try to work around
them.  As such, no good app should, if it can at all help it, exit
without closing down its video, sound and network APIs.  To do so is
inviting stability issues from faulty (and very common) drivers.

-- George.

- George Geczy
- Lead Programmer, BattleGoat Studios
- www.supremeruler2010.com
- "Designing the Next Generation of Intelligent Strategy Games"