Re: For Windows Advocates: DX10 for Windows XP?

On Sat, 15 Sep 2007 06:57:59 +0200, Sandman <mr@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In article <13em31gsslkov4c@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
"Daniel Johnson" <danieljohnson@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

It's very backwards compatible; DirectX 9 is also present
in Vista, so your existing games work.

Did you just claim that games work in Vista? :-D

I also claim this.
Anyone who thinks differently is obviouly not using a modern game.


Yeah. Pretty much. :D

You always crack me up, Dan.

My experience so far is that old games do work

Hmmm. So old games which are very Windows-friendly (which were
written using the Windows API entirely) will work, but those which
fail to use Windows calls (such as programs which directly address the
Video screen, etc) will not, or will work very poorly.

Let's face it, Vista is pretty smart, but not smart enough to correct
those pre-Windows software writers' sloppy coding skills.


Right, but for actual gamers out there that doesn't double as Windows
apologists, the truth is that old games doesn't work. The exception to
the rule is that sometimes and old game may work.

I guess it depends on how you want to characterize "old games". Are
you referring to Pre-MSDOS 6.21 games? Or Windows 3.11 games? Or
Windows 95 games (the first ones with pure Windows32 API calls)? or
Windows 98 games? or Windows XP games. Few Pre-MSDOS 6.21 games will
work in Vista. As a side note, I've also heard that "Gorillas" works
in the Vista Command Prompt if it was compiled using QB 4.25 or later.

I've loaded and run Doom for Windows 95 successfully in Vista, so any
other carefully-crafted Windows games should run without trouble, as
long as they use only Win32 API calls.

I've had no problems with Doom3, or QuakeII or above, or Halo: Combat
Evolved, or WoW.



I can understand how you might think so- the whining about
Vista has been deafening, so you might easily think the back-compat
is really dire.

Now, if this was something I only *thought*, you'd have a point.

It's not *that* bad

It's actually worse. Most gamers won't touch Vista due to its poor
backwards compatibility.

it's just not as good as Microsoft has done
in the past. People are used to getting more from MS.

Actually, people are used to their games working since MS hadn't
updated their OS for six years and most games worked with XP. I'm
quite sure you're pretending that Windows XP has good game backwards
compatibility when it was released. Anyone around at the time knows
better of course.

Consumers buy the game. It is the game developer who
chooses between DX9 and DX10.

No, DX10 drives hardware sales. DX10 is the main selling point for
Crysis. I'm sure you are aware that it's consumers that will be buying
Crysis, not developers.

You seem to not be listening.

You seem to be describing yourself. :)

I expect customers will follow, if the games are DX10 only.

Which they won't, given Vistas poor backwards compatibility.

I think you are mistaken. Vista's back-compat isn't as bad
as all that.

Coming from the groups largest Windows apologist, I'm sure you
understand why I don't disregard my personal experience and that of
millions of gamers just like that. :-D

It's not completely seamless in practice, but stuff
works, or can be made to.

"Stuff" might work, most games doesn't, of course.
Again, you are playing fast and freely with the word "most".

I run/host two fairly large gaming communities in Sweden -
www.gameconnect.se and www.level7.nu. Pretty much none of the gamers
there run Vista.

Of course, "Most" gamers do not use your particular community, unless
they in Europe. You have to realize that the majority of the Earth's
population live elsewhere than Europe.

You are displaying a very insular mindset. Get with the rest of the
world.

Have you actually checked?

Yep.

I can see them holding off due to the fact that they'll lose precious
framerate if they upgrade, but that was true for XP too, and gamers
did come over eventually.

"Framerate, schmamerate". Trying to squeeze out another 1 or 2 FPS is
a stupid indeavor, when the game plays just as well without the extra
FPS.


Yeah, XP had poor backwards compatibility too when it was released.
par for the course with MS.

Some people are just never satisfied, are they.

I myself believe Microsoft has always done an excellent job of bending
over backward to make their current OS as backward-compatible as
possible. Sometimes, however, this is simply not technologically
possible.

But you sound like you are projection your own preferences
onto your users there.

I'm not. I would very much like to use Vista. I think it's better than
Windows XP.

This may or may not be true, depending on how you want to use Vista.

Vista is an excellent platform for gaming, as well as most general
computing needs. It's an excellent presentation and general-purpose
tool for businesses. It's an excellent general-purpose platform for
home users. I will venture to say that Vista is by far the best
general-purpose platform Microsoft has ever released. It's also the
best game platform they've ever released. But the game developers
have to catch up to the technology in Vista.

I'm just telling you what gamers think of it. It's no
secret that Vista has poor backwards compatibility with regards to
games.

It's a five year old technology, Dan. It's almost as old as Windows
XP. The current version of DX9 was released over three years ago. The
only reason for it to have been so stagnant is because MS choose to
make DX10 Vista-only, a version of their OS that gamers doesn't even
touch.

DirectX 10 is a Vista feature; I know you *want* to get
it for free, but MS is under no moral obligation to give you
freebies.

Eh? Who claimed they were?

If DirectX 10 is All That, you should get Vista to have it.

And then loose backwards compatibility with a host of other games I
have.

This isn't a Mac, so you can turn off pretty much everything, if you
want to maximize performance.


There are not many features in Vista one may "turn off" which will
result in increased performance in games. I can't even think of a
single thing about a stock Vista installation which needs to be
"turned off" in order to obtain increased game's performance.

Given the fact that this isn't OSX, I pretty much have to turn of
things to achieve performance, yes.

See above. It has nothing to do with the OS. Better hardware, faster
CPU, more memory, yes. OS? There is nothing intrinsic to either OS
which would makes it either an inferior game platform, or a superior
one.

But beyond geek lust, what matters are the games. Only DX10
games provide a real reason for gamers to switch to Vista.

Uh, yeah, that's the point. You seem to not be listening.

dxdiag is a GUI tool. The "run" command is the quickest way
to find it.

Fair enough. It's till hilarious though. Opening it with the terminal
is the quickest way to open a GUI application in Windows... Hehe.

I disagree, obviously. Starting the DX diagnostics tool using a
short-cut on the desktop would be just as fast. In fact, it would be
faster to start it using a short-cut on the Desktop, since there would
be no need to waste time opening a Command Prompt


I didn't say anything about the "terminal".

The "run" toll executes shell commands based on the path.

Actually this is not true: The "Run" command calls a WINDOWS command
directly, since there is no real "shell", as in an OS X shell, or the
Bourne Shell, etc. The Windows Command Prompt is an intrinsic part of
the OS, not a separate layer ON TOP of of the OS. However, Microsoft
has recently released its FIRST "true" shell, called MONAD, for
either XP or Vista. Apparently, it shows a great deal of promise for
shell programmers.

I totally
respect that you want to nitpick terminology instead of facing this
poor display of Windows useability.

You can use Vista search on Vista, of course, but you will
always have DX10 installed on Vista anyway.

That is, if the Vista search isn't broken of course, which it usually
is.

Hmmm. I've never found Windows search features to be broken. However,
I can see why some would think it is broken, because they fail to
properly configure (or use) Vista's Indexing features. As a result,
they do not get back a full list of "found" items.

Microsoft wanted to use its newer file system (actually, more of a
relational database), but apparently it still needs major work, and
was removed from Vista's release features.


It's personal, Sandman. It hates you! :D

Sounds like when you're having imaginary problems with your "Macs" :-D

What happens on the 25th?

You would know if you were a gamer anticipating a DX10 game. :)

I didn't realize any real DX10 exclusives had existed, but then
I'm not a hardcore gamer.

If they are coming out already, that will speed the transition to
Vista.

Isn't "Crysalis" DX10-only?


I don't know what you are talking about now, if you're not just
talking to yourself. Who said anything about exclusive?

high-end gamers (the ones using DX10 hardware) doesn't really have a
problem with this. They have a problem with Vistas poor backwards
compatibility.

Sure. But while it's not what it was in XP, it's still pretty good. You
can play your old games.

It's as bad as with Windows XP, Dan. Only, Windows XP was released six
years ago so most problems have been sorted out and "old" games have
become games that were actually released when Windows XP still was the
main OS of choice. "Really old games" still have huge problems running
under Windows XP since, well, it has as bad backwards compatibility as
Vista.

Anytime a new Microsoft OS is "shaken out", there is this controversy
and confusion. Eventually, Microsoft, the developers, and their
customers come to some sort of understanding, and it dies down until
the next OS release. Vista is certainly no different than past
Microsoft OSes in that respect.

Donald McDaniel
.

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