Re: For Windows Advocates: DX10 for Windows XP?

"Donald L McDaniel" <orthocross@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:l19re3tl1sranltu67pq7d27f71b5ntmsj@xxxxxxxxxx
On Fri, 14 Sep 2007 20:08:17 +0200, Sandman <mr@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Microsoft figures they'll come along when the games they lust for
use DX10. By then their computers will have enough RAM to run
Vista and also play a game, or so one would think.

The amount of ram isn't the problem, Backards-compatibility is the
problem. Many games just doesn't work on Vista.

There is a reason for that, you know. And it isn't
"backwards-compatibility": it's "newer video-driver
model"-compatibility.

Vista has a newer driver model (Windows Vista Display Driver Model, or
"WDDM") which most older games cannot take advantage of (or even use,
in some cases.) Little backward-compatibility is built into this
model. But this is really nothing new. Usually, when a major version
of Windows is released, the video-driver model also changes, and is
usually functionally unusable in a previous Microsoft OS.

It is worth noting that if you are having compatibility problems with
the new drivers, you can just use the old XP drivers in Vista.

You don't get transparent window frames, but you do get
improved compatibility and stability.

Needless to say, nobody is- or should be- happy with having
to tweak like this. But you aren't any worse of than you would
be if you stayed on XP.

[snip]
DX10 is a clear win the game developers, since they no longer have to
deal with different featuresets in different video cards: a DX10 card
has a specific set of features MS has defined.

It's certainly about time that Microsoft started demanding uniformity
from the OEMs. It makes their job much simpler (and cheaper).

It also makes the game developers job much easier. But
back in the day, one of their big advantages over OpenGL
was that it was easier to write a Direct3D driver for your
video card- so all the cards had them.

Early Direct3D was a lot less pleasant to program for than
OpenGL, but being able to run on anybody's 3D card
was enough of a draw to overcome this.

All this is no longer true with DirectX 10.

Expect game developers
to change over to DX10 as soon as it is decently possible.

"Decently possible"? Is it some how "indecent" at the present time?

:D

"Now" is always a "decent time" when it comes to the sales of video
cards and games, especially if Microsoft's current OS has caught up
with the technology.

Well, bear in mind that it takes time to create a video game,
and it is probably not wise to scrap your existing rendering
code for DirectX 10 on the spot- it will delay your release,
after all. The next game can use DirectX 10.

[snip]
Unlike OS X, Windows XP does not have a programmable shell.

It actually does- CMD.EXE. It's awful, just a slightly updated
version of DOS's COMMAND.COM. But it does exist. It
also has better scripting languages, but they can't be used
as command lines.

Of course, the "Run" prompt is not using any of this.
Run is performing a ShellExecute().

The XP
"Command Prompt" is just a text-mode version of the Desktop.

The "Run" prompt is sort-of like a text-mode version of the Desktop,
but the "Command Prompt" is actually something else. You cannot,
for instance, just type in a URL at the command prompt and have anything
useful happen, but you can do so at the "Run" prompt.

Similarly, at the command prompt you can use redirection
operators. In the Run dialog, not.

There's a fair bit of commonality between them, but
they are distinct things. CMD.EXE is essentiallly a
throwback to DOS, providing a 32-bit model for running
batch files, and not something you really want to use.

'Run' is more of a UI shortcut.

[snip]

.

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