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Well you can escape but you can't hide, guys. Vista is here and XP is going to be phased out eventually. In fact it was slated for the 2008H2 but after that UMPC frenzy, in order to stay competitive against linux, they've extended the lifecycle of XP Home a little more. (I don't exactly know how long - Sorry.) In any case, SP3 is the last SP XP will get. And XP Professional is going to be phased out very soon.

Of course you can continue using it, but without any tech support.

Bottom line: Don't get too much attached to your XP box and start investigating your options: Either Vista or any other OS.

@ovaltineplease:
You can't mix DX9 and 10. They aren't compatible at all. (I mean API-wise)

From what i hear they are allowing XP to be extended for low powered systems only.
M$ define this as a laptop with not more than 1bg Ram, 1GHZ CPU, 80GB HDD a 10.2 inch screen that isnt a touch screen.
or in other words an Eee pc or similar. I havnt heard of the desktop specs yet.
People will kick and squirm a bit but i think it has to come as has been said as long as most people are running a DX9 OS there is no need to make games that are optimised to DX10, that and it dosent make sence business wise.
Having said that while i still run XP myself i welcome the news that some of the new games coming out will support DX10.1 and that Diablo will take this further by not messing about with DX10.0/Dx10.1.
We have to have progress and as i have said before the numbers FPS wise are looking good under vista with DX10/10.1.
I think there will be a lot of system upgrades when the new intel chipset comes next year and would think the majority of those will have vista on them, home built or otherwise.
Mactronix

Correct mactronix. In fact, thinking that XP is on the shelves for more than 5 years and its code base is nearly 10 years old (W2K) it was definitely necessary for MS to retire it and push for Vista.
As a programmer, I can say one thing: Until Vista, I never upgraded my Windows OS before the actual version had at least 2 SPs. But with Vista, I tried it and said: "OK, this time they did it"
There are many millions of improvements in Vista that isn't visible to end user, but meaning a lot for the programmers.

I guess a lot will depend on what if anything of actual significance to the end user Windows 7 will bring.
From what I'm hearing its not going to be a lot, but to be honest there's not that much info out there yet. Well not that I'm looking that hard, significant things tend to get brought to our attention though.
Any way my point is that the same old pattern will probably emerge, people will adopt Vista as the more stable/known platform, leaving the early adopters to get on with wringing the bugs out of the new OS.
You have to take your hat off to these guys. Don't know if they like a challenge or are just masochistic. either way we wouldn't get half as far as we do with out them.

Mactronix

hmm, again sounding like a compliment for microsoft, they are probably outside your door right now, away to bundle you into a van for such heretical words.

@strangestranger
I don't know what's making you so much anti-MS, but I don't care.
I've been using computers sinde DEC VM/VAX times. Many even don't know what is DEC at all!
Later IBM VM/ESA VSE/ESA on System/390's.
Later I've used a vast variety of *NIXes, including several distributions of Linux also.
The only OS that I haven't written a program on is the MacOS prior to MacOS X.
So, when I'm talking about pros and cons of an OS, I know what I am saying.
I don't expect everyone has the knowledge of the inner works of all these OSes, so I'm not getting into detail, but again if required, I can happily.
One thing for sure: Every OS has its pros and cons. Every OS is tailored for a specific target audience. For you all gaming enthausiasts, I'm afraid except for Windows flavours, you're in dark. (Of course if you're not using a console to play games.)
To cut a long story short: If you're mad at MS for some inferior product, you are also responsible for it. They're delivering what market wants. Nothing more nothing less.

sorry, i am not sure what smiley can be used to convey the sense in which it was meant.

I don't consider the announcement that Diablo 3 will be DX10.1 to be noteworthy. Until the game is released there will have been plenty of changes. Maybe Dx10.1 isn't up to date anymore then (hopyfully) or Blizzard changes their mind during development - that wouldn't be unusual. Given the fact that they do a Mac version it is very likely that Dx10.1 compliancy is just a byproduct.

@ Slobogob.

While what you say is very true, Until we actually get the game we wont know what it will and wont do.
however I am choosing to view it as a positive step that at least these kinds of thing are being taken into consideration.
I know its a thorny subject but Image Quality has to come into this as well. I'm not talking about ATI vs Nvidia here just plain Quality which is better with DX10.1.
I am running a 3850 at the minute and am quite happy to say that while the image quality is good it is not as good as it could be. My X1650XT with the help of ATT could produce an image superior to what my currant card is capable of, but it just isn't up to the job anymore as a gaming card.
As i have already said the games have to come first, while some are happy to embrace the newer software/hardware early on, the majority of people want to see a reason to buy it first. In my opinion it will only take a couple of good games to get well received by the critics and reviewers for the mass market to move over to Vista and DX10.1. But again only my opinion but it has to be at least 10.1.

Mactronix

Sorry if I offended, but no bad intentions. I've spoken to the general, in answering you. Everybody's bashing everyone fanboyishly.

Believe me, if people would demand it, gaming companies would simply drop the "The Way It's Meant To Be Played" and go on with whatever people demand. It's just that. MS doesn't want an OS which wouldn't sell. EA wouldn't also write a game which wouldn't sell. nVidia wouldn't create GTX280 if they knew they wouldn't be able to sell.

Bottom line, whatever market requires, delivered. If market required Windows, it's here.

We touched on Ray tracing earlier in the thread and i just came across this http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/Larr [...] 28603.html
Could be that the whole DXthing dosent have that long to go after all.
Mactronix

@mactronix
I agree!
Just, we need a standardized interface for raytracing.
Remember the days before DirectX? We weren't able to run this game on that card etc?
So, RayTracing IS waiting for its DirectX or OpenGL. Who'll put it there will get the pie. Maybe MS, maybe nVidia, maybe ATi/AMD. But I don't think nVidia or ATi/AMD would do such a standardization. Some company who's strong enough to assert all GPU producers. Think who?

I disagree.


AMD have introduced instruction sets before which have gone on to become standard.

I don't see this being any different.

Oh and the tom's article is a repeat of Theo "WOLF!!! WOLF!!!" Valich's article elsewhere.


Take it with a shaker of salt.

It is totally different.

AMD has introduced an EXTENSION to the x86 instruction set. And there are billions or trillions of programs already working on x86 architecture. It's not something like promoting an API.

Think this way, you could have run your programs without making any changes both on AMD and intel CPUs even when intel didn't support AMD extensions.

But you can't run an nVidia only application on an ATi/AMD GPU without making shanges and making optimizations tailored for each different card.

HAha VAX VMS, yeah some of us know it and why Digital is more that just a signal type. VMS wasn't glamourous, but pretty bulletproof.

Thing is I HATE Micro$oft (they killed too many good small companies in their monopolistic rise), however I know and appreciate (both sense of the word) their role as the purveyor of standards and how they are best suited for such things now.

I also don't pile on, and my view of Vista is, it SUX for anyone with legacy apps and legacy hardware where Vista is just terrible (yes more so than previous generations). This is also partly OEM's fault too, but some of the decisions like the change to the HAL without making it's removal easier to deal with is M$' fault. I still use XP on my current laptop (what a pain getting the downgrade support was) because of the legacy support.
That being said though, for a new build I wouldn't recommend anything other than Vista, I think it's mature enough and if you have no old gear or software to worry about, then it is better than XP IMO. It's not right for me and my uses, but for most people it's likely the right choice despite all the negativty surrounding it and people's negative feel towards it; many just because their tech friend or magazine/site hates it, or because it's just fun to pile on M$.

Anywhoo, I don't like the role of defending M$, but there's alot of myth out there about Vista.
While some parts of DX10 could be in XP, all DX10 options and especially DX10.1 requirements could not be easily put into XP without a more painful and pointless total rework of both.

That's actually not true, if they delivered just what the market wants, they wouldn't have needed monopolistic practices right?
Also if they just delivered what the market wanted (their market not some other one) they wouldn't have added all this bloatware DRM (especially for those outside the US) and all of it's st00pid decisions and sub implementations that ruined some of it's functionality, espceially in A/V hardware/software. Also it's decisions to cripple itself not only for Disney & co but also for specific IHV self-interest requests is another example of not quite delivering what is needed for it's market/customers so much as bow to other considerations and losing focus.

One of the things I like about the whole Vista/MEII debacle is that caused both the customer and M$ to pause for sober second thought, which hopefully refocuses M$ back on it's customers.

I'm quite kindly aware of that and you don't need to be a computer programmer to understand this, however a number of game designers have "realized previous thought dx10 only features were able to be implimented in dx9 API"

Look, you're intelligent, I don't need to spell this out for you and if you're looking to argue then I suggest you argue with other game programmers - not me.

Furthermore, XP service pack 2 was also quoted as the last service pack for XP, but guess what - it wasn't.

I wouldn't expect Windows Vista Directx10 to be totally mainstream until next year at the earliest. I am a Vista 64 owner myself, but I quite realize that I am in the significant minority and the majority are the myopic XP users who still think there is no benefit to Vista - to their own loss or otherwise; but i'm sure that unless Nvidia themselves are totally blind, they realize this as well.

Do you think the wheel was re-invented with every implementation of DirectX?


All extensions built on what went before.