Games moving away from windows xp and what it means for the industry

[thespyder]

Just saying "omg you're on an old os dummy" is not really an argument.

Which was my only complaint. If I have said something wrong or inaccurate, I am more than interested in finding out what. And open to new ideas or new information.

But to simply respond "That's funny", or "Hipster (i.e. old os person)" as an insult without saying why or correcting any misapprehensions I may have seems a bit lacking in depth and breadth of explanation. And just seems like someone wants to make themselves feel better by putting someone else down. But hey, whatever floats their boats.

What is fact is as follows:

Game development today is driven primarily by Consoles, not versions of Windows.

Game consoles are restricted to Dx9 (at present). 90% or more of the gaming industry are anchored to Gaming consoles and so are not going to adopt Dx11 (exclusively) and miss out on that market. The VAST majority of games today are not Dx11 compatible, let alone exclusive.

It is patently NOT true that BF3 only supporting Dx11 is a sign of the death of XP. So the point of the thread, i.e. the dissolution of XP as a platform, is not imminent, nor relevant. AT THIS TIME. Quite simply the gaming industry is not being driven by XP/Windows 7 at all, but by the consoles.

It is also a fact that Vista was not widely accepted. The primary reason it wasn't widely accepted was that (a) it wasn't anywhere near as stable as XP (still isn't). And (b) it was hugely memory intensive which was poor for gaming.

Windows 7 is, for all intents and purposes Vista 1.5 rebranded and with a lot of the kinks worked out. While” a lot” of the issues have been resolved in Windows 7, NOT ALL OF THEM HAVE BEEN. This isn’t conjecture, its fact. And since XP (by virtue of being around for so long) has MORE issues worked out, I see that as “More stable”. Call me foolish if you like, but I equate more stable with fewer issues, more drivers, more compatability, greater software library, etc...

And software and hardware developers are still developing for XP platform BECAUSE OF THIS. As an example, many printers in particular (and peripherals in general) do not have Vista/Windows 7 native drivers because the industry still sees a significant market for XP users. So since those developing are still seeing a market in XP, they aren’t doing it because they are stupid and want to throw money away. They are doing it because they market demographic information proving that a significant portion of the PC community still uses XP.

This is all fact, not conjecture. Nor is it subject to “Old OS Hipster” thinking.

It is also a widely known/believed point that Microsoft intentionally restricted Dx11 to Vista/Windows 7 because they wanted to force adoption to the new platform, which is the same reason that they officially stopped supporting XP. However, there is still a LOT of community support for XP even today. and a fair few of them are former (or even current) Microsoft programmers. So just because it doesn't have the Microsoft ™ seal of approval, doesn’t mean that applications/features aren’t in the offering. And anyone who thinks just because Microsoft isn’t Officially supporting it that it won’t ever work needs to stop drinking the cool-aid.

As for the hideous amounts of Memory that Windows 7 “Can” support, I haven’t seen a convincing argument for any application that I use (or in fact any game in the market today) requiring more than XP can support. In fact, most of what is out there today runs fine on 4GB. Almost anything else is GPU rather than RAM anyway. And given that Windows 7 requires a greater utilization Just for itself to run, I see this as the limits were pushed to accommodate the OS, not the applications.

Now I don’t use Media development software, so maybe that is where the others are feeling I am ill informed. How many gamers here do?

I am not saying that Windows 7 doesn't have some good features. Nor that there aren't reasons to consider adopting. I did myself. But I am saying that anyone who says XP is as obsolete as stone knives and bear skins is kidding themselves.

 

[PhatoseAlpha]

Funny. My Vista vs XP stability experience was solidly in favor of Vista, but a large margin. XP was anything but rock solid - quite the opposite, it was Jello OS. Win 7 further improved over Vista. It's long since ceased to even be a contest.

And...er...printers that lack Win 7/Vista drivers, in my experience, are universally quite old, and released before Vista. Since the printer industry treats units as disposable, it's hardly surprising that they're not writing new drivers for old printers. It's not because there's still XP usage - it's because they're not going to spend the time writing drivers for hardware that old when it's basically a throwaway.

 

[Texashiker]

Funny. My Vista vs XP stability experience was solidly in favor of Vista, but a large margin. XP was anything but rock solid - quite the opposite, it was Jello OS. Win 7 further improved over Vista. It's long since ceased to even be a contest.

Rarely, and I mean rarely would I get a blue screen of death with xp.

On a weekly basis I get blue screen of death with windows 7.

 

[sandorski]

I'm 100% certain that WinXP could run DX10/11 and 64bit. Hell, I'm also 100% certain that Win95 could do the same. However, so much Code would need to be replaced that you'd be hard pressed to find any Code left from the original OS. The SP needed would likely be larger than the original OS itself, especially for Win95.

An OS is very complex and given that complexity, there comes a time when it's best to just start with a clean slate. Also, many of the Programmers who originally wrote the original Code would no longer be working on the OS or at MS. This adds yet more complexity to Upgrading the OS as certain parts of the Code would likely contain many kludges to make them work properly and these kludges may contain certain limitations that are unknown to the Programmers left Updating the OS, introducing Bugs as newer features are added.

 

[Dankk]

Rarely, and I mean rarely would I get a blue screen of death with xp.

On a weekly basis I get blue screen of death with windows 7.

I got blue screens fairly often with Windows XP. Around when Vista came out, I became more mature and started teaching myself more about computers and maintenance. Since then I've never had a single crash with either Vista or 7.

The lesson here is: BSODs are a result of bad hardware or drivers, and have nothing to do with the quality of your OS.

 

[Texashiker]

The lesson here is: BSODs are a result of bad hardware or drivers, and have nothing to do with the quality of your OS.

I have been using the same system for almost 2 years - about a year with xp, and about a year with windows 7.

On the same exact hardware. I am experiencing more blue screens then I have had in 10 years.

And I blame the OS for blue screens - if the driver crashes, there is no reason for the whole system to crash.

With windows 95, 98, 2000 and xp, I could throw a bunch of parts together and it would work. But for some reason windows 7 crashes with a blues screen quit often.

 

[J-Money]

I have been using the same system for almost 2 years - about a year with xp, and about a year with windows 7.

On the same exact hardware. I am experiencing more blue screens then I have had in 10 years.

And I blame the OS for blue screens - if the driver crashes, there is no reason for the whole system to crash.

With windows 95, 98, 2000 and xp, I could throw a bunch of parts together and it would work. But for some reason windows 7 crashes with a blues screen quit often.

Sounds like that 2 year old system has some faulty / incompatible hardware. Do a mem check recently?

I had blue screens in Windows 7 fairly commonly... because of faulty SSD.

Since replacing that, not once.

 

[DominionSeraph]

Seriously, it's a 10 year old OS. People need to move on already. Vista was better, win7 is even more of an improvement. No reason to stick with xp any more.

You're an idiot.
I moved from 98 to Vista with only around a month on XP, so I never even gained familiarity with XP before moving on to your supposedly "superior" Vista.
With Vista, boots were 2:40 off a Raptor. It took literally hours to copy a 1GB file. ZIP file integration was horrendous, hanging explorer for minutes just clicking on one. Drivers were hit or miss. Superfetch was useless, slowing everything down while it loaded movies I had already watched instead of letting me open the programs I wanted to actually use. And it broke old games. After a year of patching MS had only gotten the file transfers and ZIP files to "barely usable", they fixed the thread priority of Superfetch but it was still uselessly loading movies into RAM, drivers were available (base functionality - hooray!), but games were still broken and boots were now over 3 minutes.
When my Vista box broke I moved the CPU and RAM over to the XP box and started using that. Wow, what a difference! Even though it was using a 7200RPM WD800JD instead of the Raptor, it was soooo much faster than the Vista box. It was rock-stable. It just worked and worked great. And I found that my skill at tweaking DOS and 98 also carried over to XP, allowing such things as:

(You ain't gonna beat that with Win 7 even off a Gen 3 SSD, and I'm doing it on a $350 Dell from 2006)

Also, "squatters" who insist on using WinXP for gaming have yet to give me a good reason for not upgrading to 7.

Because Win7 costs $100, it has no performance or stability benefits, and it breaks tons of old games.
When I shell out money I expect to get more than what I currently have, not less.

The only idiot here is the guy that thinks it's appropriate to call another poster an idiot.
-ViRGE

 

[Absolution75]

Can we not let this thread degrade into a Vista/7 vs XP debate? There are going to be people who don't need Vista/7 and that's fine.

But seriously, as far as DX11 not being on XP. There is a reason why MS didn't include it. It wasn't only to move gamers to Vista/7, but because really, they have no reason to continue supporting the operating system. I think too many of you are ungrateful for the amount of support MS has given to users of old operating systems. What other product do you get 10+ years of support for a product that costs <$150. They could have overhauled the OS to support DX10/11, but that would require quite a bit of kernel changes, surely the WDM video drivers would need to be revamped (creating yet another class of users instead of 2003/XP & Vista/7, you'd have 2003, XP, and Vista/7, 3 different sets of drivers instead of two). They would also be leaving all the people with old HW in the dark. You think Intel is going to release a new driver for 5 year old HW specifically for "XP 2.0"? What about S3? Hell no. Even if they did make all the required changes, you would basically have Vista anyway.

Bottom line is it doesn't make sense to support XP at all. The more resources MS would put to it means less resources they can use for future products.

MS is going back to their 3 year release cycle, which is really a good thing. It keeps people from getting too attached to their OS in the first place.

 

[Blitzvogel]

Can we not let this thread degrade into a Vista/7 vs XP debate? There are going to be people who don't need Vista/7 and that's fine.

But seriously, as far as DX11 not being on XP. There is a reason why MS didn't include it. It wasn't only to move gamers to Vista/7, but because really, they have no reason to continue supporting the operating system. I think too many of you are ungrateful for the amount of support MS has given to users of old operating systems. What other product do you get 10+ years of support for a product that costs <$150. They could have overhauled the OS to support DX10/11, but that would require quite a bit of kernel changes, surely the WDM video drivers would need to be revamped (creating yet another class of users instead of 2003/XP & Vista/7, you'd have 2003, XP, and Vista/7, 3 different sets of drivers instead of two). They would also be leaving all the people with old HW in the dark. You think Intel is going to release a new driver for 5 year old HW specifically for "XP 2.0"? What about S3? Hell no. Even if they did make all the required changes, you would basically have Vista anyway.

Bottom line is it doesn't make sense to support XP at all. The more resources MS would put to it means less resources they can use for future products.

MS is going back to their 3 year release cycle, which is really a good thing. It keeps people from getting too attached to their OS in the first place.

Nothing wrong with attachment, if it gets the job needed done and if people want to buy into the new OS, it's ok. I understand that Vista and 7 users are a bit sore at XP users who might be encouraging developers to sit on older rendering technology due to OS adoption, but can you blame someone for sticking to what works for them? I will admit, I'm happy to see real DX10 and 11 adoption, that it's a good proposition for developers since the user base is large enough as well as the performance and visual gains thereof. To the XP users: eventually times change, it's just part of how things are. XP and DX9.0 in it's various flavors had a good run. If you don't choose to upgrade, there is thankfully a huge backlog of excellent games that run in XP, and there will continue to be for a while. If you upgrade a while from now, there will still be the by then large backlog of titles made for DX10 and above for you to play at that later point.

To be perfectly honest and nostalgic, I sometimes like to use XP still every now and then. It's a good back up OS to have if something goes to hell on my main OS or the HDD it's installed on.

 

[BFG10K]

And I blame the OS for blue screens - if the driver crashes, there is no reason for the whole system to crash.

This is a faulty perception. Anything running in kernel space (such as a device driver) can crash the OS, whether it’s Windows, Linux, MacOS X, or whatever. That’s not the OSes fault if it happens.

Vista/7 tries to alleviate this to some extent by running some of the driver code in user space, but there’s always code that needs to sit at the kernel level.

 

[Texashiker]

This is a faulty perception. Anything running in kernel space (such as a device driver) can crash the OS, whether it’s Windows, Linux, MacOS X, or whatever. That’s not the OSes fault if it happens.

Sounds like a faulty design to me.

If your car tire goes flat, there is no reason for the motor to throw a rod.

 

[Demo24]

Windows 7 is, for all intents and purposes Vista 1.5 rebranded and with a lot of the kinks worked out. While” a lot” of the issues have been resolved in Windows 7, NOT ALL OF THEM HAVE BEEN. This isn’t conjecture, its fact. And since XP (by virtue of being around for so long) has MORE issues worked out, I see that as “More stable”. Call me foolish if you like, but I equate more stable with fewer issues, more drivers, more compatability, greater software library, etc...

And software and hardware developers are still developing for XP platform BECAUSE OF THIS. As an example, many printers in particular (and peripherals in general) do not have Vista/Windows 7 native drivers because the industry still sees a significant market for XP users.



And given that Windows 7 requires a greater utilization Just for itself to run, I see this as the limits were pushed to accommodate the OS, not the applications.



I am not saying that Windows 7 doesn't have some good features. Nor that there aren't reasons to consider adopting. I did myself. But I am saying that anyone who says XP is as obsolete as stone knives and bear skins is kidding themselves.

Ok let's go through some things here:

A) XP as more stable? Are you kidding me? Win7 has significantly more fail safes written in, far more native driver support, and is significantly more efficient at managing memory and modern hard drives. I can't think of a single semi-modern piece of software that WONT run on win7, nor can I think of a device that doesn't have a win7 driver that was made within the last 5 years.

B) While this is true of OLD printers and peripherals, win7 has many legacy drivers built in to take care of this. For example I have an older HP printer that HP never bothered to build a vista/7 driver for, however I use a default one in win7 and things work fine.

C) Granted it needs a bit more ram (big deal, stuff costs pennies these days), but it also isn't utilizing as much as it seems. Win7 is rather efficient about managing ram and keeps more in there than needed to speed up the user experience. The ram is there you might as well use it as not doing so is a gigantic waste.

D) XP is quickly becoming obsolete. Sure there are a lot of computers still running it, quite a few in corporate. However there is absolutely no need for msft to support an OS thats 10 years old. Security concerns aside, there is no good reason to still be using an old OS, apart from having an old comp. in that case you wouldn't care about anything anyway.

E)Seriously, XP 64? That was like the worst iteration of a 64bit os in recent memory. Driver support was and still is terrible, not to forget it was unstable. No reason to get that os when vista/7 handle 64bit significantly better.


Since xp was like 99% 32bit, that becomes another limiting factor. 4gb might be 'fine' now, but it's quickly becoming not so fine. I've run out just doing gaming and other web stuff. Personally I like to keep some things open when I game, which takes ram, and the ability to easily alt-tab out is also nice.

 

[Demo24]

I have been using the same system for almost 2 years - about a year with xp, and about a year with windows 7.

On the same exact hardware. I am experiencing more blue screens then I have had in 10 years.

And I blame the OS for blue screens - if the driver crashes, there is no reason for the whole system to crash.

With windows 95, 98, 2000 and xp, I could throw a bunch of parts together and it would work. But for some reason windows 7 crashes with a blues screen quit often.

Then there is something wrong with your system. XP it was rather easy to throw blue screens, but I hardly see them in win7. I honestly don't remember the last one I've seen, must have been months ago. Even with an unstable system it rarely ever blue screened on me.

And don't give me that BS about throwing parts together and it not working in win7. Significantly more hardware support in win7, plus the ability to overwrite hardware configurations/drivers on the fly. I've booted a win7 system coming straight from an AMD64 to a corei5, and while that first boot was slow it most certainly worked fine after that. XP might not even have booted in safe mode.

 

[MustangSVT]

well, although my work computers all have win7 on them , I JUST updated to win7 with SSD yesterday on my own main machine.

I didn't really see (still dont) any big reason to update OS.

dx11 is still a "meh" .

but we'll see.

 

[thespyder]

Ok let's go through some things here:

A) XP as more stable? Are you kidding me? Win7 has significantly more fail safes written in, far more native driver support, and is significantly more efficient at managing memory and modern hard drives. I can't think of a single semi-modern piece of software that WONT run on win7, nor can I think of a device that doesn't have a win7 driver that was made within the last 5 years.

B) While this is true of OLD printers and peripherals, win7 has many legacy drivers built in to take care of this. For example I have an older HP printer that HP never bothered to build a vista/7 driver for, however I use a default one in win7 and things work fine.

C) Granted it needs a bit more ram (big deal, stuff costs pennies these days), but it also isn't utilizing as much as it seems. Win7 is rather efficient about managing ram and keeps more in there than needed to speed up the user experience. The ram is there you might as well use it as not doing so is a gigantic waste.

D) XP is quickly becoming obsolete. Sure there are a lot of computers still running it, quite a few in corporate. However there is absolutely no need for msft to support an OS thats 10 years old. Security concerns aside, there is no good reason to still be using an old OS, apart from having an old comp. in that case you wouldn't care about anything anyway.

E)Seriously, XP 64? That was like the worst iteration of a 64bit os in recent memory. Driver support was and still is terrible, not to forget it was unstable. No reason to get that os when vista/7 handle 64bit significantly better.


Since xp was like 99% 32bit, that becomes another limiting factor. 4gb might be 'fine' now, but it's quickly becoming not so fine. I've run out just doing gaming and other web stuff. Personally I like to keep some things open when I game, which takes ram, and the ability to easily alt-tab out is also nice.

As has been stated this is not supposed to be an XP vs Vista/Win7 thread. It is about if DX11 exclusive games mean the end of XP as a platform. Which I think has been answered.

As far as your personal experiences with Win7 over XP, they are anecdotal. Just because YOU haven't had issues, doesn't mean they don't exist.

And if you think that any "Modern" technology has Win7 drivers, I am guessing you haven't bought much "Modern" technology. I recently had to chuck a 2 year old Lexmark printer because they "Don't officially support Win7" by their own admission. And a perfectly stable machine on XP, when converted to Win7 is now the blue screen of death machine. Again, not the point of the thread.

 

[Texashiker]

Significantly more hardware support in win7,

That is laughable, windows 7 has more hardware support then xp? lololol

Hardware support has improved for windows 7, but its nowhere near what it is for XP.

When the company I work for moved to windows 7, W7 would not work with the majority of our printers. We have a 36 inch printer, and probably half a dozen HP printers that we can not use because HP has not updated the drivers.

How can you compare hardware support with a OS that is a couple of years old, to an OS that is almost a decade old - you can't.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

That is laughable, windows 7 has more hardware support then xp? lololol

Hardware support has improved for windows 7, but its nowhere near what it is for XP.

When the company I work for moved to windows 7, W7 would not work with the majority of our printers. We have a 36 inch printer, and probably half a dozen HP printers that we can not use because HP has not updated the drivers.

How can you compare hardware support with a OS that is a couple of years old, to an OS that is almost a decade old - you can't.

Maybe when everyone was using the release candidate for win7 it had less support. Now however, anything I install the drivers are automatically installed almost instantly.

 

[Anubis]

When the company I work for moved to windows 7, W7 would not work with the majority of our printers. We have a 36 inch printer, and probably half a dozen HP printers that we can not use because HP has not updated the drivers.

.

that is HPs fault not Microsofts

just live vista, people blamed all the driver issues with old hardware on MS when it was not their fault other companies didnt update their drivers

 

[LumbergTech]

I believe games like BF3, Skyrim and Metro:First Light are going to raise the bar in graphics.

For companies like Valve to stay competitive, they are going to have to step-up. The source engine has not received a major update in years; Valve did not even make an appearance at E3.

Counter-Strike:GO is due out sometime in 2012? Is it going to use graphics from 2004, or graphics from 2012?

There are advanced realistic graphics, and then there is just pure artwork. CS:GO is going the route of improving the detail as opposed to the "realism" of the graphics. It is a lot easier on the eye long term. There are quite a few games that have "bad" graphics but have good artwork and so are still pleasing to the eye.

 

[PieIsAwesome]

Where does all this unsupported, unstable XP x64 noise come from?

I was running XP x64 up until recently on a Phenom II quad-core and a GTX 460. Never had any trouble finding drivers, or compatibility problems with software. All the hardware drivers were available for XP x64, a lot of software I use had XP x64 versions available, and those that did not still worked anyways, just as they would in regular XP. The only problem I ever recall having was with an old game, Cossacks 2, that would not launch because the stupid launcher did not detect a supported OS and would not let the game launch. I found a work-around and the game worked fine.

 

[ImpulsE69]

Personally, I think if they want to milk the sales as much as possible, there will be a dx9 patch later. Unlike the consoles that require all sorts of outside legal reasons they can't play nice, DX9/DX11 is really not an issue other than the time to write the code. We're all beta testers anyway.

 

[wuliheron]

Windows 7 marks the end of PC gaming as we've come to know it. Thus far PC gaming has always been about what new features to add to video cards and how to make processors faster, but now its coming down to raw bandwidth and that means gpu compute functions, more cpu cores, more ram, faster ram, more vram, faster vram, faster pci-e, etc. For all that to happen 64 bit computing has to go mainstream and windows 7 has now established itself as the 64 bit operating system to buy.

Developers will either figure out new ways to use all those extra cpu cores, simplified gpu processors, and ram or find themselves looking for another job. Metro 2033 can run physx on the latest 8 core processors, but who cares? Its like tessellation, a nice touch but more of a band aid then a real change for the better. Rage can theoretically use 24 cpu cores and points to the future that 64 bit computing empowers. Exploitation of raw bandwidth by pushing more textures and geometry straight through the cpu.

Theoretically you want at least 8 cores on a cpu for running full blown matrices so the sum of the parts becomes greater then what they are capable of alone. Add an additional 80-300 simplified gpu processors capable of compute functions and it can run physics and AI as well freeing the gpu up for anything else the developer desires. There are also ongoing attempts to create ray tracing and ray casting circuitry that will greatly accelerate such functions and we might see those added to the gpu once the cpu actually becomes powerful enough to take enough of the load off the gpu.

 

[Demo24]

As has been stated this is not supposed to be an XP vs Vista/Win7 thread. It is about if DX11 exclusive games mean the end of XP as a platform. Which I think has been answered.

As far as your personal experiences with Win7 over XP, they are anecdotal. Just because YOU haven't had issues, doesn't mean they don't exist.

And if you think that any "Modern" technology has Win7 drivers, I am guessing you haven't bought much "Modern" technology. I recently had to chuck a 2 year old Lexmark printer because they "Don't officially support Win7" by their own admission. And a perfectly stable machine on XP, when converted to Win7 is now the blue screen of death machine. Again, not the point of the thread.

Yeah, sure personal experiences which range far more than my desktops at home.

And pretty much anything I have bought in recent times has worked in win7, either plug n play, or through proper driver support, etc. Lexmark are notoriously bad for their drivers and I've hated pretty much any of them I've come across in the field.

Printer companies don't seem to want to update their drivers all that much (probably cause they make 5 billion different models), but you can often get around that with the legacy drivers already installed in win7. Also doesn't help that they often consider them disposable, I've seen cases where it's been more expensive to buy toner than a whole new printer.

--

And yes, this thread should return back to dx11 discussion. Which I hardly see as a downside that games are starting, albeit slowly, to go into dx11 and it's exclusive to the new os's. Win7 performs better anyway.

 

[ImpulsE69]

Windows 7 marks the end of PC gaming as we've come to know it. Thus far PC gaming has always been about what new features to add to video cards and how to make processors faster, but now its coming down to raw bandwidth and that means gpu compute functions, more cpu cores, more ram, faster ram, more vram, faster vram, faster pci-e, etc. For all that to happen 64 bit computing has to go mainstream and windows 7 has now established itself as the 64 bit operating system to buy.

Developers will either figure out new ways to use all those extra cpu cores, simplified gpu processors, and ram or find themselves looking for another job. Metro 2033 can run physx on the latest 8 core processors, but who cares? Its like tessellation, a nice touch but more of a band aid then a real change for the better. Rage can theoretically use 24 cpu cores and points to the future that 64 bit computing empowers. Exploitation of raw bandwidth by pushing more textures and geometry straight through the cpu.

Theoretically you want at least 8 cores on a cpu for running full blown matrices so the sum of the parts becomes greater then what they are capable of alone. Add an additional 80-300 simplified gpu processors capable of compute functions and it can run physics and AI as well freeing the gpu up for anything else the developer desires. There are also ongoing attempts to create ray tracing and ray casting circuitry that will greatly accelerate such functions and we might see those added to the gpu once the cpu actually becomes powerful enough to take enough of the load off the gpu.

That won't work simply because most people will purchase 32bit. MS split the user base, therefore all games going forward still have to support 32bit until a 64-bit only OS.