Should Windows XP and possibly even Windows 2000 stick around for a long long time even after Vista is released?

[Link19]

Originally posted by: Sunner
I'm a bit interested in why you care what others run Link?
Is there anything special that makes you think NT based windowses would run games faster just because support for 9x windowses was excluded?
Microsoft provides API's for developers, developers use those API's to make programs, they don't target specific kernel releases(unless the job of the program somehow includes low level stuff that needs to target specific kernel releases).
There's no reason why WinXP would run a program faster just because it doesn't support Win9X, unless said program is making use of features that are simply better implemented under XP.

That said, I agree that Win9x is a load of crap that needs to die, but the reson isn't increased gaming performance.

I don't care what others run. What I do want is all software (including open source, freeware, shareware, and commercial closed source) to be compiled for Windows NT based operating systems only. I wanted that to happen as far back as 2002 and at the very latest 2003. When I say Windows NT based opertaing systems only, I mean when it comes to software designed for the Microsoft OS world. Of course Linux and MAC OS X native versions would be great as well However, POS Windows 9X needs to be excluded and dead. It should have died years ago. People can run it if they want, but they should have been stuck using older software produced in the year 2001 and earlier if they wanted to continue and use Windows 9X, thus because almost all new software should have been for Windows NT only when it comes to the Microsoft OS computing world.

To sum it up, I wouldn't care at all what others run as long as all software (including open source, freeware, shareware, and commercial closed source) was written and optimized for the native Windows NT based OS the last four years. But is is because of the Windows 9X users that ruined my hopes of seeing many more softwares (including games) optimized for only Windows 2000/XP as far back as 2002. At the very least, they could have made software deisgned to require a 1GHz or faster CPU to run for Windows 2000/XP only. Sure, there were so many users using Windows 9X as far back as 2002, but there was no reason for games and applications targeting users with high end hardware to support junker Windows 98/ME.

That is why I care. It is because of the Windows 98SE obsessers and lovers who lived in this fantasy world where they blindly believed Windows 98SE was by far better than any other OS MS ever released and that they would continue and use it on the latest hardware for running the latest software, which has caused WAY TOO many software and hardware manufacturers to support them for WAY WAY TOO LONG, which only ruined the chance of seeing a lot more native Windows 2000/XP only optimized applications as far back as 2002.

 

[Link19]

For the record, until Windows XP, Windows 98SE was the best platform in the Wintel realm for games. W2K had very limited support for DirectX and missed the mark at times.

That is only because game makers designed almost all games specifically for only Windows 98SE/ME prior to the release of Windows XP. Before Windows XP, almost all home consumers were buying computers with Windows 98 or ME on it, and Windows 2000 was marketed towards businesses.. So most, if not all game developers didn't design games to be compatible with Windows NT based operating systems prior to the release of Windows XP. When Windows XP was released, it was marketed towards both home consumers and business users and was intended to migrate all business and home consumers to the Windows NT based OS. Then game makers had to start developing games that were fully compatible with Windows NT based operating systems. So that is the only reason Windows 98SE was the best OS for games prior to the release of Windows XP. It had nothing to do with it being a batter OS in general. It was only because developers wrote games specificlaly for only Windows 98. If developers designed all games to be fully compatible with Windows 2000 before Widnows XP was released, Windows 2000 would have been just as good if not better for games than WIndows 98/ME could ever dream of being for running games.

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: Link19

Originally posted by: Sunner
I'm a bit interested in why you care what others run Link?
Is there anything special that makes you think NT based windowses would run games faster just because support for 9x windowses was excluded?
Microsoft provides API's for developers, developers use those API's to make programs, they don't target specific kernel releases(unless the job of the program somehow includes low level stuff that needs to target specific kernel releases).
There's no reason why WinXP would run a program faster just because it doesn't support Win9X, unless said program is making use of features that are simply better implemented under XP.

That said, I agree that Win9x is a load of crap that needs to die, but the reson isn't increased gaming performance.

I don't care what others run. What I do want is all software (including open source, freeware, shareware, and commercial closed source) to be compiled for Windows NT based operating systems only. I wanted that to happen as far back as 2002 and at the very latest 2003. When I say Windows NT based opertaing systems only, I mean when it comes to software designed for the Microsoft OS world. Of course Linux and MAC OS X native versions would be great as well However, POS Windows 9X needs to be excluded and dead. It should have died years ago. People can run it if they want, but they should have been stuck using older software produced in the year 2001 and earlier if they wanted to continue and use Windows 9X, thus because almost all new software should have been for Windows NT only when it comes to the Microsoft OS computing world.

To sum it up, I wouldn't care at all what others run as long as all software (including open source, freeware, shareware, and commercial closed source) was written and optimized for the native Windows NT based OS the last four years. But is is because of the Windows 9X users that ruined my hopes of seeing many more softwares (including games) optimized for only Windows 2000/XP as far back as 2002. At the very least, they could have made software deisgned to require a 1GHz or faster CPU to run for Windows 2000/XP only. Sure, there were so many users using Windows 9X as far back as 2002, but there was no reason for games and applications targeting users with high end hardware to support junker Windows 98/ME.

That is why I care. It is because of the Windows 98SE obsessers and lovers who lived in this fantasy world where they blindly believed Windows 98SE was by far better than any other OS MS ever released and that they would continue and use it on the latest hardware for running the latest software, which has caused WAY TOO many software and hardware manufacturers to support them for WAY WAY TOO LONG, which only ruined the chance of seeing a lot more native Windows 2000/XP only optimized applications as far back as 2002.

I still don't understand what you're hoping to gain(or rather, hoped to gain) by shutting out Win9x users?
"Compiled for"?
The API's are the same, Microsoft implements those, DirectX is the same under XP as it is under 98, same functions, etc, that's kinda the point, like OpenGL, it works across a wide variety of platforms and yet is a fine performer.

The one major reason I saw back then why Win9x shouldn't be support was simply because that series of OS's was inherently insecure, having lots of those boxes on the net was a Bad Thing.

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: Brentx
.....I will probably be one of those idiots in November outside of CompUSA or Best Buy picking up Vista 😛....

I did really well with my one copy of XP Home that I purchased on "opening day" at Best Buy in 2001. I eventually sold all the prizes (free MP3 player, router, etc.), made a couple of hundred dollars, and sold XP Home, too, for what I paid for it.

 

[Link19]

I still don't understand what you're hoping to gain(or rather, hoped to gain) by shutting out Win9x users?
"Compiled for"?
The API's are the same, Microsoft implements those, DirectX is the same under XP as it is under 98, same functions, etc, that's kinda the point, like OpenGL, it works across a wide variety of platforms and yet is a fine performer.

The one major reason I saw back then why Win9x shouldn't be support was simply because that series of OS's was inherently insecure, having lots of those boxes on the net was a Bad Thing.

The APIs aren't all the exactly the same. Some of them are, but there are also some that are for NT only. I think DirectX has separate binaries for NT and 9X, but they are both able to run the same applications using the same files. Imagine if Microsoft made DirectX 9 compatible with Windows 2000/XP only. They owuld have been able to focus on making it much better for only Windows 2K/XP rather than worrrying about making it compatible with two completely different OS architectures.

Programs that take advanatge of low level system code are great performing. And the low level system code between both opertaing systems is totally different.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: Sunner
I still don't understand what you're hoping to gain(or rather, hoped to gain) by shutting out Win9x users?
"Compiled for"?
The API's are the same, Microsoft implements those, DirectX is the same under XP as it is under 98, same functions, etc, that's kinda the point, like OpenGL, it works across a wide variety of platforms and yet is a fine performer.

I just sort of gave up with this guy. There's no real reason that supporting Win9X would make Win2K/XP software run slower, since they're just writing to common APIs. I'm unclear on what you would to do 'optimize' for WinXP, at least in terms of DirectX.

I suppose you could argue that it might increase development time, since they would have to test on both platforms. But there should not be any real differences in performance. And MS had to spend some amount of effort actually writing the DX9 implementation for Win9X -- but they clearly decided it was worth doing given the installed base of Win9X systems.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: Link19

I still don't understand what you're hoping to gain(or rather, hoped to gain) by shutting out Win9x users?
"Compiled for"?
The API's are the same, Microsoft implements those, DirectX is the same under XP as it is under 98, same functions, etc, that's kinda the point, like OpenGL, it works across a wide variety of platforms and yet is a fine performer.

The one major reason I saw back then why Win9x shouldn't be support was simply because that series of OS's was inherently insecure, having lots of those boxes on the net was a Bad Thing.

The APIs aren't all the exactly the same. Some of them are, but there are also some that are for NT only. I think DirectX has separate binaries for NT and 9X, but they are both able to run the same applications using the same files. Imagine if Microsoft made DirectX 9 compatible with Windows 2000/XP only. They owuld have been able to focus on making it much better for only Windows 2K/XP rather than worrrying about making it compatible with two completely different OS architectures.

Programs that take advanatge of low level system code are great performing. And the low level system code between both opertaing systems is totally different.

What you're saying makes absolutely no sense. There are separate Win9X and Win2K/XP implementations for Direct3D. They can both 'take advantage of low level system code'.

 

[Link19]

Originally posted by: Matthias99

Originally posted by: Link19

I still don't understand what you're hoping to gain(or rather, hoped to gain) by shutting out Win9x users?
"Compiled for"?
The API's are the same, Microsoft implements those, DirectX is the same under XP as it is under 98, same functions, etc, that's kinda the point, like OpenGL, it works across a wide variety of platforms and yet is a fine performer.

The one major reason I saw back then why Win9x shouldn't be support was simply because that series of OS's was inherently insecure, having lots of those boxes on the net was a Bad Thing.

The APIs aren't all the exactly the same. Some of them are, but there are also some that are for NT only. I think DirectX has separate binaries for NT and 9X, but they are both able to run the same applications using the same files. Imagine if Microsoft made DirectX 9 compatible with Windows 2000/XP only. They owuld have been able to focus on making it much better for only Windows 2K/XP rather than worrrying about making it compatible with two completely different OS architectures.

Programs that take advanatge of low level system code are great performing. And the low level system code between both opertaing systems is totally different.

What you're saying makes absolutely no sense. There are separate Win9X and Win2K/XP implementations for Direct3D. They can both 'take advantage of low level system code'.

Look at NOD32 AV program. It is the fastest AV program and doesn't slow your system like most other AV programs do.

It has a separate native version for ecah Windows 9X and Windows NT. And it is the fastest AV program. Maybe because it is written in low level system code to be native to the OS it is running on.

Windows 9X and NT are structured completely differently.

http://www.nod32.com/download/download.htm

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: Link19
Look at NOD32 AV program. It is the fastest AV program and doesn't slow your system like most other AV programs do.

It has a separate native version for ecah Windows 9X and Windows NT. And it is the fastest AV program. Maybe because it is written in low level system code to be native to the OS it is running on.

Windows 9X and NT are structured completely differently.

http://www.nod32.com/download/download.htm

An AV program works VERY VERY differently than a 3D gaming application.

Processes are structured and handled completely differently in Win9X and WinNT-based kernels. DirectX has the same APIs in both.

 

[Link19]

Originally posted by: Matthias99

Originally posted by: Link19
Look at NOD32 AV program. It is the fastest AV program and doesn't slow your system like most other AV programs do.

It has a separate native version for ecah Windows 9X and Windows NT. And it is the fastest AV program. Maybe because it is written in low level system code to be native to the OS it is running on.

Windows 9X and NT are structured completely differently.

http://www.nod32.com/download/download.htm

An AV program works VERY VERY differently than a 3D gaming application.

Processes are structured and handled completely differently in Win9X and WinNT-based kernels. DirectX has the same APIs in both.

DirectX isn't the only aspect in designing games. Yes, it is probably one of the most important aspects in designing games, but not the only aspect. So why would there be certain games that are for Windows 2000/XP only if the DirectX API is exactly the same in both? Couldn't games be written in low level system code and perform much better, instead of them being wirtten for DirectX?

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: Link19
So why would there be certain games that are for Windows 2000/XP only if the DirectX API is exactly the same in both?

Probably because now companies don't want to spend the effort to test their software in an OS that is no longer officially sold or supported. There are also some differences in other APIs -- but not in areas that would generally be of performance concern when writing games.

Couldn't games be written in low level system code and perform much better, instead of them being wirtten for DirectX?

What, exactly, would you be writing in 'low level system code'? Do you have any concept of what this 'low level system code' would be?

The only way to deal with the OS is through the Windows APIs that Microsoft has defined. If the APIs you want to use are present in both Win9X and Win2K/XP, your program will work in both OSes. The only reason a program would not work in one but not the other is if it used some API that only existed in the newer OS.

 

[Link19]

Originally posted by: Matthias99

Originally posted by: Link19
So why would there be certain games that are for Windows 2000/XP only if the DirectX API is exactly the same in both?

Probably because now companies don't want to spend the effort to test their software in an OS that is no longer officially sold or supported. There are also some differences in other APIs -- but not in areas that would generally be of performance concern when writing games.

Couldn't games be written in low level system code and perform much better, instead of them being wirtten for DirectX?

What, exactly, would you be writing in 'low level system code'? Do you have any concept of what this 'low level system code' would be?

The only way to deal with the OS is through the Windows APIs that Microsoft has defined. If the APIs you want to use are present in both Win9X and Win2K/XP, your program will work in both OSes. The only reason a program would not work in one but not the other is if it used some API that only existed in the newer OS.

I don't see any reason why games couldn't take advanatge of some of the better APIs in Windows 2000/XP. I'm sure tht is why some games are written for Windows 2000/XP only. No games written for Windows 2000/XP will run at all on Windows 98/ME. A couple do to some extent, but they run very poorly.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: Link19
I don't see any reason why games couldn't take advanatge of some of the better APIs in Windows 2000/XP.

To do what, exactly? Where would they get this magical performance boost that you think you're missing?

 

[Link19]

Originally posted by: Matthias99

Originally posted by: Link19
I don't see any reason why games couldn't take advanatge of some of the better APIs in Windows 2000/XP.

To do what, exactly? Where would they get this magical performance boost that you think you're missing?

Utilize native NT only APIs. A game devloper I encountered at EB Games said performance always takes a backseat when games are compatible witb both Windows 98/ME and Windows 2000/XP because both OS architectures are completely different. He said that performance is generally superior when games are designed for Windows 2000/XP only. He is a game developer, and I think a game developer knows what they are talking about regarding the developement of games and when performance can suffer.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: Link19

Originally posted by: Matthias99

Originally posted by: Link19
I don't see any reason why games couldn't take advanatge of some of the better APIs in Windows 2000/XP.

To do what, exactly? Where would they get this magical performance boost that you think you're missing?

Utilize native NT only APIs.

To do what, exactly?

A game devloper I encountered at EB Games said

Stop. Just stop.

 

[Link19]

To do what, exactly?

More robust and efficient API calls. Make other aspects of the game run more efficiently.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: Link19

To do what, exactly?

More robust and efficient API calls. Make other aspects of the game run more efficiently.

1) I'm still unclear on what you think is going to be vastly more "robust and efficient".

2) This wouldn't help you -- at all -- in situations where you are GPU-limited.

3) If this was a big problem, don't you think that big game developers might have actually tried to do something about it, such as building different executables to run in Win9X and WinXP/2K for their games? Or maybe it's just not that big a difference?

 

[Link19]

1) I'm still unclear on what you think is going to be vastly more "robust and efficient".

2) This wouldn't help you -- at all -- in situations where you are GPU-limited.

3) If this was a big problem, don't you think that big game developers might have actually tried to do something about it, such as building different executables to run in Win9X and WinXP/2K for their games? Or maybe it's just not that big a difference?

It may not be a huge problem, but certainly performance will definitely be improved with games and applications being designed for Windows 2000/XP only. Also, it would probably take signiifcantly more effort to make separate executables for both Windows 9X and 2K/XP. So they just make a game using the same files for both and let performance suffer because they don't care as long as it is performs good enough to be released. That doesn't mean performance doesn't suffer some though.

I just played the new EA Sports 2006 games and I notice a huge performance increase over any previous version. There was a much bigger performance increase from NBA Live 2005 to 2006 than there was from 2002 to 2003, 2003 to 2004 and 2004 to 2005. And guess what? NBA Live 2006 is for Windows 2000/XP only, where as NBA Live 2005 and prior supported junker Windows 98/ME. I bet the much better performance in NBA Live 2006 is because it is designed for Windows 2000/XP only.

 

[Cdeck]

compare apples to apples. it is common for next generation games to be faster for a number of reasons. it's not due to solely supporting winxp. the game developer you refer to is pulling your leg simply because he doesn't want to incur the cost of supporting an old os. there may be a few reasons for not supporting win98 but speed isn't one of them. i am a retired engineering software developer.

 

[Link19]

Originally posted by: Cdeck
compare apples to apples. it is common for next generation games to be faster for a number of reasons. it's not due to solely supporting winxp. the game developer you refer to is pulling your leg simply because he doesn't want to incur the cost of supporting an old os. there may be a few reasons for not supporting win98 but speed isn't one of them. i am a retired engineering software developer.

They should support 2000 as well as XP. But POS WIndows 9X can die for good!! I wished this would have come true at least 3 years ago!

They don't support POS Windows 98/ME because it is outdated and a piece of crap and fortunately, it no longer makes fiscal sense for them to do it.

I bet anyone that none of the EA Sports 2006 games will even install on POS Windows 98/ME, let alone run no matter what you try!! 🙂 🙂

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: Link19

1) I'm still unclear on what you think is going to be vastly more "robust and efficient".

2) This wouldn't help you -- at all -- in situations where you are GPU-limited.

3) If this was a big problem, don't you think that big game developers might have actually tried to do something about it, such as building different executables to run in Win9X and WinXP/2K for their games? Or maybe it's just not that big a difference?

It may not be a huge problem, but certainly performance will definitely be improved with games and applications being designed for Windows 2000/XP only. Also, it would probably take signiifcantly more effort to make separate executables for both Windows 9X and 2K/XP. So they just make a game using the same files for both and let performance suffer because they don't care as long as it is performs good enough to be released. That doesn't mean performance doesn't suffer some though.

I just played the new EA Sports 2006 games and I notice a huge performance increase over any previous version. There was a much bigger performance increase from NBA Live 2005 to 2006 than there was from 2002 to 2003, 2003 to 2004 and 2004 to 2005. And guess what? NBA Live 2006 is for Windows 2000/XP only, where as NBA Live 2005 and prior supported junker Windows 98/ME. I bet the much better performance in NBA Live 2006 is because it is designed for Windows 2000/XP only.

No offense, but that statement is just...hmm, I'm at a bit of a loss for words...

So, basically, you're saying developers should bypass DirectX/OpenGL alltogether, and do everything "the old fashion way" on the lowest level possible?
Maybe even use good ole assembly to write their games? That should make them fast, no?

On a more serious note, you honestly just have no idea what you're talking about, just stop.
When you program against DirectX, you're not using "low level system calls", the DX API will look the same to the developer on Win9x or WinXP, it just doesn't matter, the specific implementation may be faster on XP(though as it stands, it's not from what I know), but that would be MS's work, and it would be faster regardless of what platforms the developers targeted their games for.

The whole point of portable API's(though one could argue that DirectX's portability is rather limited, that's an artificial thing though) is that you should be able to target one game(or whatever application) to that API, and have it work on systems that support said API(s).

I'd say the major reason for dropping support for Win9X in a lot of games isn't that they wouldn't work, chances are they'd work just fine, a good reason though would be that you drop the number of factors you have to deal with when supporting said games.
No QA for 9x, no customers whining(check the box, 9x not supported), etc, that's a major money saver, and considering this is EA we're talking about...

 

[Link19]

Originally posted by: Sunner

Originally posted by: Link19

1) I'm still unclear on what you think is going to be vastly more "robust and efficient".

2) This wouldn't help you -- at all -- in situations where you are GPU-limited.

3) If this was a big problem, don't you think that big game developers might have actually tried to do something about it, such as building different executables to run in Win9X and WinXP/2K for their games? Or maybe it's just not that big a difference?

It may not be a huge problem, but certainly performance will definitely be improved with games and applications being designed for Windows 2000/XP only. Also, it would probably take signiifcantly more effort to make separate executables for both Windows 9X and 2K/XP. So they just make a game using the same files for both and let performance suffer because they don't care as long as it is performs good enough to be released. That doesn't mean performance doesn't suffer some though.

I just played the new EA Sports 2006 games and I notice a huge performance increase over any previous version. There was a much bigger performance increase from NBA Live 2005 to 2006 than there was from 2002 to 2003, 2003 to 2004 and 2004 to 2005. And guess what? NBA Live 2006 is for Windows 2000/XP only, where as NBA Live 2005 and prior supported junker Windows 98/ME. I bet the much better performance in NBA Live 2006 is because it is designed for Windows 2000/XP only.

No offense, but that statement is just...hmm, I'm at a bit of a loss for words...

So, basically, you're saying developers should bypass DirectX/OpenGL alltogether, and do everything "the old fashion way" on the lowest level possible?
Maybe even use good ole assembly to write their games? That should make them fast, no?

On a more serious note, you honestly just have no idea what you're talking about, just stop.
When you program against DirectX, you're not using "low level system calls", the DX API will look the same to the developer on Win9x or WinXP, it just doesn't matter, the specific implementation may be faster on XP(though as it stands, it's not from what I know), but that would be MS's work, and it would be faster regardless of what platforms the developers targeted their games for.

The whole point of portable API's(though one could argue that DirectX's portability is rather limited, that's an artificial thing though) is that you should be able to target one game(or whatever application) to that API, and have it work on systems that support said API(s).

I'd say the major reason for dropping support for Win9X in a lot of games isn't that they wouldn't work, chances are they'd work just fine, a good reason though would be that you drop the number of factors you have to deal with when supporting said games.
No QA for 9x, no customers whining(check the box, 9x not supported), etc, that's a major money saver, and considering this is EA we're talking about...

Originally posted by: Sunner

Originally posted by: Link19

1) I'm still unclear on what you think is going to be vastly more "robust and efficient".

2) This wouldn't help you -- at all -- in situations where you are GPU-limited.

3) If this was a big problem, don't you think that big game developers might have actually tried to do something about it, such as building different executables to run in Win9X and WinXP/2K for their games? Or maybe it's just not that big a difference?

It may not be a huge problem, but certainly performance will definitely be improved with games and applications being designed for Windows 2000/XP only. Also, it would probably take signiifcantly more effort to make separate executables for both Windows 9X and 2K/XP. So they just make a game using the same files for both and let performance suffer because they don't care as long as it is performs good enough to be released. That doesn't mean performance doesn't suffer some though.

I just played the new EA Sports 2006 games and I notice a huge performance increase over any previous version. There was a much bigger performance increase from NBA Live 2005 to 2006 than there was from 2002 to 2003, 2003 to 2004 and 2004 to 2005. And guess what? NBA Live 2006 is for Windows 2000/XP only, where as NBA Live 2005 and prior supported junker Windows 98/ME. I bet the much better performance in NBA Live 2006 is because it is designed for Windows 2000/XP only.

No offense, but that statement is just...hmm, I'm at a bit of a loss for words...

So, basically, you're saying developers should bypass DirectX/OpenGL alltogether, and do everything "the old fashion way" on the lowest level possible?
Maybe even use good ole assembly to write their games? That should make them fast, no?

On a more serious note, you honestly just have no idea what you're talking about, just stop.
When you program against DirectX, you're not using "low level system calls", the DX API will look the same to the developer on Win9x or WinXP, it just doesn't matter, the specific implementation may be faster on XP(though as it stands, it's not from what I know), but that would be MS's work, and it would be faster regardless of what platforms the developers targeted their games for.

The whole point of portable API's(though one could argue that DirectX's portability is rather limited, that's an artificial thing though) is that you should be able to target one game(or whatever application) to that API, and have it work on systems that support said API(s).

I'd say the major reason for dropping support for Win9X in a lot of games isn't that they wouldn't work, chances are they'd work just fine, a good reason though would be that you drop the number of factors you have to deal with when supporting said games.
No QA for 9x, no customers whining(check the box, 9x not supported), etc, that's a major money saver, and considering this is EA we're talking about...

Ok, let me ask you this. OpenGL is an API, If you write a game using the OpenGL API, why wouldn't that same game work on all of Linux, MAC OS X, Windows 9X and Windows 2000/XP using the same files? Both Linux and MAC OS X support OpenGL just as Windows does, so a said game should be able to be written without any care to what OS it is because all of those opertaing systems support OpenGL?

But the reality is, a game has to use different files for MAC OS X and Linux even with OpenGL than it does for Windows. There must be a reason for that. WHy can't the same be said for Windows NT and Windows 9X?

ALso, there are more APIs than just DirectX or OpenGL when writing a game. Those are definitely by far the two most important and utilized APIs, but there must be some other APIs used in designing a game as well.

Wow, I am surprised you are so blatantly defending Windows 9X. 🙁 🙁 🙁 From what I recall, I thought you hated the Windows 9X OS just as much as anyone. 🙁 🙁 Go fugures. It should be trashed and I think it is a great thing if such games don't run on Windows 9X. CHances are, they won't run at all. If you do a Google on running any of those games on POS Windows 98/ME, you won't find any results of them being compatible, unlike Doom 3.

 

[Sunner]

Obviously you'll need different binaries for different rsystems, that's not quite what I meant, they use different file formats.
Look at the differences between Gaim on Linux and Windows for example:
Debian box: /usr/bin/gaim: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, Intel 80386, version 1 (SYSV), for GNU/Linux 2.2.0, dynamically linked (uses shared libs), for GNU/Linux 2.2.0, stripped
WinXP box: gaim.exe: MS-DOS executable PE for MS Windows (GUI) Intel 80386 32-bit

They both use GTK(if I'm not mistaken, which I very well may be, if so, replace Gaim with GIMP, because I know that one does on both platforms), but that doesn't mean you can run a Win32 executable on a Linux/i386 system.
Or for that matter, you can't run a Linux/i386 binary on a Linux/Sparc64 system, etc etc.
However, all of those executables can still make use of the same GTK API(GTK is a graphical toolkit btw), and GTK will look the same to the programmer.
Same deal with DirectX, you have nothing to gain by MS dropping DirectX from Win9x.

I'm certainly not defending Win9x, the entire series is indeed a load of junk, and I think the world would be a better place without any 9x boxes left, but NOT for the reason of performance on other OS's, because that simply won't happen just because 9x is dropped.

 

[Continuity28]

Originally posted by: Link19
That will really stink if games drop support so soon. I want games to support Windows XP for a long long time. They should port DirectX 10 over to Windows XP. WHy won't Microsoft do that?

The reason DirectX 10 will NEVER appear for Windows XP is because DirectX 10 requires and is based upon the changes at the kernel and other core levels of the operating system that Vista provides. It would be impossible to bring DirectX 10 to XP, because it would require you to change XP on every level to make it like Vista. The entire driver model is changed, the way everything interacts is changed. It's simply not possible.

In fact, DirectX 9/8/7/6/etc will still exist on Vista, but it will be completely separate from DirectX 10 because they are in no way backward compatible.

 

[Link19]

Originally posted by: Cdeck
compare apples to apples. it is common for next generation games to be faster for a number of reasons. it's not due to solely supporting winxp. the game developer you refer to is pulling your leg simply because he doesn't want to incur the cost of supporting an old os. there may be a few reasons for not supporting win98 but speed isn't one of them. i am a retired engineering software developer.

It is not them supporting only XP, it is them supporting Windows 2000/XP only, thus NT based operating systems only. Windows 98/ME have next to nothing in common with Windows 2000/XP, so supporting two completely different OS platform would probbaly hurt performance at least to some extent.

POS Windows 98/ME are as dead as MAC OS 9 when it comes to what platforms software and hardware makers should support. It should have been the same at least three years ago.