You Will Get DirectX 11.2 Only With Windows 8.1 403
SmartAboutThings writes "Microsoft has just announced the next version of DirectX, 11.2, on its website. But the real 'problem' is that it is going to be exclusive to Windows 8.1 and next generation consoles — Xbox One and Play Station 4. This is not news, as DirectX 11.1 was exclusive to Windows 7 & 8. But is this going to help Microsoft convince people to ugprade or will make them angry?"
Mehh (Score:3, Insightful)
Increment updates do not justify an upgrade...especially to a downgrade such as win8
So it's going to be irrelevant (Score:0, Insightful)
Does Windows 8 have a selling point other than "touch"? Nobody's going to downgrade to Windows 8.1 just to get a game console graphics API.
Sheeple follow their games (Score:5, Insightful)
Direct X is for games. And people who want to play their games will give up all sorts of important things in order to play them.
Recently, the always-online and amazingly intrusive Microsoft eye have caused Microsoft to back off on some things and that's encouraging, but the behavior is obvious and Microsoft wouldn't try it if they didn't think they could get away with it.
"Oh, I hate Windows 8...I'll never use that... oh? What's that? The next release of my favorite game? Only on Windows 8? I hate Windows 8... oh well... Windows 8 'just so I can play my game.'"
Re:So it's going to be irrelevant (Score:5, Insightful)
DX 10 being limited to Vista and newer kept it from being used for a long time, I guess the same will happen to DX11.1 and 11.2. Game companies won't make games that don't run on an OS the majority of the players use (Windows 7).
Re:So it's going to be irrelevant (Score:2, Insightful)
Their best selling point is that you can't buy a new PC with anything but Win8. If you want Windows 7, budget another $100-130 for a home or pro license for 7. And good luck rounding up the drivers.
Whatever (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, it's true that I don't play a lot of games these days. I spend a lot more time pursuing my goals in life, so I don't have hours and hours to just sit down and immerse myself in all sorts of high end games. I tend to stick to a few that I like and play them from time to time, and DX 11.2 isn't required by any of them, or even the new title(s) that I'm interested in which are still WIP.
Other than that, I spend the vast majority of my time on Linux with KDE 4. Even moreso with Minecraft working on multiple platforms due to Java. The only new title I'm currently interested in is Planetary Annihilation, which if I recall correctly, will support a Linux port. So I guess my care-o-meter about this announcement is somewhere around zero.
I will say this, though. The user interface style that was developed, with a task bar and normal start-menu (not this metro start screen crap) was developed and refined over a period of 20+ years or so now. It's available across many operating systems and kernels. It's there because it works rather well. If you ask me, this touch-centric crap that Microsoft is pushing isn't much good beyond tablets and phones, where your primary mode of interface is your finger on a screen.
So, tablets and phones came along and a new interface style was designed that worked better with almost-exclusively touch-screen interface devices... Then Microsoft decided that *everything* should use this interface. I'm not interested in relearning how to use my Desktop's or Laptop's interfaces. Screw Windows 8. If I found a part of my computer's user interface to be highly inefficient, requiring a redesign to solve the problem, I'd be very aware of it. I hate wasting time. But the stuff before Metro in most cases doesn't give me that impression. Metro does.
So there's my possibly subjective rant. But hey, the article asked.
Re:Angry (Score:4, Insightful)
My new high-end HP running Win 7-64 with 32GB RAM takes 5 minutes to boot...
Don't blame Windows for that.
Re:Will make them angry? (Score:4, Insightful)
Pretty much this. If you need to make big, structural changes to an OS, backporting it is gonna cause all sorts of problems. Can you imagine if they produduced a service pack upgrade for XP, or an older version of Windows and broke compatibility with tons of classic games? There'd be uproar. And that's not even considering the corporate sector. Basically, breaking existing functionality is generally a bad move, and MS isn't quite that stupid yet.
It will mostly convince me to drop Windows as my m (Score:3, Insightful)
I think MS is seriously underestimating the reluctance of its base to move off Win7 to Win8 (or even 8.1).
Re:Sheeple follow their games (Score:4, Insightful)
But the good news is that more developers see DirectX as a single-platform solution and are pushing more resources to OpenGL development. Hence a recent quote from the Natural Selection 2 team:
"The drawback of D3D11 is that it is not universal. It only works on machines running the requisite operating system, and on hardware capable of understanding the instructions it sends. According to to the Valve Hardware Survey, the penetration of D3D11 capable machines is increasing. But crucially, machines incapable of any D3D rendering are also a growing market: Linux distributions and Mac OSX.".
And from Leadwerks, the tool to build AAA Linux games on Linux. Their Kickstarter is set to complete and the Steam Greenlight was one of the quickest in history:
"It's interesting that as popular technology is becoming more locked-down, from the Windows 8 closed app store to the increasing DRM requirements of the new consoles, people are responding by showing a new interest in open systems like Linux and Valve's upcoming SteamBox. I'm a hardcore PC gamer, and it's disappointing to me how Microsoft has treated games on Windows like an unwanted child for so long."
Times are changing, the Windows crowd can kick and scream all they want. And with all the NSA information about Microsoft being their #1 fan, it takes complete ignorance or just sheer insanity on the part of people to use anything from Microsoft. I used Windows for 15 years until last year, but my eyes opened and there isn't a way in hell I would have a product from Microsoft in my Home. I'm sorry if it hurts to hear this, but it is what it is.
Game developer Simon Roth said this recently on twitter that got props from other Devs: "Never waste time learning any of Microsoft's proprietary API's."
A lot of Indie devs feel the same way, and like it or not, Indie is the future of Gaming. Ouya, MadCatz, Google -- you can see it changing before your eyes.
Re:Sheeple follow their games (Score:4, Insightful)
I'll bet you're forgetting that Microsoft (and other platform makers) pay game makers for "exclusive" titles which draw more players to their platform.
pfft. he is not forgetting that. the scenario already didn't happen. the exact same scenario with vista and dx10.
ms has paid exclusive title money for some stuff on their appstore as well. nobody gives a shit.
Is there anyone running Windows 8... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Mehh (Score:4, Insightful)
The start menu is still broken by default, but now it comes with a useless button. Definitely an upgrade!
Re: Sheeple follow their games (Score:5, Insightful)
The professional video and TV editing biz got shafted by Apple during the great Final Cut Pro disaster a couple of years back and a lot of them have shifted to Avid and other non-proprietary OS-hardware-locked video solutions. They should have seen it coming after Xserve and Xsan got the bullet though.
Re:So it's going to be downvoted. (Score:5, Insightful)
Frankly, I was less than 2 months into 7 that I looked back and realized I had been stupid to skip Vista purely on "it's new and different" grounds and similarly to wait until 2011 to go to 7. Both were huge improvements on XP. Vista got a bad rap because shithead low end hardware (and a few cases software) makers wouldn't fix their drivers in a timely manner. Since 7 could mostly use Vista drivers when it came out, it was perceived as better despite really just being a cleanup and consolidation of good choices in Vista. Windows 8.1 will be the same thing.
I would be using Windows 8 on more hardware, but Intel decided to f*ck everyone on Atom / GMA based touch devices who bought hardware released even the same year as Windows 8 if it didn't include their Windows 8 hardware tax. Basically, the problem is consistently not Microsoft, but the hardware OEMs who produce crap or poor support. Microsoft's own internal studies are showing somewhere in the neighborhood of 80% of BSODs on XP/Vista/7 were not due to the OS, but directly due to graphics drivers. With Vista and 7 they created a framework for being able to control and reboot the GPU drivers and BSODs have massively dropped. Frankly, more Microsoft KB articles and help fields should point the fingers at software and hardware manufacturers when applicable. They've always been way too nice and softballed the error sources.
microsoft will never learn (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:So it's going to be downvoted. (Score:5, Insightful)
You're confusing the UI with the underlying OS. MSFT continues to improve the OS itself, but at the same time they, for some crazy reason, feel it necessary to radically modify the UI every time they have a new release. Not only is this annoying to their dwindling home users, it adds training expenses and delays to it's corporate adoption. On top of that the Metro UI is basically the antithesis of productivity.
Re:Will make them use standards. (Score:4, Insightful)
DirectX is an API, not a standard. It doesnt even have a spec doc like OpenGL does.
Re: Sheeple follow their games (Score:5, Insightful)
You can run really good third-party video editing software on Apple kit under OS/X, although the top-of-the-line hardware has been needing a refresh for a couple of years now -- nobody's going to be editing or rendering serious video on laptops or iPads. Final Cut Pro X only runs on Apple hardware since it's an Apple-only product. A lot of pro shops used it as it fit really neatly into their workflow with the ability to outsource audio, colour, output to tape, XML support, project control as well as FCP Server, SAN support etc. When Apple released Final Cut Pro X a couple of years back they got rid of all that pro stuff and added a Facebook button, turning it into a Moviemaker-type package instead. Before that happened FCP had a big following in TV stations, technical schools taught it to trainee editors, lots of third-party support packages to do workflow things and it all ran on the moneymaker Apple hardware under OS/X. Nowadays not so much.
J. J.'s shop uses Avid and could switch over to Dell or HP or anybody else's hardware if he wanted to, no OS and hardware lockin and minimal disruption to workflow. Last I heard FCP X had about 2% of the pro market in the US, a big drop from before and another "creative" market Apple has let slip through their fingers.
Re: Mehh (Score:5, Insightful)
"Is that why so many people don't like it?"
People don't like change. Change means updating software and retraining users. For people to accept change, they must see some form of benefit to themselves to justify the difficulties. Windows 8 looks a lot like change for the sake of change - or, for the more cynical, change for the sake of furthering Microsoft's long term business ambitions in the mobile and service areas. Either way, it's a change in interface without apparent benefit.
We've been through this before with Office and the Ribbon - and to this day, even though almost everyone is now used to the ribbon, it's really hard to find something it makes easier than the old drop-down menu system did.
Re:So it's going to be downvoted. (Score:5, Insightful)
My point comes down to this, anyone reviewing Window 8 should do so with a touch screen.
No. No I will not and it is because Win8 is being sold as a desktop OS. I don't have, want, or need a touchscreen for my desktop OS so you are 100% wrong in asking that we change our work flow, that has been polished over many years with a keyboard and then mouse interface, to what amounts to a mobile UI.
Further this move is yet another force play by MS to push their mobile UI on to us desktop users. Which they are doing for a number of self interested reasons that offer desktop users nothing in return.
Yes I have heard that Win8 boots faster. Seriously? That is the only tangible thing that I've seen other than some questionable performance gains from whatever other code updates have been done beyond the UI. And I hate to break it to MS, and its shills and fanboys, but I've had an SSD for years now and boot times are not an issue.
It is clear that with the 8.1 update, something MS has not done since Windows 3 (wow!) that they are trying to "fix" their self created problem. However they only went part way because were they to actually fix the whole problem they would be undoing their whole plan that benefits them alone.
Re:So it's going to be downvoted. (Score:4, Insightful)
Windows 8/WinRT is all about moving people from the desktop to Metro. From general-purpose computing to 'App Store computing'
Microsoft are following Apple, pushing as many people as possible into a world where all code must be signed, approved, censored, and taxed at 30%+ by the platform holder. And to do that, they will gradually limit the usefulness of the desktop.
Windows XP and integrated graphics (Score:4, Insightful)
It's amazing how much DX9 stuff we still see.
I imagine that companies that ship DirectX 9-compatible game engines are trying not to exclude some PC owners from their market. These potential customers own PCs with Windows XP, PCs with older video cards that don't support all the new features of DirectX 10 let alone 11, and PCs with no video card at all whose integrated graphics can't easily make use of new DirectX features.
Again? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Mehh (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry I have to modify this slightly.
For Most people to accept change, they must see some form of benefit to themselves to justify the difficulties. However there will always be those who refuse to accept the change and fight it just because they really can't accept change.
We did an ERP software shift at work. the move itself hasn't been bad. while it isn't perfect, there is a single problem I can't seem to get beyond with one user. She refuses to look at a single column, when the entering information. It clearly shows a major error in Units of Measure. All she has to do is change the Unit of Measure and everything will line back up. But nope. she can't get into that habit. I have to go back in and fix it afterwards. This same person has allergies. She refuses to adjust her allergy meds even though they clearly don't work anymore.
Some people will never accept change.