DirectX 10: why it's exclusive to Vista @ Ars Technica

Vikingod

Source: Ars Technica
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When Microsoft officially announced that DirectX 10 (DX10) would only be available for Windows Vista, many gaming fans yearning to be on the bleeding edge were upset. In order to get the most from their video cards, users would have to upgrade their operating systems to Vista. Some have attributed Microsoft's decision to be purely based on marketing, but that's not entirely the case. What other factors were in play?

According to Microsoft DirectX guru Phil Taylor, development for DX10 wasn't complete until late in Windows XP's lifecycle, and during the time of its development, things became clear that DX10 simply would not fit into XP.

Matth

Apart from the few upgraders with Geforce 8800's (quite potent in DX9 mode too), there will be very little DX10 hardware on Windows XP systems.

Until the full price spectrum of onboard and value DX10 arrives, DX9 may well outnumber DX10 on Vista as well.

The problem for DX10 software, is that until both Vista/DX9 and XP/DX9 become an insignificant section of the gamer market (which will be sooner than for the entire market), DX9 cannot be ignored.

So instead of one platform (DX9) with hardware/driver optionality being migrated to a similar situation with DX10, there is now a second platform.

Only time will tell, if the split is good or bad, but for the moment, if a game was great on DX10 but lousy on DX9, it would have a very small market.

Maybe when the price of a DX10 card is below that of a Vista upgrade, Microsoft, or more likely other software producers, will rue the lack of DX10 support on XP - if the only software company taking up DX10 turns out to be Microsoft, then it could either be an advantage to them, or highly embarrassing.



In a year's time, will we be talking about the impact of DX10, or the lack of impact?

DudeBoyz

I don't trust about anything Microsoft says.

Hey, if they released DX 10 for XP, it would speed the adoption of DX 10. But that is not what they want. They want to speed the adoption of Vista, so they limit DX 10 to that piece of junk and deprive loyal XP folks of some spiffy new programming options.

They are going to drive the masses to Vista whether they want to go or not, simply by dropping support for XP one bit at a time. Next Office version probably will be Vista Only. Dorks.

Judas

dudeboyz.. lol.... you really have a distaste for vista...

i'm quite fond of vista.. and i'm quite impressed with it the more i use it... lack of errors and other stability problems is also nice, plus it just seems faster in most things. Hell even the dx9 games run fairly faster under vista then xp (under certain circumstances) And we've got probably the worst official drivers to start off with to boot.

DudeBoyz

Yeah, I'm biased. I don't really like Microsoft as a corporation, but some of their programs are pretty cool.

I'm still mad they dropped support for 98 SE and Windows 2000 Pro. I hold grudges.

I will eventually be forced to upgrade, I suppose. I just am not looking forward to it.

And I STILL can't figure out what's so darn special about DX 10 from an end-user perspective. Sounds like a bunch of cruddy hype.

If they really wanted to, they could make DX 10 work fine in XP. They just want to push Vista.

I wish Steve Jobs would get off his high-horse and make OS X available to run on standard PC's. At least then we'd have an option that was totally easy to use and didn't require buying some expensive piece of hardware to run.

Oh well. I'll always have Far Cry...

Judas

consider this,

DX10 is to DX9 as it DX9's Far Cry is to DX8's UT2004

We'll see the difference, just not anytime soon, as the comments your making is identical to that of what was said about DX9's abilities vs DX8's.

I'm actually quite happy they finally dropped 98 and me and 2000... and i can't wait for them to drop XP within the next say 3-5 years. (hopefully sooner imo)

While i'll admit, it sucks to have to keep up like that, it sucks that i have to do the same for numerous other things in life as well.

DX10 requires various driver specific coding and whatnot, something that should provide overall a much much more stable and thoroughly well supported driver model. Something in which XP can't do at all ever without having a major MAJOR rewrite. I mean cmon, xp is over 5 years old. hell it was released late oct of 2001! Bound to be some fairly significant MAJOR changes and damn well needed changes to be made between then and now. If perhaps vista had launched in 2003 or 2004, sure i'd expect dx10 to work in xp (if it were released then) but then again i doubt dx10 would have had it's current features, and quite likely, vista wouldn't support the dx10 we've got today.

DudeBoyz

I can understand your wish about 9x and 2000, but I would really like to hold on to XP for a while longer. With all the DRM stuff in Vista, the more restrictive licensing, etc. I'm more hesitant about upgrading to it than I was about XP.

Lots of people really like Vista and I guess that's cool. But after all the testing I did and all the issues I've seen and all the features that were compromised and dropped from Vista, I simply don't hold it in high regard.

But, if you and others do go to Vista, I certainly hope they fix all the bugs in both the OS and drivers, so you all can have a smoother experience with it.

The_Neon_Cowboy

100% marketing, thats why... they could of added it to XP no Matter what their shoveling

Rayder

I believe this to be true also. Just a scam to get everyone to go Vista.

Matth

Even Microsoft's line seems to be not that "it can't be done", but that due to the difference betweeen XP and Vista, it would not be worth doing.

I think you can pretty much bet that if Microsoft decide they want DX10 on XP for their games, a way will be found to do it, but the natural wastage and "reasons to upgrade" from XP could be faster than the growth in DX10 hardware, especially that of DX10 hardware on XP.

Sandok

Marketting it most probably is but I really don't mind... I've always migrated from OS to OS and Vista, while it has its quirks is far from being horrendous.

Personally, I think MS did a good move as it'll urge publishers and the general population to quickly adopt the new standard.

BlueMak

Perhaps some smart kid will find a way to release it for XP?

Prince_Link

it is possible seeing as Dx10 and 9 are seperate files and reg keys.

it would need a few translation dll's and some of vista's core dll's as dx10 will likely rely on them... other then that... given the necessary amount of time, i reckon someone could *dirtily* implement Dx10....