More titles drop Windows XP support. Industry finally makes progress.

[Vivi22]

Right, progress! Because as we all know, the consoles all run DirectX 10 or higher, right? Right? Oh wait...

Aside from the obvious fact that many games are already implementing DX10 and up level effects in higher settings for PC games (and have been for years), let's face it: the current batch of consoles are pretty much on their last legs. Actually, that may be too generous since developers want more power, and were it not for the cost of these consoles and games skyrocketing compared to previous generations, we'd have had new consoles already. Probably as early as a year or two ago.

It might be more accurate to say that these consoles are well past their prime, but despite being off life support simply refuse to kick the bucket.

 

[Tim Chuma]

"From my cold, dead hands."

If you have every worked in a large business environment you would know how long it took to even roll out XP. I was working in government roles that still had Lotus Notes for email and have had to migrate websites written in Lotus Notes.

I can remember when you used to be able to play games on consoles without having to wait an hour for them to download patches and they all worked fine.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

I wish games would also "drop" support for 2005 console hardware and actually push the boundaries like they used to. What happened to the Doom 3s and the Crysis', the one-upmanship of FPSs in particular that always strove to make the move incredible experience possible? It died is what, and instead we've had 4 years of brown tinted shooters. Unreal Engine 3 might be great to work with but it's ancient compared with what modern hardware is capable of.

I miss the days when developers made boundary pushing games and ported them to console. I know they're gone but I'm no less resentful for it. Microsoft could've easily given XP DX10 support but decided not to in a big to force people to upgrade. That decision sadly means that it is old by gaming standards. More capable than younger, current gen consoles, but no DX10 or 11 support.

Does anyone know what version of DirectX comes standard with Win8?

 

[Jason Rayes]

Yaaaaay.....

Looking forward to even shorter and shallower games.

But who cares, as long as the graphics are shiny <3 <3

Wait, you blame the dumbing down of games on the OS they use? I would have thought it was more an issue to do with the game publishers and developers trying to please the lowest common denominator. Ummm, could you link this with logical reasoning and facts to back up your claim that a new OS leads to worse games and is the reason for games lacking the complexity you refer to, I'd like to hear how you arrived at this conclusion.

 

[Garland]

I work as a computer technician (NOT GEEK SQUAD, BTW), and I am overjoyed to see more companies finally leaving XP in the dust. In my day-to-day work, I see more infections and driver issues on XP-based systems than anything else. Also, it just isn't as snappy on newer hardware.

Consider this:
- When XP came out, SINGLE-CORE processors were the only consumer solution for CPUs.
- XP does not handle multi-threading very well, since that feature was patched into it later in life, rather than being incorporated into it by design.
-XP is limited to 4gb of RAM, which is the de-facto minimum for the average pc today.
-XP has ended the mainstream support phase of its life. It is only on extended support now, which means it only gets security updates for the most severe security issues. Nothing else.

People say that newer OSes can't run their old programs, but I have personally succeeded in making many old programs work fine. In the rare instances where they could not run, Windows 7 has an optional VM called "XP Mode", and if that doesn't work, then there is usually a newer version of the software on the market.

Hint: A good trick for making old software work is to install the 32-bit version of Windows 7, though I only recommend this for business use. Gamers will not enjoy the 4gb RAM cap of 32-bit windows, but it does have better support for older 16-bit software. That's how I got a customer's new pc to run their ancient copy of Autocad 2000. Seriously, people, it is good to keep tech moving forward.

You raise some interesting arguments in favor of upgrading. The idea has been in the back of my mind for over a year, but I have not had a major incident that would incite such a transition. I would like to see more of these arguments made when news is broken that new games will not support old OS's, instead of the typical chatter congratulating developers for punishing those 'backwards' old OS users (the type of discourse we have seen here). Ultimately, a new OS should be sold to you by promises (and sometimes maybe even the delivery of said promises) to fix or address your issues with your current OS, not by threatening social exclusion and vilify 'neanderthals' who still utilize the hardware.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

If you want to see any real progress they need to drop console support altogether. And go back to making games for gamers and not shallow interactive media for anyone.

 

[barbzilla]

i love reading threads where people complain others aren't upgrading, but also ignore that there are so many things (mainly $$ and time) when considering upgrades. if you have just enough to buy new games then you'd be annoyed too that games are coming out that you can no longer play on your stable, trustworthy and otherwise adequate computer system, not to mention the time and effort it can take to get old stuff to run on new OSs, if at all.

all things should be useable as long as they are viable and do the job. i realize turnover is the nature of these things, but the turnover of electronics and software is considerably worse than most other things.

8 is just 7 with some minor improvements and graphical overhaul anyway. continue XP support!

Well after 11 years if you can't afford to drop a couple of games from your purchase roster to afford the basic edition of a new OS, that is your fault, not the game manufacturer's fault. As for getting older games to run on the new fangled OS, you still get to keep your old OS if you want. I personally run a dual boot with 7 and XP (for a bit I had 8 to test it), just so I can play older games without them crashing. On the nature of time and effort though, time and effort is just what it takes to test and support XP (an 11 year old OS) at the cost of the developers. This is money that can be spent doing other things, like hiring decent voice actors for once (though in all likelihood, they will not).

By your argument that all things should be useable as long as they are viable to do their job you also support that we should still support windows 3.1. While we are at it, lets test and support every version of Linux out there, because people use those too. Hey maybe every game should be playable on Mac too. Lets see that gives us at least 7 extra OSs to test and support at a greatly increased cost, where do we cut the game's budget to accommodate this?

As for your statement about 8, no it is more or less a tablet OS, while 7 was always geared and designed for a PC.

 

[barbzilla]

You raise some interesting arguments in favor of upgrading. The idea has been in the back of my mind for over a year, but I have not had a major incident that would incite such a transition. I would like to see more of these arguments made when news is broken that new games will not support old OS's, instead of the typical chatter congratulating developers for punishing those 'backwards' old OS users (the type of discourse we have seen here). Ultimately, a new OS should be sold to you by promises (and sometimes maybe even the delivery of said promises) to fix or address your issues with your current OS, not by threatening social exclusion and vilify 'neanderthals' who still utilize the hardware.

I can't agree more with you. You are spot on. If they advocated form and function over slight upgrades and the threat of your new software not working, more people would be apt to purchase the new OS. As it stands people have fallen into the slight upgrade routine for so long, they are now resistant to change (well if you couple that with the typical failure of the first gen of a new OS). Windows 8 at least appears to be trying something different by becoming a dual purpose OS (tablets and PCs), and who knows it might be good. I am holding off for now though to test the waters, if history proves itself I will pick up Windows 9.

 

[Da Orky Man]

I'm good with this. the only thing I run XP on now is my netbook, which can't play any major games released post-2004 anyway. Windows 7 is a good successor.

 

[aguspal]

I dont see how it is a "Step forward", but ok...


if anything it only annoyis the people who are still at XP. But it had to happen eventually, so yeah, lol

 

[mew4ever23]

-snip-

That's a fair point, actually, and one I hadn't considered. Microsoft does charge a fair bit for a box of even its basic OS version.

Funnily enough, I ran the compatibility wizard for win 8 on my pc, and guess what? My bluetooth driver, usb 3.0 driver, and most of the system utilities that came on it are not compatible. And I got this thing in October. It says I also would need to re-install my graphics driver. Yeah.. looks like no win8 on this box.

 

[Tentaquil]

XP is, and always will be, the god-tier OS.
It is the standard which future OS should try to emulate. Thankfully you can run XP mode on Windows 7.
/thread

 

[euro2019]

I think it's a good step. Someone needs to start it, we can't keep living on past software. The same way certain companies are slowly getting rid of hardware like modems on laptops, cd drives for ultra books, so is the same for operating systems. Now it'll be windows 8,7, and vista. Honestly vista was fine. I found most complaints came from people with computers unable to handle vista. That's understandable.

Most of my friends who complained about Vista, had bought themselves a 500-600$ laptop from Walmart/Futureshop/. When I had my GX600 gaming laptop, vista ran just fine. Mind you that was a far more expensive laptop at the time. I learned long ago that the 3-400$ you "save" not spending more on your computer definitely hits you hard a year or two later. Also, actual computer stores and brick and mortar stores sell better/custom laptops/desktops for cheaper prices -.- with better specs.

But I digress, I think it was time to drop XP already, it was great after its 2nd or 3rd SP, but it's time to upgrade. If you actually are going to use it to game, I don't think it's really gonna hurt that much.

 

[Zipa]

Im not sure why anyone is surprised by this tbh, Microsoft have released 3 newer operating systems since XP. Its lifespan is at a end, no one is denying that is is a good operating system, but every dog has its day and XP has long passed it. With devs starting to embrace DX10/11 people on XP are going to be left with a choice upgrade or not play new games.

In the not too distant future (2 years tops) the new Xbox and playstation are going to be appearing on the market and you can bet anything that the games will not be using DX9 (well on Xbox anyway), they will be making full use of their new gen hardware.

Besides if it bothers you that much Win 7 has a XP theme, and if you have a older computer that will struggle with 7 then there is windows 8 which runs very well on older PCs. I recently installed the release preview on a friends PC which was struggling its tits off with Vista, and it boots in 25 seconds and runs much better.

 

[Jandau]

Right, progress! Because as we all know, the consoles all run DirectX 10 or higher, right? Right? Oh wait...

Aside from the obvious fact that many games are already implementing DX10 and up level effects in higher settings for PC games (and have been for years), let's face it: the current batch of consoles are pretty much on their last legs. Actually, that may be too generous since developers want more power, and were it not for the cost of these consoles and games skyrocketing compared to previous generations, we'd have had new consoles already. Probably as early as a year or two ago.

It might be more accurate to say that these consoles are well past their prime, but despite being off life support simply refuse to kick the bucket.

I don't dispute any of what you wrote, but it's kinda besides the point. Yes, games have been implementing DX10, especially high end games, but for the most part it was an extra option for high performance machines. The underlying game is still based on what is essentially DX9. And that fact means that the games can't make full use of DX10, only add some bells and whistles, so to speak.

As for the consoles themselves, of course they are outdated. That's the point. OP phrased his post to imply that it's Windows XP that's holding back the industry, but that's silly. The fact that the current console generation is holding it back. The fact that DX9 and WinXP is still viable isn't the cause of technical stagnation, it's a symptom.

So games supporting and not supporting XP is irrelevant. No progress will be made while we're in a console dominated market and the current generation doesn't go the way of the dinosaur. Since I've yet to see anything concrete regarding the 720 or the PS4, it's fairly safe to assume we'll be stuck in this generation for at least another year or two...

 

[shrekfan246]

...So you're basing the progress of an artistic medium off of abandoning old technology?

Well, that's a bit of a limited view. =/

When the development of a medium is actually restricted by technology, as it's based on technology? I call that 100% accurate.

I honestly don't see how Windows XP is "Restricting". Granted, I can believe that Windows 7 does some things slightly better, but most power is still limited to computer hardware rather rather than computer software choice/configurations.

XP can only use DirectX 9. Development APIs are currently at DirectX 11 but absolutely nothing is currently taking advantage of it because of Windows XP and the two consoles. XP can also only use Dual-Core Processors and up to 4 GB of RAM. Yes, that's still utilizing more than the consoles are capable of, but it's also ancient in terms of PC hardware where we're up to the most expensive gaming PCs coming equipped with 32 GB of RAM, dual-DirectX 11 GPUs, and quad/hex-core processors.

Mid-line gaming PCs tend to have DirectX 10/11, 6-8 GB of RAM, and a dual/quad-core processor. XP can't support any of that anymore. Yes, at the very minimum, XP would probably be just barely enough, because most processors aren't taken full advantage of anyway so a dual-core is still good for most games, and the GPU load can be eased greatly by changing around resolution and other options, but there's a point where that 4 GB limit is going to come back and bite XP, because PCs use significantly more RAM than consoles do.

Complaining that XP is losing support is like complaining that the PS2 has lost support. The PS2 was a great system, it lived long past its prime, and I'm sure people didn't want to "upgrade" from it when the PS3 first came out, but eventually people just stopped making games for it.

 

[Imbechile]

Yaaaaay.....

Looking forward to even shorter and shallower games.

But who cares, as long as the graphics are shiny <3 <3

Wait, you blame the dumbing down of games on the OS they use? I would have thought it was more an issue to do with the game publishers and developers trying to please the lowest common denominator. Ummm, could you link this with logical reasoning and facts to back up your claim that a new OS leads to worse games and is the reason for games lacking the complexity you refer to, I'd like to hear how you arrived at this conclusion.

Yes I can.

They are pushing for better graphics, so even more time will need to be invested in making better graphics, which in turn will lead to the gameplay being neglected.

 

[ultrabiome]

Well after 11 years if you can't... afford the basic edition of a new OS, that is your fault

I know most of my post was idealistic, but it's that attitude right there that I'm not particular fond of. That's all. It'd still be more ideal if older stuff was supported better as it's often just a waste otherwise.

 

[Mycroft Holmes]

Windows XP is better in every way except that DX11 isn't supported. Most features are removed in Win 7. It has really hard times with administrative options. I never once had to download a third party program just to be allowed to delete something on win XP, but that seems to be par for the course with Win 7. The taskbar has needless stacking. Windows image viewer for win 7 has removed features; eg. no ability to view GIFs. The only areas it made any progress are things like transparent taskbars and rotating desktop images, which is like who gives a shit?

So I can't say this is a step in the right direction. But it was expected so whatever.

Steps in the wrong direction as far as I'm concerned. Windows 7 is scarcely 3 years old so any PC from mid 2009 and earlier had no good option other than XP. I don't believe buying a new pc every 3 years in order to get prettier graphics and shorter and shallower games is a good step in any way, shape or form.

You.. uhh... you realize that you only have to buy the new OS and not a whole new computer, right? Win 7 does not care what GPU or mobo you have... It just want's you to have enough room on your hard drive to install it. That's kind of the whole point of PCs... you don't need to buy an entirely new system just to upgrade a single component.