Vista Games Cracked to Run on XP

Next Generation is reporting that Vista PC games have been cracked to run under XP. Hacking groups who apparently wanted to play new titles like Shadowrun and Halo 2 with driver support have taken it upon themselves to open up the playing field a bit. "The news is sure to irk Microsoft who may now face an increased delay in some consumers adopting Vista at this early stage. However, it shouldn't come as a surprise. Earlier this month Falling Leaf Systems said in a press release that it believed Microsoft was deceiving consumers by stating that the titles would only work on Vista, and announced its intentions to release compatibility software to disprove the claim. 'Microsoft has, in typical Microsoft fashion, decided to launch their forced migration onslaught in full force with the release of two games that will only run on Windows Vista,' said Falling Leaf Systems CEO Brian Thomason in the press release." Relatedly, Mitch Gitelman of the (now closed) FASA Studios has taken exception to negative reviews of Shadowrun.

Comments

Nothing new under the sun

[seanadams.com]

I once bought a set of OrCad software for $13K, but even after several calls to tech support I could not get the parallel-port security dongles to work properly. I even got a replacement set of dongles from them and it still didn't work reliably. So I downloaded a crack for it, and then everything was fine.

When you have to download a pirated version just to use the software you've legitimately paid for because of artificial limitations like this, it doesn't exactly install a lot of goodwill in the customer. I never purchased anything from Cadence again, and don't intend to.

If enough of us refuse to buy software, music, or movies from companies that deliberately frustrate their paying customers, then they will either change their strategy or they will deservedly go out of business.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[edizzles]

Ya the forced Upgrading is just par for the corse as far as MS is concerned

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[danbert8]

This angers me as well, especially when the product box is wrong. For example, I bought a Streamzap PC remote which claimed to work with Windows XP (all versions), but somehow that didn't include XP x64 edition. I might add that Streamzap does not reply at all to support questions that involve XP x64.
 
This brings up an interesting question of if this hack works with XP x64.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[morgan_greywolf]

If enough of us refuse to buy software, music, or movies from companies that deliberately frustrate their paying customers, then they will either change their strategy or they will deservedly go out of business. Well, this doesn't really apply in markets where there is a monopolist running things. MSFT can do things like this and get away with it precisely because they own more than 90% of the desktop OS market. Your only other choice is to run an alternative platform, like Mac OS X or Linux, neither of which are particularly good platforms from a gamer's perspective.

IOW, the fact that Microsoft gets away with 'forced upgrades' and the like is all the proof you need that they should have been broken up following the DOJ anti-trust trial, per the orders of Judge Jackson.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[Nossie]

totally agree long term we would be in a better position now.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[teflaime]

Max OS X and Linux would be fine platforms for gaming if 1) they wrote more games for them and 2) OpenGL were to keep pace with whatever DirectX is supposed to be offering...my disclaimer here is that I don't know if OpenGL is keeping pace or not. I was told at a con by a game developer that he didn't think OpenGL was keeping pace and thats why he didn't like programming for Macs. I hate programming, so I haven't bothered to learn if this is really true, or just lazy programmer FUD to hide their laziness.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[bigbigbison]

I can't tell you how many games I've bought that I've put in at least 3 different computers with different brands of dvd drives and none of them could read the disks because of securom copy protection. In every case I've gone p2p and found hacked versions. It is a sign of how good their "copy protection" is when someone who has bought the games can't install them but the pirates have no problem ripping them.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[another_fanboy]

have to download a pirated version just to use the software you've legitimately paid for because of artificial limitations
If enough of us refuse to buy software, music, or movies from companies that deliberately frustrate their paying customers, then they will either change their strategy or they will deservedly go out of business.
The problem is if we refuse to buy from them, they will complain to the RIAA/MPAA that we are pirating. More pirates means more DRM.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[shotgunsaint]

I'm not much of a code slinger either, but from what I understand of the subject, DirectX is much easier to develop for, while Open GL is faster performance-wise. Anyone care to prove me wrong or right?

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[Sparr0]

OpenGL is keeping *AHEAD* of Direct3D. We had Shader Model 4.0 (Geometry Shaders, aka "DX10") months before DX10. OpenGL has SM4 on WinXP, and D3D9 doesn't. That alone should provoke developers into switching. For years the argument has been about ease of programming and integration, but now OGL has concrete feature superiority over D3D on the most prevalent gaming platform in the world.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[Anonymous Coward]

What is the difference between vertex shaders and geometry shaders? They sound like the same thing to me. Genuine and interested question, I don't know...

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[Anonymous Coward]

Were you running on supported hardware and OS? Most professional CAD packages require that in order to guarantee their product and provide support for it. If it doesn't work for YOU that doesn't mean it doesn't work, and if you then reverse engineer the program in order to work, then you have violated the license granted to you. When it comes to these types of programs, it is 99% of the time user error that causes them not to work, not the program. And before I get flamed for saying this, I support UG, SolidEdge, CATIA, Femap, and several other CAD and engineering programs for a consulting firm.

But this is slashdot, where advocating software piracy is the norm.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[mdarksbane]

Vertex shaders can't create new vertices.

With a geometry shader you can pass the video card one copy of a tree, and have the geometry shader turn it into a forest.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[MightyMartian]

My feeling is that where requiring an upgrade of the operating system is nothing more than if(version="VISTA","Welcome","You're FUcked") then the companies should be charged with false advertising and fined millions.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[mr_mischief]

It's not really piracy to pay for software then download a cracked copy, is it? I mean, he's just using the working copy for which he paid.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[suv4x4]

OpenGL is keeping *AHEAD* of Direct3D. We had Shader Model 4.0 (Geometry Shaders, aka "DX10") months before DX10.

The highlights of DX10 aren't the shaders. The same shaders are avasilable in 9L. It's about the rebuilt lighter API, multithreading and graphics memory swap file.

OpenGL doesn't have the latter two AFAIK.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[MightyMartian]

If it's piracy to redownload songs that I own on cassette (and still have the cassette, mind you), then yes, it's piracy to download cracked and modded versions of software that you already own.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[mpe]

This angers me as well, especially when the product box is wrong. For example, I bought a Streamzap PC remote which claimed to work with Windows XP (all versions), but somehow that didn't include XP x64 edition. I might add that Streamzap does not reply at all to support questions that involve XP x64.

Why could you not return it for a refund?

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[mrchaotica]

So, all of those things are supported without extensions? Or are they still prefixed with NV or EXT, which doesn't really count as "support?"

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[Anonymous Coward]

I fail to see how it has any superiority, when the extensions you are mentioning are all IHV unique and the implementations are different across the board. Hell, you could do a ton of things that geometry shaders allow in directx 9 (and opengl), but the algorithms are forced to run on the CPU.

BTW, OpenGL 3.0 is the version that is supposed to bring opengl to par with directx10, by adding support for things like geometry shaders and refactoring of the api. If you are interested, you can read more about it at http://www.opengl.org/pipeline/article/vol002_1/. Or you can pretend like opengl is the best thing ever, and miles ahead of directx, when in reality, it has a lot of catching up to do.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[robbiethefett]

I'm currently a student of mechanical engineering with a heavy emphasis on CAD. You'd think the big companies like AutoDesk would prefer to make it easy for students to learn the software's ins and outs by offering a nice student discount, or maybe some sort of "student edition" of the program. Have you priced a Pro E solution? it's ridiculous! The thing i find insane about the whole deal is that the heavy anti-piracy measures taken are extremely frustrating to get past--however not impossible, but there is no real logical need for them in the first place. I mean, sure the per-license cost is extremely high, but the price of the software is a drop in the bucket for most shops when compared to the price of just a single machine. My school just purchased a rapid prototype machine (which is really freaking cool, btw) that cost $30k, not including the ABS material needed to use the damn thing. Basically, my point is this: no one is pirating AutoDesk software to use in a production environment. A quick torrent search shows that there are, in fact, many people pirating the software. So the question now is whom? The short answer is: students. When i graduate i plan on working as a draftsman for a while before opening up my own shop, at which point i will purchase a fully-licensed Pro E solution. How many hundreds of dollars more will i be paying for this software to offset the cost of AutoDesk paying software engineers to keep students from using it for doing homework? I'll end this little tirade with a question: if the main purpose of a software suite is to engineer and manufacture parts in a professional environment, is there any real value taken away from the makers of the software if said software is pirated and used for anything other than a production environment? Are teenagers without access to a plotter, let alone a CNC machine really eating away at profits?

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[Paperweight]

I once phoned Microsoft about a Microsoft game controller I have that they made Windows XP unable to use (although it works on Windows 2000). The schmucks didn't even know what the word "goodwill" meant; they told me they had never heard the word before.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right, but a more common example is letting the GPU hardware tesselate a curved surface or something. Your forest example sounds more like instancing.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[danbert8]

I suppose I could have, but it did work with my Ubuntu installation, so I ended up keeping it. It would have been better to have support with both operating systems though. (And people complain about the hardware compatibility in Linux, I have trouble getting things to work in Windows)

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[Anonymous Coward]

Cracking the dongle so you can run software you've legitimately purchased is not piracy.

I've done it in the past too, with different software to the OP (not downloading a crack, but actually cracking it using a disassembler) but for exactly the same reason. It's annoying and frustrating that I had to resort to that, but it was either that or buy a whole new copy just to get a (possibly) working dongle.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[jma05]

> If enough of us refuse to buy software, music, or movies from companies that deliberately frustrate their paying customers, then they will either change their strategy or they will deservedly go out of business.

Or they will lobby and push for a levy.

http://neil.eton.ca/copylevy.shtml

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[Gridpoet]

"Max OS X and Linux would be fine platforms for gaming if 1) they wrote more games for them and 2) OpenGL were to keep pace with whatever DirectX is supposed to be offering"

Thats akin to saying
"The Ford Mustang would be a great vehicle to go to the moon in if 1) they made an air tight, 100 pound mustang 2) the engine was a fusion reactor putting out enough thrust to get it into orbit"
we dont CHOOSE to game on the PC, if you want to play the latest games you HAVE to game on the PC... sure i could wait...and wait... and then wait some more... but i'm a PC gamer and i want to play it the minute it comes out... not "possibly" 2 years from now!

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[twistedsymphony]

I think his point was that OpenGL platforms are technically capable of playing games, it's just a matter of them actually making the games for that platform.

To use your own analogy the Mustang is already 100lbs, air tight and has fusion reactor, they just decide to not use it.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[CelticWhisper]

However, if we're already refusing to buy from them, more DRM means essentially nothing to us. In fact, it may even help in that those companies too short-sighted to see that DRM will not stop copying are just going to piss away more and more of their money on useless copy-crippling, eventually either going bankrupt or learning the hard way to play nice.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[Chandon Seldon]

Wait, what? You're comparing feature sets based on how the subroutines are named?

If something is supported in a standardized and widely implemented extension, it's supported. That'd be like saying that Apache doesn't support PHP because it requires an "extension" to make it work.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[BungaDunga]

Truform could do that, but I don't think it was ever used much.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[Anonymous Coward]

OpenGL has handled the case where graphics memory use exceeds that available. I often exceed it, even on my 768mb 8800GTX. OpenGL runs fine, swapping textures in and out as needed with no noticeable performance hit. You can even set their 'residence' priority, but I've never needed to.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[Anonymous Coward]

Why could you not return it for a refund?

If the box had been labeled correctly, the GP would not have had to return it for a refund, and presumably would never have bought it in the first place. In other words:

Grandparent Post: The box was labeled wrong so I had to do some extra work (e.g. calling tech support, who refused to help).
Parent Post: Why don't you do this other kind of extra work instead?
This Post: Methinks Parent Post missed the point. :)

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[Anonymous Coward]

The highlights of DX10 aren't the shaders. The same shaders are avasilable in 9L
No geometry shaders in DX9

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[Anonymous Coward]

How are what you've just described, and what the article proclaims, not simply bald-faced violations of the DMCA? ...if if they are, isn't this article itself (and this thread) in violation for both promoting and advocating it?

Just sayin...

-AC

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[Anonymous Coward]

Max OS X and Linux would be fine platforms for gaming if 1) they wrote more games for them and 2) OpenGL were to keep pace with whatever DirectX is supposed to be offering...my disclaimer here is that I don't know if OpenGL is keeping pace or not. I was told at a con by a game developer that he didn't think OpenGL was keeping pace and thats why he didn't like programming for Macs. I hate programming, so I haven't bothered to learn if this is really true, or just lazy programmer FUD to hide their laziness.

Given that the installed Linux base is larger than OSX and Vista put together, you can be absolutely confident that (1) is being dictated by politics and not market share. In the particular case you mentioned, I suspect that you ran into a fanboi. Most programmers prefer to work with stable platforms. It is just a lot easier to develop working code if you aren't also trying to "keep pace" with a moving API. It also means that you can focus on the interesting problems (like making your AI smarter) over the trivial (figuring out the technique-du-jour for painting a bush). On the other hand, if you are lazy and not too bright, there might be a career in constantly relearning how to paint bushes.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[rhombic]

It is piracy to hoist the Jolly Roger, run out the long 9's, and shipjack another vessel on the high seas for fun and profit. Downloading songs for which you already own the cassette would only be copyright infringement, and then only if a songs owner could convince a judge & jury to come down on you for doing so, as it hasn't been tested in the courts yet.

So no, I wouldn't say that it's clearly piracy to download a modded version of software for which you have a valid license, particularly if you did so for compatibility purposes only, were only using the exact version of the software for which you're licensed, and could document trying to get the vendor to help out & their failure to make a good-faith effort to fix your problem. Would such a defense hold up in court? Dunno, probably not, but no sane vendor would go after you in such a situation, it's not a guaranteed win for them & would be a PR disaster. Wink wink nudge nudge say no more, right?

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[Creepy]

I haven't heard that analogy before, and I don't believe it's correct (though if you mean creating unique trees after placement, possibly yes). It's a bit more primitive than plopping the same model down in a different location.

First off, there was a terminology issue for a while where OpenGL used primitive shader instead of geometry shader, but this seems to have been resolved (from a search, the formal extension is GL_EXT_geometry_shader4, which usually is kept in the ARB/core name), so you may find information under either primitive shader or geometry shader for OpenGL - just a heads up. The OpenGL 2.1 Specification, which is current on most cards that include DirectX 10 DOES NOT have to include geometry shaders since they are still considered extensions (EXT) and not ARB or core (which are required); however nVidia does include the extension in their 8xxx cards and I suspect ATI does in their DX10 cards as well. For more formal information, you may want to search the Khronos site for Long's Peak (which will be 2.2 or 3.0) or Mt Evans (likely 3.0 3.1) releases.

Geometry Shaders are essentially a higher level object than vertex shaders (executed after the vertex shader on a set of vertices and before fragment processing). For example, if you take a triangle strip (the highest level object considered a "primitive," and probably the reason they're called geometry shaders instead of primitive shaders now) forming a cylinder and want a flare at the bottom, you might add vertices to keep it fairly round and move the existing vertices along the bottom ring outward. That probably isn't the main use for it, but is an example (other uses: cube mapping and probably the #1 I've heard of, CPU independent particle systems not limited to sprites)

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[Spudds]

I've fiddled with both.

In terms of usability and ease of use from a programmer's perspective, the two libraries are practically identical. It is fairly trivial to create an abstraction layer that provides common functionality between the two libraries.

However, from my experiences and (limited) knowledge of both libraries, DirectX does have more features and does develop at a quicker pace than OpenGL. DirectX is owned and developed by one single proprietary entity with greed as incentive for a quick development pace (negative tone unintentional), whereas OpenGL is an open standard with an organization body to oversee it's development, which tends to be slower (read: more calculating and cautious about what they add/keep out of the library).

That being said, OpenGL doesn't aim specifically at games (which is DirectX's primary intention), but aims to be a general Graphics Library. It's used for other things besides games, such as medical software.

The performance of the libraries depends on a huge number of different variables; OS, graphics card/driver, aptitude of the programmers to utilize the specifics of each libraries' strenghts, etc.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[Anonymous Coward]

Just to add another data point (no pun intended), it's pretty similar with statistics software. Stata, SPSS, SAS, etc. are all hundreds (or even thousands) of dollars. So, professionals can afford them, but students can't and usually pirate. Mind you, R is kind of changing that in some circles (R is an open source implementation of S, the statistical programming language developed by Bell Labs).

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[j_sp_r]

If your university thinks it's important, they offer you Pro/E and AutoCad (JUCK! That's for people designing building, not ME's) for free. Yes, I have to make a VPN connection to the university to be able to the licence server and I cannot op the students edition created stuff in the corporate edition.

The License servers are there to be able to have more workstations with Pro/E then licenses (you can install Pro/E on as many computer as you like), if you are using all your licenses then you cannot use an extra. It helps keeping track of licenses.

Oh and it isn't difficult to install Pro/E, because someone will come to your company (for real, I know Pro/E and so at the company I worked for for 4 weeks they bought Pro/E for me to use) to install it.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[Nullav]

I suppose the car analogy actually fits here.
If I pay for something, I should be entitled to replace a scratched disc however I can, so long as it doesn't involve taking it from someone else. It's truly a sad state of affairs when merely replacing something (in almost literally unlimited supply) brands me a pirate.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[MS-06FZ]

My feeling is that where requiring an upgrade of the operating system is nothing more than if(version="VISTA","Welcome","You're FUcked") then the companies should be charged with false advertising and fined millions. Here's the trick, though...

Saying a piece of software "works" under certain conditions isn't just a statement of technical possibility, it's a statement of confidence in that scenario. As in, how thoroughly was that combination of software tested.

The software companies aren't obligated to broaden their testing platform, or to allow people to run their software on platforms they didn't test for. (Regardless of disclaimers, doing things like that would cost them money, in the form of tech support calls asking how to get it working. The situation sucks from a user standpoint but it's not totally unreasonable...)

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[Tatsh]

As strange as it is, I'm sure tested Halo 2 and other "Vista-only" games on XP to make sure they refused to install/run.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of the major CAD companies already offer student copies of their software. I have legitimately licensed Pro/E, Solidworks, and Unigraphics student editions installed on my computer at home, and I didn't have to pay one cent for them. I don't know about AutoDesk, but I would bet there's student editions of that as well. The only drawback to the student editions is that, at least for my situation, I have to VPN to my school's network to be able to use them. The files created can also only be opened using another student edition of the program. But it has the full functionality otherwise.

As for the anti-piracy software built into most CAD suites, it's usually just a licensing program. They need the licensing software to be able to regulate its use. I'm sure there's alot of companies out there that wouldn't pick up a new license once their old one runs out.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[init100]

And people complain about the hardware compatibility in Linux

Quite commonly just because they read a five year old post on some message board. It usually turns out that the user didn't experience the problem himself, but heard it from his father's friend's sister's friend, who read it on a message board, so it must be true. :)

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[Anonymous Coward]

The only thing Microsoft owns is mindshare. It doesn't amount to the fart I just cut. MS owns you because you want to be pwned; you think you need them to own you or else you wouldn't be buying it. It's a security sieve (including Vista) and doesn't even work right.

Any linux is infinitely more secure. Well I should say, is as secure as you want it to be. At least you have the choice and _can_ secure linux. You can actually get help if you have a problem running linux. Ever report a bug to microsoft? Did you hear back from them? How much did it cost you?

For the cost of the bandwidth to download the linux ISO's, $5 a month you can be microsoft free and have it made easy by the Cedega crew for running games and just about everything else, on a system that never needs to be rebooted. That $5 a month adds up to $240 every 4 years. That's just in line with what a windows vista license costs, and it includes upgrades which you don't need to completely blow away your computer to do.

If you want to do the work, you can do WINE for free.

Think about it. You don't need microsoft, they need _you_ more than ever. This whole vista game they are playing is the panicked ploy of someone who's got nothing but a pair of 2's in their hand of cards. They'll have a "monopoly" as long as you let them have it.

Linux is easier and more compatible than ever. I strongly urge you to make a list of hardware you have and start looking for linux drivers. Then kick windows off your box once and for all.

-AC

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[Anonymous Coward]

A few .dlls and other similar files copied over, a few new entries plugged manually in with regedit, and I remember that's how some "XP-only" stuff could run on '98 without too many problems if any. Sounds like the hack is an .exe that takes the guesswork out and does it for you. It was going to happen sooner or later.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[asylumx]

Max OS X and Linux would be fine platforms for gaming if 1) they wrote more games for them and 2) OpenGL were to keep pace with whatever DirectX is supposed to be offering

And if the sky were a mix of red & yellow, it would be orange. The fact is, it's not, and that's what we have to deal with. Of course things would be different if things were different. Who mods this stuff insightful?

Note to the blokes who want to point out that the sky appears orange at sunset or sunrise: Get an effing life, you're completely missing the point.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[Anonymous Coward]

So the question now is whom? The short answer is: students

Nope. I can tell you that piracy is a big problem in CAD/CAM - especially in emerging markets like China. And yes, people with $100K+ machine tools really do use pirate software - small companies in Western countries and big firms in the emerging markets.

Students get caught in the crossfire because cheap/unprotected software gets abused by the aforementioned people.

How many hundreds of dollars more will i be paying for this software to offset the cost of AutoDesk paying software engineers to keep students from using it for doing homework?

None - the extra revenue from emerging markets pays several times over the cost of securing the software.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[Machtyn]

Basically, my point is this: no one is pirating AutoDesk software to use in a production environment.

I don't know about AutoDesk, specifically, but from other slashdot discussions I've read and stories I've heard from co-workers (who've all worked for many years in the IT/Software Dev community) is that, *Yes, there are pirated copies of software being used in production environments.*

You'll find that the temptation to hold off on that $50,000 purchase for 5 licenses or get X copies for "evaluation purposes" to be pretty high. Especially, if your small start-up business is red-lining the accounting books and/or that loan/investment money is starting to run out.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[mdarksbane]

Yes, automatic tesselation is a big part of it :) But does random slashdot user know what tesselation even means, or about the problems of bus bandwidth on modern hardware?

You can do instancing already, but (you are using exactly the same tree model and passing in a list of transforms to it. You could use a geometry shader to take a basic archetype of a tree and add flair to each to make it unique using some sort of pseudo randomness. Which is how you already make a forest, but you don't do it on the hardware.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[Anonymous Coward]

A: as other replies have said, large professional companies might not use pirated software much in the US or Northern Europe. You can bet they do in Southeast Asia. You might have to look long and hard to find any purchased copies, in fact. I say this with some experience.

B: even in the US, companies regularly engage in behavior that the software companies would claim was copyright infringement. Case in point: my (very, very large) company has, at this branch, 1 MatLab license and 1 CAM license. I know these programs are installed on at least six machines each, with a verbal agreement among developers that only 1 person will use either one at any time.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[angrykeyboarder]

I would hardly call the inability to play a few games a "forced upgrade" to Vista.

After all, they're only games.

And a breakup would have done the consumer more harm than good.

I don't argue that Microsoft has done a lot of less wonderful things in terms of marketing Windows, but they are in business to make money.

And in this instance I think this is an unfair criticism.

The overwhelming majority of new Windows programs out there run just fine on Windows XP. In fact, many of them run better on XP than Vista.

And it's worthy to note that Microsoft's other cash cow, Microsoft Office was designed to run on XP as well as Vista.

Microsoft would have been foolish to only offer that to Vista users. There are far more users of Office than any single game out there.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[Anonymous Coward]

Two Word my friend.

Daemon Tools.

Don't even need a crack most of the time.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[AArmadillo]

No, he's comparing it based on whether or not it is in the core API. A DX10 card MUST support the entire DX10 feature set to be a DX10 card. OpenGL extensions do not need to be implemented on every card. In addition, the implementations that exist can be and are different among different manufacturers, and even individual cards from a single manufacturer.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[RightSaidFred99]

Oh no! You mean you have to run an alternative OS if you don't like Windows!? The humanity! And, oh my God, those other platforms aren't good for games because the studios choose not to suppor them?!!! Good lord, Microsoft should not only be broken up they should be executed in public!!!!!!!! Games are a matter of life and death and important enough for the DoJ to confiscate MS!

See what I did there, Ken?

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[robbiethefett]

Well, if a small home-based business is running pirated copies of office, what's the worst case scenario? I could see maybe some unpredictable results when it comes to formatting, etc, but i don't think it's really much of a liability. You can probably run a successful graphics design shop on pirated software, but in the case of a fab shop, if they are using a pirated copy of software to control a CNC machine, there could be major ramifications if it produces unexpected results. If something goes wonky with that, you're looking at possible damage to an $80k machine with a $1000 billet of aluminum in it. These numbers are obviously open to debate, since there are different types of computer controlled machines, and different grades of material, etc. The bottom line is that mistakes cost far more than preventative maintenance in this instance. It would cost less to have the appropriate licensing for the software than it would to screw up a set of 4 wheels for a client. Think of it like this: if you print a 10 page report, and notice something needs changed, you can throw out 10 pages of 8-1/2" x 11" paper without thinking twice. But what about a 1:1 schematic of a unibody car chassis? There is also the factor of industrial espionage. If you have to make your employees sign an NDA (necessary for any govt contract) you would be a fool to use pirated software that would, in all likelihood, allow a Russian warez group full access to the data your chief engineer is not allowed to mention to his wife.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[zergl]

Reminds me of Age Of Empires 3, by the way.

A friend of mine still runs Win2k on his box and tried to install it, just getting some annoying "ONLY WINXP SUPPORTED, LOLS" error message.
But after five minutes of internet search and a command line switch for the installer it worked just great.

Win2k not supported my ass...

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[mrchaotica]

If something is supported in a standardized and widely implemented extension, it's supported. [emphasis added]

But that's my point: if it's an extension, you don't know how "widely supported" it is, can't count on it to be there, and therefore can't [easily] code against it.

That'd be like saying that Apache doesn't support PHP because it requires an "extension" to make it work.

Right: Apache doesn't support PHP. An extension to Apache supports PHP. So in the system requirements for some PHP-based web system, it'll have to list "Apache, PHP extension."

Now, that's fine for something like that, because its target audience is server admins. But when you're talking about a game, you can't really say "this game requires OpenGL 2.1, foo_bar_NV, EXT_baz, etc. In fact, even requiring a particular major version is complex enough!

This is DirectX's advantage: if the system supports "DirectX 9," you know that exactly all of the features of Direct3D 9 are supported. If it supports "DirectX 10," you know that all features of Direct3D 10 are supported. You don't have to worry about writing multiple different sets of code to handle people that have NV_* vs. ATI_* vs. SGI_* vs. not having support at all, etc.

The bottom line is that, because of this, using advanced features in OpenGL becomes a pain in the ass compared to doing it in Direct3D. I really wish the OpenGL ARB would get their act together and standardize this stuff more quickly, because (as a Mac and Linux user) it really pisses me off that they've let it fall behind Direct3D.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[robbiethefett]

If the emerging markets aren't buying the software in the first place, how are they paying for the security? Also, what are the legal implications of doing business with a shop that isn't regulated? As I see it, allowing your data to pass through pirated/cracked software is like posting it to a blog.. It's a gaping security hole. AFAIK, most shops in the northeast U.S. go to great lengths to keep things like client lists confidential, let alone the data that is the cumulative sum of highly-paid engineers. Admittedly, i only know a handful of people who work in the field, but those few have signed NDAs and take it very seriously. If your senior engineer is not allowed to even mention what part he's working on to his wife, it certainly does not make sense to use pirated software that could very well hand the entire schematic over to a Russian wares group.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[robbiethefett]

Not just 'someone' will come to your company, an engineer will. It should be noted that Pro/E tech support also phones an engineer, rather than a tech, a representative, or a guy in a call center in India. That alone, IMO, is worth the cost of licensing. As for AutoCad, I attend a small state school, and my program shares a lab with Architectural Design, so the freshman courses are a mix of CAD/CAM and Architect students. Fine by me, since I pay tuition out of pocket and would never be able to afford to go to university.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[Machtyn]

hehe, true that, but have you met Dilbert's manager?

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[modecx]

The highlights of DX10 aren't the shaders. The same shaders are avasilable in 9L. It's about the rebuilt lighter API, multithreading and graphics memory swap file.

OpenGL doesn't have the latter two AFAIK.

OpenGL apps can certainly be multi-threaded. There's probably a performance hit when you have to switch contexts between different threads. I bet DX10 abstracts this, if anything. I really can't see why this be attractive, outside of having multiple rendering windows spread across multiple monitors (or multiple buffers who's output could be further processed inside or outside the GPU?). This has probably changed substantially since the last time I messed with OpenGL (OGL v. 1.1 on an old SGI)

As far as a memory swap file... Basically, the last time I screwed around with OpenGL , you could prioritize which textures were to remain in memory, which would have priority over others, and other than this, OpenGL handled keeping the required textures in memory. With modern hard drives, I have a hard time believing that a "memory swap file" on a hard disk would be of that much benefit, unless texture sizes were plain gigantic, and the file system was terribly fragmented.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty sure it's not even copyright infringement to download a song you already have. It's copyright infringement to *upload* it, so the guy you got it from is infringing copyright, not you.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[Anonymous Coward]

Very true. Our factories in China run entirely on pirated software whereas in our US/UK sites we pay meticulous attention to our software licensing (after the BSA and FAST come knocking a few years, it scared our directors into getting it right.)

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[Adambomb]

Funny thing is in those cases the issues were most likely true, people seem to be unable to comprehend though that a lot can change between 1999 and 2007 or even Jan 2007 to Jun 2007 =)

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[TheSeer2]

As far as I know, there is a very cheap version of Autodesk tools at a student price.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[Sancho]

Don't forget that DirectX includes support for more than just 3d graphics. DirectX includes Direct3D, DirectInput, DirectMusic/Sound, etc. It's one API for a complete gaming experience. In theory, this should lead to consistency in interfaces and API calls (though who knows--it's highly probable that sub-teams were working on the individual components of DirectX).

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[robbiethefett]

There is. There are a few problems though. The biggest of which is that files created in the full version can't be opened by the student version, and vice versa. This does me no good, seeing as i don't have a plotter at home, and all of our work is turned in on usb drives at the end of the semester. If the prof. can't open any of the files, I would assume there would be no credit given.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[ceejayoz]

Ah, yes, the "language is unchangeable" argument.

Ask your grandmother what a "whale tail" is, then ask a high school student. Expect different answers.

"Piracy" has become an accepted enough term for copyright infringement, to the point where one of the largest such sites calls itself The Pirate Bay. Deal with it, for goodness sake.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[darthgnu]

I would consider SDL + OpenGL to be a similar offering in this matter. I must agree that consistency within an API is crucial.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[mduell]

The student discount for CATIA V5 was 99% ($150 instead of $15000) when I bought it 2 years ago.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[sssssss27]

If it's piracy to redownload songs that I own on cassette (and still have the cassette, mind you), then yes, it's piracy to download cracked and modded versions of software that you already own.

Of course that is piracy/copyright infringement. If you were to make a digital copy of your cassette tape though that wouldn't be. It'd be like owning the license to Photoshop 6 and downloading Photoshop 7.

And normally you can just download a crack for the software instead of having to download the software also. It would be akin to you downloading software to allow you to copy the cassette to your computer.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[Curate]

It's perhaps unfortunate that MS named it XP 64-bit edition instead of something else, since now it sounds like it's just a 64-bit version of XP. It's not. It's completely different from XP. It was released 2 years later, and has a new kernel version number (5.2 rather than 5.1). It's actually a consumer-oriented version of Windows Server 2003. It has an IDENTICAL kernel to Windows Server 2003. Now realistically, how can you expect software to automatically support it? MS releases XP in 2001. Then a game comes out in 2001 or 2002, and says it runs on all versions of XP. Then MS releases an OS called XP 64-bit edition in 2003, which is fundamentally much different from XP.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[adona1]

I can see the ad campaign:

Microsoft Vista: Just Works

...for varying values of 'Works'

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[MS-06FZ]

I can see the ad campaign:

 

Microsoft Vista: Just Works

...for varying values of 'Works' I like it, except for one thing -

We're talking about people using software made for Vista, on platforms other than Vista. So it would be more like you buy your game, and the system requirements state:
"It just Works... (with Vista only)"

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[JackieBrown]

Was your friend lymeca? Because we just heard his story right above yours.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[zergl]

No.
I laughed my ass off, when I saw his post after I hit the "Submit" button, though. Great timing. :)

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[JackieBrown]

That is bullshit to except a user to know that.

If microsoft or the software company expected people to think on those terms then instead of labeling it XP they should have labeled it for kernel 5.1.

And we keep hearing that service pack 2 was more or less "a whole new OS" so the dates theory wouldn't fly either.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[kfsone]

Max OS X and Linux would be fine platforms for gaming if "If" - there's your problem.

Mac's closed architecture wards off upgrade-hungry gamers. Linux as a gaming platform? Uhm. Yeah - it's right up there with the Altair.

By crook more than by hook, Windows is the defacto gaming platform that Mac and Linux.

An evil that we can only hope Vista will help undo. Can the OS community do for gaming what Thunderbird did for email?

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[Anonymous Coward]

forget direct sound in Vista... (if i remember right)

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[Anonymous Coward]

MSFT can do things like this and get away with it precisely because they own more than 90% of the desktop OS market. Your only other choice is to run an alternative platform, like Mac OS X or Linux Mac OS X. Right. Apple doesn't "do things like this and get away with it." All Apple applications work with the previous version of OS X (10.3 Panther). Well, all of them except:

• Aperture
• Final Cut Studio 2
• Final Cut Express HD
• Logic Pro 7
• Logic Express 7
• Shake

So, except for those six applications, Apple doesn't "do things like this and get away with it."

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[jsight]

(And people complain about the hardware compatibility in Linux, I have trouble getting things to work in Windows)

It is amazing how often I've struggled to install a piece of hardware on windows. Then I reboot into Linux and it just works.

(ok, there are some things where the opposite is true too)

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[j_sp_r]

True, true. That guy that installed it worked for a company that did complex FEM analyses, and worked faster with Pro/E then I ever will (part of that is of course that the interface hasn't changed drastically in 20 years, my whole life thus).

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[mr_mischief]

Okay, then, is it piracy for you to get your song into an MP3 format? It's a fair use to do it yourself. It's piracy for someone else to let you download the MP3 (AAC, OGG, whatever), but you're not the one distributing something without compensating the artist. You've got a license to that song, and getting the song into a different format for easier listening is your right.

The guy in this case didn't give a bunch of copies away. He just got a copy for which he already had a license -- because he didn't pay for a copy which did not work. He paid for a copy that would work and the company in question failed to provide it. $13,000 is a lot of money for a blank disk, which is effectively what they sold him. That's bad faith on their part, and he could have sued to get his money back and gone to spend it with the competition. The software company is probably happier to keep his money and let him have the cracked copy.

Also, would it be piracy if, instead of downloading the new copy already cracked, he just downloaded a cracking program that when run made his original copy work? Would it be piracy to provide that program? It is probably illegal under the DMCA, because it could be construed as deliberately breaking copy protection to enable piracy. However, the purpose here wasn't to enable piracy. It was to make the damn thing work as purchased.

Re:Nothing new under the sun

[haruchai]

I suggest you take your own advice.
The fact is that it's that way but it can be changed, if
you really want it to. Even M$, for all their present clout
was once an insignificant player and they worked to change that.

Way to go Falling Leaf...

[cromar]

Best hack I've heard of in a long time (from my personal anti-MS point of view ;) Stick it to the man!

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[Tridus]

This wasn't Falling Leaf, it was the crack group Razor 1911.

Falling Leaf hasn't released anything.

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[cromar]

Well fuck... I'd give you an Informative mod if I had one :)

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[paganizer]

There is a Win2k patch for Halo 2 that has been on P2P since the first week in June. I have no idea if it works with WinXP, but I imagine it would; if it's anything like the AOEIII win2k fix, it'll also make the game a lot more playable.
I might take a crack at making a win2k patch for shadowrun; I know a few people in my "Win2k infinite" group have been messing with fixing the version checking.
I'm hoping someone will get it quick, I love Shadowrun, but don't like multiplayer online games very much. Having to buy a $60 Vista game just for the pleasure of making it work on Win2k doesn't sound like a good investment.

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[plague3106]

So I guess software vendors don't have the right to sell their product the way they choose to, huh?

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[ChakatSanddancer]

No, they don't. Software makers have just as much right to say you can only run a program on one platform as cereal makers have a right to say you can only eat their product for breakfast.

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[djones101]

They have the right, just like the consumers have the right to their own customizations. Sorry, but if I buy a ruler, and then attach a laser to it, to make a home-made laser level, Sears has no right to tell me that I violated a patent they own on laser level technology. That is EXACTLY the kind of thing Microsoft does. If Microsoft wants to try and limit me, and I find a way around it, they need to suck it up and deal with it, or get out of the business since they can't meet consumer demands.

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[plague3106]

Is the only way to defend this position with bad analogies or something? If they want to limit themselves to a smaller market, how exactly does that hurt you?

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is a link to their... umm... press release

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[ChakatSanddancer]

It harms my right to use a product the way I wish to, and it goes against the doctrine of first sale. Why should software be different from any other product on the planet?

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[plague3106]

Software, whether you like it or not, is licensed, unlike a ruler. Stop with stupid analogies, and discuss the topic.

If you don't want to respect their license, that's fine, but then you shouldn't expect them to respect the GPL either.

No where did anyone mention patents in this discussion either. Again, argue the topic at hand, and stop setting up stupid, inacurate strawman arguments.

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[Drachemorder]

Maybe they do, but we as consumers also have the right to call them on the carpet for it. And, for that matter, the right to modify the software to overcome those artificial limitations. (This isn't a matter of piracy --- this sort of hack has nothing to do with whether or not the game or the OS is pirated.) Just because someone has the right to do something does not mean it's right to do it. Microsoft is morally wrong here, even if their actions are legal.

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[Eideewt]

Regardless of whether it hurts you, they don't have the right to limit the platform you can run it on any more than you have the right to run it on whatever you choose. They can try, of course, but it's a stupid thing to do.

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[Drachemorder]

If you don't want to respect their license, that's fine, but then you shouldn't expect them to respect the GPL either.

There's an inherent difference here. Microsoft's licenses try to restrict you from doing things you would otherwise have the right to do. The GPL gives you rights to do things that you would not otherwise have. If you don't want to respect the GPL, that's fine, but you'd essentially be a software pirate if you distribute GPL software in violation of its terms. On the flip side, if you violate some of Microsoft's license terms, you might not have done anything illegal at all (running Vista in a VM, for instance). So I really do see a huge difference between the two licensing models, and therefore a difference between the nature of respect for them.

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[Znork]

"Software, whether you like it or not, is licensed"

Copyright largely governs what you can and cannot do with software; clickwrap extensions trying to enforce post-sale contractual obligations are much less certain.

"but then you shouldn't expect them to respect the GPL either."

The GPL doesnt extend beyond copyright law, the GPL grants rights the user does not _have_ under copyright law. It's a copyright license, falling back on copyright law. Without the GPL the distributor has no rights to distribute at all.

Software clickwrap licenses restrict the user beyond what copyright law does, and try to take away rights the user normally has. Such licenses fall back on contract law, and are in their nature vastly different in their enforcability (the contract has to be found valid at all, the clauses have to be deemed acceptable, etc), and if it isnt found enforcable then the user has all the rights copyright grants them (ie, to use the product any way they deem fit).

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[plague3106]

You know before you buy it though that its only expected to work with Vista. Why would you purchase something you think might not work and then complain when it doesn't?

Nothing violates the doctrine of first sale; you are the original purchaser. Whether you like it or not, software is a product that is licensed (just like other products are). If you don't like the license, don't buy the game. Software should be different because there's high cost to create it, and it can easily be copied and thus needs to be protected.

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[sogoodsofarsowhat]

Not everything they stick in the license is defensible or legally binding. That is why they do not basically EVER take anybody to court on the EULA! They WILL LOOSE! They claim they have the right to dictate what i do with the software and in some respects they do. But they cannot for me to run on any particular machine...even apple's OSX license will hold up to that. As long as i buy the software and dont make illegal copies they will not have a chance at keeping me from using it on any type of machine i want. Just because they put it in the license DOES NOT MAKE IT LEGALLY BINDING. This is EXACTLY like FORD saying i cant modify or do whatever i want with the truck i buy from them. Yes there is software in their computer in the truck...if i mod it to make more HP/Torque (but dont resell that mod or thier code) there is NOTHING...READ NOTHING they can do...much like me buying a game or OS and making it run on a Timex/Sinclair. They can get mad, hell they can file suit...they will lose. Get a life dude...EULA and licenses are not ALL BINDING ALL CONTROLING DOCUMENTS. While you may license the software to me...HOW I USE IT is still a basic freedom. Foo /did not buy a Ford

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[Suzumushi]

First of all, analogies are perfectly valid forms of argument. :-P Secondly, you have an excellent point. A software maker has a right to determine how the consumer uses the product. There are no laws against this at the moment (although IMO there should be), but perhaps this will change in the future. This would also explain the lackluster sales behind Halo 2 and Shadowrun on the PC, as well as the real culprit, Vista. In reality, the ingenuity of a small group of fans will allow the product to reach a wider audience than before. To argue that allowing a product to be more convenient and better suited to the marketplace is a bad thing, smacks of bigotry. Product limitations such as the one implemented by these games is also arguably anti-competitive and monopolistic. To use one of your hated analogies: There is no law against rubbing garbage on yourself. However, what's so bad about people wearing closepins on their noses when they want to visit you?

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[ChakatSanddancer]

Virtually no other product on the planet is licensed. My books aren't licensed, my CDs aren't licensed, my shoes sure as hell aren't licensed. There are high costs to create CDs, and there's no license for those. Case law, such as Novell v. Network Trade Center, already suggests that such licensing for software is most likely unconstitutional anyways. The myth that software is somehow special is full of legal holes. Again, why should software be any different?

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[plague3106]

Microsoft's licenses try to restrict you from doing things you would otherwise have the right to do. The GPL gives you rights to do things that you would not otherwise have.

What the license grants you is irrelevent. Either you respect other's licenses, or do not request that anyone request yours. To do otherwise is to be hippicritical.

If you don't want to respect the GPL, that's fine, but you'd essentially be a software pirate if you distribute GPL software in violation of its terms. On the flip side, if you violate some of Microsoft's license terms, you might not have done anything illegal at all (running Vista in a VM, for instance).

No, both are the same. The law backs both licenses. If you violate them, you can be sued. Its really that simple, because a license is a contract. You can choose to accept it or not.

So I really do see a huge difference between the two licensing models, and therefore a difference between the nature of respect for them.

So basically your argument its ok to license software when you like the license, but when you don't like the license then its not ok. To me, that is a pretty unreasonable stance to take.

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[MightyMartian]

And how does it harm them if you find a way to make their software work on other platforms? If you're buying the software, they haven't lost a dime, and have, in fact, made a sale that they clearly didn't expect. Unless, of course, they're in collusion with Microsoft, in which case they and Microsoft should be fined very substantial amounts of money.

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[plague3106]

Copyright largely governs what you can and cannot do with software; clickwrap extensions trying to enforce post-sale contractual obligations are much less certain.

They seem pretty certain to me, being as no one has ever challenged one. You'd think by now some company would take it all the way, get the legality of them thrown out and now be able to use as many copies of the software they choose.

Nevermind that the box does state that there are terms inside to which you must agree to use the product, and you can return the item for a refund. In other words, you know there's a license when you buy it, and you are given an oppurtunity to review the licnese before you use the software. Pretty clear cut to me.

The GPL doesnt extend beyond copyright law, the GPL grants rights the user does not _have_ under copyright law. It's a copyright license, falling back on copyright law. Without the GPL the distributor has no rights to distribute at all.

Being subject to copyright does not exclude the licensing of software. The GPL does go beyond copyright through, because even a substansial rewrite or addition of functionality to code ends up being covered by the license. I could modify GPL code substantally (enough that copyright would protect my work) and yet still be under the licnese of the GPL.

Software clickwrap licenses restrict the user beyond what copyright law does, and try to take away rights the user normally has. Such licenses fall back on contract law, and are in their nature vastly different in their enforcability (the contract has to be found valid at all, the clauses have to be deemed acceptable, etc), and if it isnt found enforcable then the user has all the rights copyright grants them (ie, to use the product any way they deem fit).

Yes, because its valid to license software. Again, if its so shakely legally, why has not a single company attempted to invalidate them? Whether or not something is copyrightable has nothing to do with whether it can also be licensed or not, and we're not talking about copyright, we're talking about licenes (which the GPL is).

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[Dare nMc]

I think in this case their is nothing in the License preventing XP (from anything I have read so far.) The game is advertised as for VISTA, so if MS doesn't want to support it on XP, that seams fair. But it also seams fair if anyone else whats to step up and say we will support you running this game on platform-x, if you buy a legal copy from microsoft that seams perfectly valid.

Actually it is even valid if MS does put in the Halo License a requirement only for VISTA. After all once you have bought the game, you do have some rights in the first sale docturine to use it in a reasonable mannor, playing the game on the equipment you have seams reasonable. That may not include online play if that servers licences excludes yoour platform, since online play is a service (in my opinion) and despite MS's objection a program sold in a box is not a service, its a product.

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[mpe]

If you don't want to respect their license, that's fine, but then you shouldn't expect them to respect the GPL either.

You are comparing apples and mice. Copyright law states that you can't make a copy of a copyright protected work and distribute it to a third party without the copyright holder's permission. The GPL (and similar) state that you have that permission subject to an enumerated set of conditions. N.B. if you arn't distributing copies to third parties the GPL is to all intents and purposes irrelevent.
Whereas EULA claim to be governed by contract law and typically enumarate a list of things you cannot do, some of which simply duplicate default copyright restrictions, some of which are rights you can't be denied and some of which may be possible to agree to. (Assuming the whole thing actaully means the definition of a "contact" in your jurisdiction.) N.B. You really need a lawyer to check out an EULA, even possibly in cases where you don't intend to install/run the software in question.

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[Wildclaw]

Except of course that GPL software isn't licensed. It is free to download and use at your leasure. You can of course not redistribute it, but that is because of copyright law, not because of GPL.

GPL does give you the possibility to make a deal (contract) that gives you some rights of redistribution and modification. This deal is a mutually beneficial contract where both parties gain something.

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[brunascle]

if it was done for some legitimate reason other than greed, it would be different. if, for example, it was DX10 only and/or a PIA to port to XP, that would be understandable. unfortunate, but understandable. that's not the case here.

the only reason it's vista only is because MS want to sell more copies of vista, which has nothing to do with the game. that's despicable. they may have the right to do so, but we have the right to complain.

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[Drachemorder]

Either you respect other's licenses, or do not request that anyone request yours. To do otherwise is to be hippicritical.

I don't really care if Microsoft, or anyone else, respects the GPL or not. I think you only need a license if you intend to distribute software, not if you just plan to use it. The act of buying a copy of a piece of software gives me all the rights I need to use it. I think it's perfectly consistent to ignore shrinkwrap licenses while upholding the GPL, because they serve two different purposes. They cover two different actions. There's nothing inconsistent with treating them differently.

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[notasheep]

Microsoft is morally wrong here? Microsoft has a game they've released for use on Vista. Maybe they've put in some installation restrictions to help push Vista sales, or maybe they've done it to reduce their support overhead. (Multiple platforms with different graphics engines = more support costs.) In either case, what is unjust about their actions? Are they violating your constitutional right to play Halo 2 on any Windows platform you choose?

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[fbjon]

Copyright extends to derivatives of works. Are you saying that the GPL extends further than this?

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[75th Trombone]

My books aren't licensed,

The text in them is, via copyright law.

my CDs aren't licensed,

The music on them is, via copyright law.

my shoes sure as hell aren't licensed.

The design of them is, via copyright law.

And the physical media you buy software on isn't licensed, but the software itself is, via copyright law.

You do not have the right to other people's creations on your own terms.

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[PitaBred]

Repeat after me: The GPL is not a usage license, it's a redistribution license. Completely different balls of wax. Anyway, why would a company with the legal coffers to invalidate an EULA actually go to invalidate an EULA that it doesn't read or pay attention to? No one tries to enforce it except against small-time users, so there's no reason to invalidate one. EULA's being "solid" benefits all the big players to be able to make a one-sided contract, and the little players don't have enough clout to fight it, so it's in their best interests to not challenge clickwrap usage licenses.

I could modify GPL code substantally (enough that copyright would protect my work) and yet still be under the licnese of the GPL.

You could modify the code as much as you wanted, and you could use it for whatever you wanted, but you just couldn't redistribute it unless you agreed to the GPL. The GPL only covers copies of the software you distribute, not how you modify it or use is personally.

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is straight out of command and control methodologies. We will do whatever we want whether or not you say it's OK.

There are hundreds of thousands of people out there that refuse to be told what to do, and will do as they please. They will take your software by all means necessary and run it in whatever manner they see fit. Any of the worthwhile open source programs would be stolen too, if they had a price tag.

If you want to make more hurdles with crappy DRM and other hairbrained protection schemes ( remember dongles, floppy drive grinding and keycode lookups?) they will be defeated, and are even more of a motivator because you're telling people there is something they CANNOT do. Do not place a forbidden fruit in front of an angry mob.

Developers, spend your efforts on making better products than your paranoid delusions of fucking with us because you think everyone is out to steal from you.

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[plague3106]

I think you only need a license if you intend to distribute software, not if you just plan to use it. The act of buying a copy of a piece of software gives me all the rights I need to use it.

However when you choose to buy a product that DOES come with a license, you choose to abide by that contract as well. There are plenty of products sold with stipulations to them and they are upheld all the time. For example, before Polar will sell you watches for resale, you must agree not to sell them below a particular price.

In this case, the contract is with the end user. Just because you don't like it doesn't give you any legal basis to ignore it. Nor do you have any moral ground to dictate to someone else how they should sell their product.

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[PitaBred]

You can buy my corn, but you can't make cornbread with it. You can buy my CD, but you can't listen to it in anything other than a Sony player. You can buy my movie, but you have to watch it in 5.1 surround sound, otherwise you're in breach of the EULA. Man, we're headed to utopia with this kind of thinking!

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[Anonymous Coward]

" . . . when you choose to buy a product that DOES come with a license, you choose to abide by that contract . . ."

IANAL, but a license is not a contract.

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[plague3106]

Repeat after me: The GPL is not a usage license, it's a redistribution license. Completely different balls of wax.

Yet they both are licenses; what they do is irrelevent.

Anyway, why would a company with the legal coffers to invalidate an EULA actually go to invalidate an EULA that it doesn't read or pay attention to? No one tries to enforce it except against small-time users, so there's no reason to invalidate one. EULA's being "solid" benefits all the big players to be able to make a one-sided contract, and the little players don't have enough clout to fight it, so it's in their best interests to not challenge clickwrap usage licenses.

The little players could instead choose software which is not licensed in a way they disapprove of. What gives them a right to decide to use it and simply ignore the contract they entered into?

GM could probably challenge software licenses, I'm sure they have enough money to, and it doesn't affect their bottom line if a shink wrap license is declared invalid.

You could modify the code as much as you wanted, and you could use it for whatever you wanted, but you just couldn't redistribute it unless you agreed to the GPL. The GPL only covers copies of the software you distribute, not how you modify it or use is personally.

As a developer though I likely would want to redistribute my work. Are the rights of a user of a piece of software more important than the rights of the person that created the software? That seems to be what is being suggested.

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[General Wesc]

IANAL, but the law is not morality. A promise is a promise, whether it's a legally enforced contract or a legally ignored license. When you agree to a license, you're making a promise. If it's a sucky promise you don't want to make, don't make it.

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[Anonymous Coward]

because you think everyone is out to steal from you. Uh, at least insofar as this (Slashdot) crowd is concerned, I don't think feeling that way is either paranoid or delusional.

Face it, from the posts here, it's pretty obvious that >90% of the ppl writing here support FOSS primarily because of the Free part..

-AC

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[PitaBred]

It's completely relevant. One license is based in copyright law, which is well vetted in the courts, and the other is an arbitrary restriction on usage that's completely new as of software (no one says you can only use BrandX hammers to use BrandX hammers, because there's actual competition in those markets).

It's even dubious that they've entered into a "contract". A contract has to have both parties agree to it with full knowledge of what it entails. It's completely unreasonable to expect every person who uses software to be able to decipher the legalese of an EULA, or to hire a lawyer to decipher it, and tell them how they can expect to use the software. The thing is, with places like GM and such, they could challenge software licenses, and might even win. But they have legal departments to decipher the EULA's, and make sure they're in compliance, so it's not worth their while to try to fight one. It's only worth it to the people who are actually affected by them, the smaller companies and individuals who get sued for not even violating the EULA. It's a control tactic that enables unfair business practices and stifles competition.

And as a developer, you have every right to distribute your work. But you do NOT have the right to tell people what to do with it, other than tell them that they can't make more copies (copyright, natch). If you don't want your software used for military purposes, don't sell it to the military. But if you DO sell it to the military, what gives YOU the right to tell them "You can only use this on non-combat systems"?

The most valid analogy I can think of: I own ALL the houses that you could buy. The ones that fit your budget, lifestyle and location (it solves a problem you have), and I'm willing to sell one to you. The catch is, if you buy one of my houses, you have to agree to not use it on Thursdays, and always have classical music playing at 50dB or louder, 24 hours a day. Seems fair, right? I get to dictate how you use what you buy from me, it's all there in the license/contract. It's either that, or just don't buy it. Your car has plenty of room for you to live in. Catching on yet?

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[MeanderingMind]

Yet they both are licenses; what they do is irrelevent.

A driver's license is also a license, as is a gun license, a marriage license etc. Claiming what they do is irrelevant is, at best, a poor attempt to dodge a valid point.

As another example, two objects can both be machines and have completely different purposes. One is a mechanical toothbrush, and one is a supercollider. Barring extremely vague and largely useless statements about machines, disregarding what the machines actually do is silly when discussing them.

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[Anonymous Coward]

We're talking EULA, not copyright. Completely different.

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[Steve525]

For example, before Polar will sell you watches for resale, you must agree not to sell them below a particular price.

Uhm, I find this hard to believe. At least, if I, as a consumer, buy a watch, there's no way they can keep me from selling it at any price I wish. The same is also true of books - it's the right of first sale.

Oh, you were talking about retail sellers. There things are more complicated, but you're comparing apples and oranges. A retailer may have to sign contracts to get products at wholesale prices. No such restrictions can be placed on consumers buying retail.

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[Anonymous Coward]

Good old Razor 1911... Keeping the scene true to its ways.

Greetz to all the other groups who are fighting for freedom on the last battlefield.

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[Danse]

IANAL, but the law is not morality. A promise is a promise, whether it's a legally enforced contract or a legally ignored license. When you agree to a license, you're making a promise. If it's a sucky promise you don't want to make, don't make it.

Just because the software comes with a EULA doesn't mean I'm promising anything. I don't care what their intentions are. I bought a piece of software, and I'll use it however I like within the bounds of copyright law. I'm not agreeing to anything else.

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[Sancho]

Nah, it's more like a cereal maker saying that you can only eat their product out of a certain bowl, and with a certain spoon, and with a certain brand of milk.

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[Sancho]

There are more rights than just Constitutional ones.

Generally speaking, consumers have a right to use a product they buy. They have a right to use it as they see fit. If I buy a chair, I have the right to put my TV on it--the chair builder does not have a right to say that the only way I can use it is for sitting. Or, for an analogy closer to the issue at hand, they can't say that I can only sit in it if I'm sitting at their tables, too. Or the newest model of their tables. If I buy a product, I should be able to do whatever I want with it.

If they can manage to make the tables and chairs physically incompatible in some way, I should have the right to modify either the table or the chairs in order to make them work. Even in (old) copyright law, this was the case. You could reverse engineer software for the purposes of compatibility. However I'm fairly certain that Microsoft will whip-out a DMCA violation and send it to anyone found distributing this modification, and that's where the analogies fork. I can distribute instructions on how to modify a piece of furniture, even if the manufacturer doesn't want me to. I'm fairly certain that if they tried to stop me, they'd be laughed out of court. Software, however, gets absurd special considerations. Maybe Microsoft will surprise me, and this hack will be 'allowed.' I'd certainly hate to pass judgement unfairly. But if I were a gambling man, I know which side of this coin toss I'd put money on.

The nice thing for Microsoft to do (in this case) would be to only support Vista, but not actively prevent the game from installing and running on older systems. They get a support call? First question should be which version of Windows you're running, and then say that unless you're running Vista, you don't get support. They didn't do this, though. They decided to actively prevent the game from running, even though it is quite capable of working with XP.

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[75th Trombone]

Not completely different. If a Microsoft EULA has clout, it's only because copyright law gives Microsoft the right to exert that clout. All EULAs are themselves "via copyright law."

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[Anonymous Coward]

they may have the right to do so, but we have the right to complain.

They may not even have that. Couldn't this artificial limitation be considered a form of bundling?

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[Quantam]

That is a beautiful piece of logic you have there. If you violate the terms of MS' license, you're okay, because they were artificial and arbitrary restrictions, anyway. If you violate the GPL's equally artificial and arbitrary limitations, you're a pirate and a lawbreaker, because you've violated the terms of the license. See how absurd it is?

Now, I'm a programmer. I've recently been working on releasing a couple of my programs as open source, so I've had to take a good look at the various licenses, and see which one is closest to my ideals. Just about anything but the BSD license (and arguably even that, though that would almost be splitting hairs) is indistinguishable from DRM, save for one exception: most open-source licenses attempt to achieve maximal collective benefit (rights), while DRM seeks nothing more than to maximize the benefit (profit) of the creators. That is, DRM and source licenses both prevent you from doing things with the code/media that you would otherwise be able to do; if you think differently, you surely have given up the term "DRM" in favor of "consumer enablement" (which it actually looks like you have, from your post).

The CDDL, the license closest to my ideals, is based on a single restriction: that if you modify the open code, you have to keep the CDDL for your changes, keeping the work open; so long as this rule is followed, you can use the code in any way, in any project. This is an arbitrary restriction on the ability of other people to use my code. However, I justify this restriction with the reasoning that I want as many people as possible to be able to make use of my code (and thus any advances to it). I'm sacrificing the ability of individuals to use my code in an unrestricted manner for the calculated benefit of the whole programming community.

While the GPL does this as well, it does something else that I consider uselessly arbitrary (that is, it limits the freedom of users without contributing significantly to the common good) and, for that reason, particularly obnoxious. Anyone who's read the GPL knows what I'm referring to: the requirement that any project which so much as uses GPL code must itself be GPL in its entirety. This is a political rather than practical requirement: the GPL serves to promote free software, and will restrict the freedom of users to attempt to increase the amount of free code available in total. I'd imagine the reasoning is that if all software were free and open, the world would be a better place; but I can't really agree with the sentiment or the means used to achieve it. The LGPL is better, but not as close as CDDL to my ideals (if you want more info on the topic, I wrote a several-page justification of my choice of license on my blog).

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[toddestan]

What the license grants you is irrelevent. Either you respect other's licenses, or do not request that anyone request yours. To do otherwise is to be hippicritical.

Well, look at it this way, you may decide that licenses like EULAs and the GPL are bogus, but you're still going to respect copyright law. By exercising your rights under copyright law, you would be breaking Microsoft's EULA but not violating the GPL in any manner.

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[thedarknite]

I think it's more that software licensing states that you can only use the product in a particular fashion. If I've purchased something then I should have the right to use it how I want.

If I seperate my book into indivual chapters, so that I can carry a section around in my pocket then I'm free to do so, because there are no restrictions beyond normal copyright

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[Dun Malg]

A software maker has a right to determine how the consumer uses the product. In the absence of a legal, signed contract, no they don't.

There are no laws against this at the moment Doctrine of first sale. In the absence of a legal, signed contract, you can use their software to wipe your ass and there's nothing they can do about it.

To use one of your hated analogies: There is no law against rubbing garbage on yourself. However, what's so bad about people wearing closepins on their noses when they want to visit you? What the heck are you talking about?

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[shutdown -p now]

You do not have the right to other people's creations on your own terms.

You do not have the right to redistribute other people's creations on your own terms.
There, fixed that for you.
And, obviously, cracking a game you own has nothing to do with distribution, and thus with copyright. It may be a violation of EULA though - you know, that text that says "by using this software, you agree not to ...". Note that it specifically has to spell out those restrictions, since they are above what copyright governs. Whether EULAs are enforceable, depends on your country. Whether you have a moral right to break one even where it's illegal is certainly not clear-cut either.

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[shutdown -p now]

GPL is not an EULA. It only applies to distribution, not use.

EULAs apply to any use of the product. That's what makes them so despicable.

This is also why EULAs have no legal meaning in many jurisdictions, while GPL is enforceable everywhere there are copyright laws. EULAs have nothing to do with copyright. You can perfectly well respect copyright, but not EULAs.

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[shutdown -p now]

Being subject to copyright does not exclude the licensing of software. The GPL does go beyond copyright through, because even a substansial rewrite or addition of functionality to code ends up being covered by the license. I could modify GPL code substantally (enough that copyright would protect my work) and yet still be under the licnese of the GPL.

Wrong. You can modify the code all you want, and as long as you don't distribute it, the GPL doesn't apply. When you attempt to distribute it, you're effectively trying to distribute a "derived work" (as defined by the copyright law in your jurisdiction, not the GPL), and by doing so without the original author's permission, you're breaking the copyright. The GPL gives you explicit permission to redistribute derived works subject to certain conditions. It only kicks in when copyright law would otherwise forbid you to do something.

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[shutdown -p now]

They seem pretty certain to me, being as no one has ever challenged one. You'd think by now some company would take it all the way, get the legality of them thrown out and now be able to use as many copies of the software they choose.

The legality of them was thrown out in some of the cases, though not in the others. There's no definite decision, though, it all depends on the specific state/country, and the license in question.

Anyway, even if the EULA is unenforceable, it doesn't let one "use as many copies of the software they choose". For that, those copies would first have to be made - and that's what the copyright restricts you from doing. The restrictions in the EULA are only required for such silliness as e.g. "this software is only licensed to be used on servers with 4 CPUs max", or, "you're not allowed to reverse-engineer this". In fact, in some countries the right to perform reverse-engineering is explicitly written into the law, and takes precedence even if EULA is deemed valid.

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[nosferatu1001]

That is a beautiful piece of logic you have there. If you violate the terms of MS' license, you're okay, because they were artificial and arbitrary restrictions, anyway. If you violate the GPL's equally artificial and arbitrary limitations, you're a pirate and a lawbreaker, because you've violated the terms of the license. See how absurd it is?

Erm, so you have never read the GPL?

The GPL has no artificial restrictions - it actually removes some of the restrictions copyright law puts in place in return for certain behvaiour on your part. It makes you free to distribute copies when otherwise you would not have been able to.

You can even argue that as the right to copy is the natural order, and any restrictions are therefore artificial, the GPL makes things less, not more, artificial.

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[plague3106]

It's completely relevant. One license is based in copyright law, which is well vetted in the courts, and the other is an arbitrary restriction on usage that's completely new as of software (no one says you can only use BrandX hammers to use BrandX hammers, because there's actual competition in those markets).

All contracts are arbitrary. There's plenty of competition for video games, yet they all have license agreements. As far as being completely new, you're wrong. Software licenses have been around almsot as long as software. There also is precident for limits on what may be done with a purchased item, although its usually between a reseller and manufacterer. However consider the discount on phones you get, where if you cancel the phone you suddenly owe the remainder of the full price on it... a similar contract.

It's even dubious that they've entered into a "contract". A contract has to have both parties agree to it with full knowledge of what it entails. It's completely unreasonable to expect every person who uses software to be able to decipher the legalese of an EULA, or to hire a lawyer to decipher it, and tell them how they can expect to use the software. The thing is, with places like GM and such, they could challenge software licenses, and might even win. But they have legal departments to decipher the EULA's, and make sure they're in compliance, so it's not worth their while to try to fight one. It's only worth it to the people who are actually affected by them, the smaller companies and individuals who get sued for not even violating the EULA. It's a control tactic that enables unfair business practices and stifles competition.

It seems pretty clear to me they've entered into a contract. The owner is presented with the contract when the software starts, sometimes its even in the box. If you enter into a contract you don't understand, that's your own fault really. You should always consulate an attorny if you aren't sure... failure to do so does not release you from the contract.

As far as your link goes, it would not be possible for him to test that his hack worked without installing the Express edition.

And as a developer, you have every right to distribute your work. But you do NOT have the right to tell people what to do with it, other than tell them that they can't make more copies (copyright, natch). If you don't want your software used for military purposes, don't sell it to the military. But if you DO sell it to the military, what gives YOU the right to tell them "You can only use this on non-combat systems"?

I certainly can dictate what happens; if you don't like my terms don't use my software. If the military wants to use my software that I am selling them, I can attach any conditions I want. If they don't like it they can go somewhere else and I would refund there money. Its called a contract. Its very clear what each party is expected to do or not do, and there's a way to back out of it completely.

You do realize that businesses enter into these kinds of agreements all the time right? Walmart becomes the exclusive distributor of something, my gym cannot sell Polar watches less than a price dictated to them by Polar itself, the list is endless.

The most valid analogy I can think of: I own ALL the houses that you could buy. The ones that fit your budget, lifestyle and location (it solves a problem you have), and I'm willing to sell one to you. The catch is, if you buy one of my houses, you have to agree to not use it on Thursdays, and always have classical music playing at 50dB or louder, 24 hours a day. Seems fair, right? I get to dictate how you use what you buy from me, it's all there in the license/contract. It's either that, or just don't buy it. Your car has plenty of room for you to live in. Catching on yet?

Back to useless analogies and strawmen I see... I guess you really don't have an argument. It starts off invalid; there is no class of product which is exclusive to one vendor which you must have.

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[plague3106]

A driver's license is also a license, as is a gun license, a marriage license etc. Claiming what they do is irrelevant is, at best, a poor attempt to dodge a valid point.

There's nothing to dodge; all of those things are contracts you enter into willingly and if you don't like the terms you don't enter into them.

As another example, two objects can both be machines and have completely different purposes. One is a mechanical toothbrush, and one is a supercollider. Barring extremely vague and largely useless statements about machines, disregarding what the machines actually do is silly when discussing them.

Another crap analogy. Learn to keep on topic. A machine is not a contract, and any comparison between the two in this discussion is just, well, plain retarded.

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[plague3106]

Not apple to oranges at all; in both cases a party is buying a product, and as part of that the product comes with a contract to which you must agree, or return / refuse the product.

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[MeanderingMind]

You're still missing two fundamental points.

1. The purpose of a license is not irrelevant.
2. A license is not a contract. They are similar, but not the same. Consider the following quote by Eglen Moben.

The word 'license' has, and has had for hundreds of years, a specific technical meaning in the law of property. A license is a unilateral permission to use someone else's property. The traditional example given in the first-year law school Property course is an invitation to come to dinner at my house. If, when you cross my threshold, I sue you for trespass, you plead my 'license,' that is, my unilateral permission to enter on and use my property.

A contract, on the other hand, is an exchange of obligations, either of promises for promises or of promises of future performance for present performance or payment. The idea that 'licenses' to use patents or copyrights must be contracts is an artifact of twentieth-century practice, in which licensors offered an exchange of promises with users: 'We will give you a copy of our copyrighted work,' in essence, 'if you pay us and promise to enter into certain obligations concerning the work.' With respect to software, those obligations by users include promises not to decompile or reverse-engineer the software, and not to transfer the software.

Re:Way to go Falling Leaf...

[mwvdlee]

If you crack the software you own all by yourself, it's fair use. If you download a cracked version or download a crack patch or follow instructions given to you or aks somebody to come over and do it for you... you're breaking copyright.

Where's The Justice Department?

[bc90021]

Doesn't falsely indicating that games only run on their new OS violate the terms of their agreement with the DOJ?

Re:Where's The Justice Department?

[TheGreatHegemon]

There's still no full functionality(Windows Live and Achievements), so we can't disprove Microsoft's claims entirely. Granted, I couldn't imagine a reason under the sun for it, but the Justice Dept. may have less knowledge in technology, and Microsoft has so many more brains to work out an excuse.

Re:Where's The Justice Department?

[Cerberus7]

The games don't run on their new OS, by design. Even if it's something as simple as "check if OSVER=Vista" or what have you, that means the game won't run on anything but Vista. It's not illegal, it's just a load of crap, as those who are working against said crap are proving.

Re:Where's The Justice Department?

[k1e0x]

Doesn't falsely indicating that games only run on their new OS violate the terms of their agreement with the DOJ? I hope so.. but Microsoft DOES now make regulare campaign contrubutions..

Re:Where's The Justice Department?

[ciroknight]

"Don't like it? Don't buy it"

What a wonderful response. I guess you completely missed the fact that about 85-90% of computers that ship have Windows pre-installed; you can't choose NOT to buy it, and you can't get a refund for it without jumping through a million hoops (or in the case of Toshiba laptops, there's a sticker on the outside that says "You will not receive a rebate for Windows, period."

So yeah, when the day comes that computer companies decouple Windows from their machines, I'd personally consider not running to the Justice Department every time they fuck up their software in a way to lock users in or make it more difficult for users to use something else. But on that day we'll also see Hell hit absolute zero, pigs will start designing interstellar spacecraft, etc.

Re:Where's The Justice Department?

[morgan_greywolf]

I'm sure iLife can also run on MacOS 9 *technically* I'm sure it can't. Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X are completely different architectures, much like the difference between Windows 98 and Windows XP.

Gee, I wish that people could once for all underatand that running an OS or a game is NOT A HUMAN RIGHT, but a contract between parts. That depends on your viewpoint, I guess. No, it's not a human right, but if there's no technical limitation of why an application or game can't run on a given operating system, then the only reason to put an artificial limitation in there is to sell new software.

Unfortunately, people cannot effectively 'don't buy it' when it comes to Windows. For many, there is no other alternative, and it has nothing to do with the quality of the product.

Re:Where's The Justice Department?

[HTH NE1]

I've done similar things on another platform to get Final Cut Pro to run on a Blue & White G3 upgraded with a G4 processor. The installer refused to install on a system that had no AGP slots, and if the application got installed anyway, it also refused to run by the same condition. A little patch here and a plist edit there and it ran fine. The occasional software update also required reapplication of the plist edit.

Oh, I had another system that could run it, but I needed more internal disk storage than that platform was capable of providing.

I now have a Mac Pro and wonder if this means Halo 2 will run on my Mac under Parallels running XP. (Yeah, I know Parallels can run Vista.)

Re:Where's The Justice Department?

[Anonymous Coward]

No but it does constitute false advertising... Someone with an XP machine should sue the pants off of Microsoft for that.

Re:Where's The Justice Department?

[shrubya]

You ignore one small detail: Microsoft is a convicted criminal monopolist. They are not allowed to (among other things) leverage their OS dominance into coercing people or companies to buy other MS products. This example is the other way around (using DX10 games to push Vista sales) but any such behavior on Microsoft's part is questionable under their legal status.

Re:Where's The Justice Department?

[dharbee]

"you can't choose NOT to buy it"

Why can't you choose not to buy the game?

Your point is stupid. (and if you wanted to choose not to buy the OS, there's a company called Apple...)

Re:Where's The Justice Department?

[plague3106]

I'm not sure what your point is. In this case, the item in question that the OP suggests you not buy is a game, not an OS. Cry all you want, but you can't claim MS is using its monopoly in games to further leverage its monopoly on OSes, because MS doesn't have a monopoly on games.

No one 'fucked up' their software; they designed a system and a new game chose to use said system. Nothing that worked on XP now breaks on XP because of Vista or the game.

Re:Where's The Justice Department?

[drinkypoo]

I'm sure it can't. Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X are completely different architectures, much like the difference between Windows 98 and Windows XP.

To be fair, the major missing item is Coreimage. The port of Safari to windows implies that there is some portability to the majority of what you need to run OSX programs. If they made a portable coreimage toolkit (they may have already for all I know) then it might not be impossible to port the whole suite.

Unfortunately, people cannot effectively 'don't buy it' when it comes to Windows. For many, there is no other alternative, and it has nothing to do with the quality of the product.

To be fair though, those people are few and far between. I think that the big lack is information; most of them think that Linux won't do what they need when in fact it will.

Re:Where's The Justice Department?

[El Lobo]

There's nothing wrong with the quality of Windows this days but this is another discussion.

Everybody has their right as a producer of software to dictate their own rules. MacOSX can run on Intel. Apple wants it to run on Apple hardware only. That's perfect and they have the righ. And I don't see many people bitching about it.

MS wants to produce games for Vista only and that's underatable from a marlketing point of view. It's their right and has nothing to do with the DOJ as the grandparent cried.

Limitations exist in software, political and technical limitations. Hell , even the GPL is a very limiting licence about how I can use the source. Deal with it: software is a CONTRACT between parts. Don't want to use Microsoft Software? Well, choose your poison: Apple (and even MORE limiting platform, license wise, or any Linuzzzz favour: it's a contract and you CANNOT use Linuzzz as you wish: there are limits as well.

Re:Where's The Justice Department?

[Chibi Merrow]

MS wants to produce games for Vista only and that's underatable from a marlketing point of view. It's their right and has nothing to do with the DOJ as the grandparent cried.

And as someone else already pointed out, the rules change when you're a monopoly. Especially a criminal one.

Re:Where's The Justice Department?

[schnipschnap]

They very well can say that it won't work on non-Vista, and of course they mean "out of the box." Does it constitute false advertising if Nintendo writes "only for GBA" on their packaging? I mean, you can play it via an emulator, can't you? Also, Windows and Linux have different architectures, and you can still just layer most of the API calls to windows over, sometimes a couple of, API calls in linux, via wine. So is it false advertising if the packaging on an ancient game says "For Windows 98 only"?

Re:Where's The Justice Department?

[morgan_greywolf]

To be fair, the major missing item is Coreimage. Yeah, but that's different. In this case, the same set of binaries will run on XP or Vista. In Apple's case, a port would actually be required as Mac OS X binaries do not and cannot run on Mac OS 9 for lots of good technical reasons. IOW, whether iLife could be ported to Mac OS 9 or not is a separate question from whether or not it could run on Mac OS 9.

To be fair though, those people are few and far between. I think that the big lack is information; most of them think that Linux won't do what they need when in fact it will. Well, this is a gaming-related article. For most gamers, Linux won't do as it simply won't run a lot of games, even if you take in to account Cedega. Furthermore, many people are forced to use Windows by corporate fiat -- granted, the sometimes that corporate fiat is often for good reason.

Re:Where's The Justice Department?

[morgan_greywolf]

And I don't see many people bitching about it. Really? Because I happen to be one of the people bitching about that the loudest. However, as I said before, the rules do change when you're a monopolist.

Re:Where's The Justice Department?

[plague3106]

I'm sure it can't. Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X are completely different architectures, much like the difference between Windows 98 and Windows XP.

Yet oddly WinXP can run programs designed for Win98.

That depends on your viewpoint, I guess. No, it's not a human right, but if there's no technical limitation of why an application or game can't run on a given operating system, then the only reason to put an artificial limitation in there is to sell new software.

So what exactly is wrong with the artificial limiation? If they don't want to target WinXP they have no obligation to do so, just as they are not obligated to target Linux or Mac. There's no monopoly issue here either, since MS doesn't have a monopoly on PC games.

Unfortunately, people cannot effectively 'don't buy it' when it comes to Windows. For many, there is no other alternative, and it has nothing to do with the quality of the product.

You're full of it. Even Dell will sell you a box without Windows. The don't buy it argument is for the game, in case you're not thinking straight. No one is forced to buy Halo 2 or the other game.

If you don't like the limits of the games' licenses, then don't buy the games.

Re:Where's The Justice Department?

[plague3106]

So what? They have not been found to have a monopoly making PC games. They are not using the OS to force people to buy the game... they are attempting to use the game to get people to buy the OS. There's nothing questionable about the legality of this.

Re:Where's The Justice Department?

[NiceGeek]

"I'm sure it can't. Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X are completely different architectures, much like the difference between Windows 98 and Windows XP.

Yet oddly WinXP can run programs designed for Win98."

Well, if you want to get technical - OS X can run OS 9 software - to a degree. Moreso if OS X is running on a PowerPC chip rather than Intel.

Re:Where's The Justice Department?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ofcourse it is if at the time the games worked with Win95 as well. It is all about the timing really. Things coming after you can claim that at the time it was true but for things coming before you better have all your ducks in a row so to speak.

Re:Where's The Justice Department?

[kshksh]

If you don't like the limits of the games' licenses, then don't buy the games.

You mean that game license you can only accept after purchasing the game? Not legal over here.

Re:Where's The Justice Department?

[dannannan]

I was a developer for one of the cracked games in the article. I would really have enjoyed making this game available for XP and not just Vista. Believe me, it would have taken longer to finish because the test matrix would have been so much bigger, but it's so frustrating to finish a game that none of your friends can even play because they don't have the right OS and won't be getting it anytime soon. That's the thing though, at MSFT you have to drink the koolaid.

I have a hard time believing that using these games to leverage Vista was illegal. Stupid and annoying maybe, but not illegal. Believe me, us devs who actually *cared* about the game argued against this sort of product hobbling on a regular basis. Requirements like this get thrown at you constantly. If it was actually illegal we would have played that card for sure.

Re:Where's The Justice Department?

[bdjacobson]

"you can't choose NOT to buy it"

Why can't you choose not to buy the game?

Your point is stupid. (and if you wanted to choose not to buy the OS, there's a company called Apple...) I always laugh when people say "Just boycott them, don't buy it, then when enough people do it they'll have to change and all will be ok." As if that's going to make it any better.

So basically you're giving them a free chance to run the show how they like, see if it works (most likely will), but if it doesn't they'll change, then you'll buy it? Simply not buying isn't enough, you have to remove the incentive to exploit in the first place. "Not buying" is passive; you have to do something that actively makes them stop. Otherwise every single time they can they'll just try it, because they can always change later and get your money if it doesn't work, i.e. they know you'll come running back to them.

Re:Where's The Justice Department?

[suv4x4]

You ignore one small detail: Microsoft is a convicted criminal monopolist.

Honestly this keep popping several times in each article about Microsoft, and each time I see this, I want to twist the neck of a little sweet kitty or shoot a baby seal.

Writing it in bold makes it that much worse.

We know they are "convicted monopolist". We're not ignoring it, we're not "forgetting it", we just realize it doesn't automatically apply to everything Microsoft ever does.

By locking games to Vista they aren't using their OS monopoly to improve their games business. they are just crippling their games in attempt to make us migrate. Stupid and transparent? Sure. Illegal? No.

Re:Where's The Justice Department?

[mrchaotica]

I'm sure iLife can also run on MacOS 9 *technically*.

Being made of Cocoa-based apps (except for iTunes), iLife could more easily be made to run on NeXTStep than it could on OS 9.

Re:Where's The Justice Department?

[fotbr]

Actually, you can use linux any way you want to. You're just limited as to how you redistribute it or your additions to it.

As long as your additions are in-house, you use it for whatever you want.

Same goes for the rest of the GPL software. You can use it any way you wish. The only time the license kicks in is if you distribute your modifications. Want to make your own bastardized version of gcc? Go ahead! No one gives a damn until you distribute it.

Re:Where's The Justice Department?

[Weedlekin]

"Yet oddly WinXP can run programs designed for Win98."

It can run _some_ programs designed for Win9X, not all of them, hence the fact that I still have to keep a Win98 machine around. Some stuff won't install at all, other stuff installs but crashes, and then there are the programs that run, but with garbled displays, sound faults, or occasional crashes, and all imaginable variations thereof. After exhausting all the possibilities of the compatibility wizard, I downloaded the Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit. It made some things work slightly better, but in most cases seems to have made little if any difference. This is on XP Pro SP2, but the same issues were there when it was "vanilla" several years ago, so it's not an SP2 thing.

Re:Where's The Justice Department?

[spottedkangaroo]

Not illegal in the legislated sense, but in the statutory sense.

The were in fact convicted, but it takes a lawyer to prove it, not cops to make an arrest.

Re:Where's The Justice Department?

[Photon Ghoul]

Where's the monopoly? Apple systems are a viable alternative, aren't they?

Re:Where's The Justice Department?

[plague3106]

The license which is advertised on the box you mean? Please let me know what country you are in so I know not to sell software there.

Re:Where's The Justice Department?

[kshksh]

It doesn't matter where it's advertised, either you have the complete EULA to read and agree with before buying, or it's not valid.

Spain, btw.

Re:Where's The Justice Department?

[dharbee]

"'Not buying' is passive; you have to do something that actively makes them stop."

I do, I buy from other people. That was the part of my post that read

"and if you wanted to choose not to buy the OS, there's a company called Apple...

It's ok, it was near the end, you probably missed it.

Re:Where's The Justice Department?

[GreyyGuy]

Yeah- 'cause Microsoft has such small pants that anyone with a beef could sue them successfully and make a dent in their cash box.

Re:Where's The Justice Department?

[anss123]

It would be false advertisement if MS said it ran on XP, because without the patch you'll only get an error dialog if you try to start it up - and even with the pach you miss out on some features. As it happens, I bought the game and I don't see what all the fuzz is about. The graphics are cartoony and overal looks worse than number 1. On top of that it runs worse then Quake 4, a game that look much better. Hell it looks worse than my retextured Resident Evil 4 install (thank God for modders), and that's practically a high rez PS2 game.

Re:Where's The Justice Department?

[moeinvt]

I agree that MS, and any other game company is well within their rights to sell the game with whatever platform/OS support they desire. If the game software actually requires Vista, so be it.

Are you also suggesting that the hackers who figured out a way to install and use this game on a different OS should not be allowed to do so? What laws govern this? Do you think such a prohibition depends entirely on the terms of the EULA? i.e. It's OK to make the game run on another OS as long as the EULA doesn't specifically state that you cannot?

A clause in a license agreement which states "You may only play this game if you have also purchased Windows Vista" should be illegal. If there are no technical limitations on playing this game on another OS, or if someone figures out how to overcome the limitations and run it on Windows '95, why should MS care? It can only serve to increase game sales. If they were a 3rd party game company, they would applaud the fact that somebody figured out a way to open up the market for their game without any additional expense to the company.

If MS wants to use their games to drive Vista sales, they should include a Vista upgrade with the game and charge an appropriate retail price.

Re:Where's The Justice Department?

[Tatsh]

I now have a Mac Pro and wonder if this means Halo 2 will run on my Mac under Parallels running XP. (Yeah, I know Parallels can run Vista.)
 
Good luck with that. From what I remember, Parallels gives you only a very basic emulated 3D card (can't remember the name). So far no VMs give you good enough 3D emulation :(

Run XP from Boot Camp and run Halo 2 there. It should work great.

Re:Where's The Justice Department?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Don't like Microsoft's policies? Buy a Mac!" - This is the sort of argument that completely misses the ENTIRE point. The issue at hand is tying (artificially) specific software to a particular OS, so that you do not in fact have a choice (if you want to run that software). Which people clearly do, otherwise nobody would care about this at all.

If Microsoft didn't officially support running certain titles in XP, but didn't go out of their way to render it impossible to run them IN XP, you wouldn't have this sort of scenario. The idea that an X-Box game released years ago is somehow "incapable" of running on anything less then their brand spankin' new OS is insulting. Refusing to add DX10 to XP? Equally insulting, and a bad idea in general. Forcing people to upgrade to play new titles when XP (which most machines have anyways) is capable of running them (or could be easily) is entirely a marketing ploy to sell more copies of Vista.

The average user or non-technical gamer probably doesn't want to play Shadowrun enough to warrant purchasing a new OS. Your 60 dollar investment just got MUCH bigger, and upgrading is never without it's little....hiccups. So all they've really done is cut off almost all of their potential customers. I won't be playing Shadowrun even on XP (for other reasons entirely), but I certainly applaud the work done that makes it possible.

And no, Apple is not a viable alternative to Microsoft's OSes. Unless you like not being able to run an immense library of titles that is.

Re:Where's The Justice Department?

[Photon Ghoul]

Yes, Apple is a viable alternative. Believe me, I am no Apple fanboy (kind of hate them actually) but in my office alone there are Windows boxes, Apple boxes and of course Linux servers. I'm not seeing a monopoly here.

Re:Where's The Justice Department?

[Photon Ghoul]

And forgot to mention the OpenBSD servers.

Re:Where's The Justice Department?

[RightSaidFred99]

First, god DAMN I wish you people would quity dramatically trotting out the "convicted criminal monopolist" and "convicted monopolist" monikers. It has no meaning, and it's not funny unless I can see the dramatic, meaningful expression your face takes on when you say it.

Second, any game MS sells only runs on MS OS's. Nobody's whined about it yet.

Re:Where's The Justice Department?

[syousef]

I'm a flight sim enthusiast who doesn't really do much in the way of 1st/3rd person shooters but I haven't bought FSX due to activation despite the fact that I love FS9. I'm watching the hobby go down the gurgler because its being heavily commercialized. This makes no sense for a hobby where the sheer volume of freeware has contributed so profoundly to its rise. Though there is some there's not so much freeware for FSX, and all the commercial software companies that produce addons have just about doubled their prices for FSX versions addsons compared to FS9 versions. It's pure greed and it will make the hobby unaffordable to all but an affluent few.

This "have to drink the koolaid" bullshit just means you've sold out and want everyone else to be okay with that as well as yourself. You could always choose to work elsewhere for a company that doesn't foist this shit on its customers. I simply don't buy the "Testing would be too hard" line at all and its sad that you need to justify your decision in this way.

Re:Where's The Justice Department?

[dannannan]

you've sold out and want everyone else to be okay with that as well as yourself

Nope. Internal accounting needs to do a better job of covering koolaid because it can be very cumbersome.

You could always choose to work elsewhere

I did.

"Testing would be too hard"

Misquote. I said it would have taken more time, which is true. And I would have happily done it if it had been allowed. As I said in my original post, I would have enjoyed making this game available on XP. It would have performed better on older hardware, too, due to the smaller OS footprint and more mature drivers.

Re:Where's The Justice Department?

[Alchemar]

That card was played a long time ago. Microsoft was sued because Win 3.1 checked to make sure that the operating system was MS-DOS. It was proved that just by changing a system variable to read MS-Dos instead of DR-Dos that it would install. Microsoft lost the case! It just takes a lot of time and a lot of money, so much that it would bankrupt most companies. It doesn't matter if something is illegal as long as no one can afford to challenge you.

Re:Where's The Justice Department?

[syousef]

You could always choose to work elsewhere
I did.

Congrats. Assuming your new employer isn't as bad as your last of course. Nothing makes one feel like a slave more than compromising principles or working in a job where you have no say. We all do eventually make some sacrifices though.

I don't expect you to agree or otherwise but I've noticed a very anti-customer shift in MS in the last handful of years. They were never brilliantly scrupulous but thi marked shift is worrisome.

Re:Where's The Justice Department?

[BillX]

So to make things less annoying for the 4dv4nc3d us3rz, you performed the version check via a simple string comparison with the string in plaintext inside the executable, right? ;-)

Fond memories back to the days of non- or pseudo-p2p programs, a la AudioGalaxy. Some of these would have a very...ambitious...upgrade cycle, with the latest version being required (via version-check) to connect to the network. Of course in many cases the codebase was already stable - maybe a couple minor bugs were fixed in the process, but mainly the forced upgrades occurred as the developer's array of "partners" (spyware/adware bundles) changed. Since the protocols/etc. hadn't changed, simply opening the executable in Wordpad (who needs a hex editor? The version string is known plaintext) and performing the "upgrade" yourself would buy a few more months' usage until the next batch of foistware was introduced.

Re:Where's The Justice Department?

[I'm Don Giovanni]

You ignore one small detail: Microsoft is a convicted criminal monopolist.

Microsoft has never even been charged with "criminal" activity, let alone "convicted" of such.
Slashdotters that continue to repeat your nonsense only do themselves discredit.
And your nonsense was actually modded "4, Informative". Since when is blatant falsehood "informative"? Truly pathetic groupthink in action.

Console Emulators

[Joebert]

I can play games from every videogame console I've ever had on a PC through emulation, why wouldn't I be able to play a game that runs on the same hardware ?

Re:Console Emulators

[dintech]

Well if Wine can cope with the quagmire that is XP apps then surely...

Re:Console Emulators

[Aladrin]

I take this to mean that you haven't purchased a console in quite a few years. DreamCast emulation is still spotty at best, and PS2 emulation is crap. Even PS1 emulation still has issues. GBA works great, but DS? Not a chance. Nor PSP.

As for "why wouldn't I be able to play a game that runs on the same hardware", take a look at Wine. At best, playing Windows games in Linux is slower and glitchy. At worst, impossible. They're still making great strides at it, but they aren't there yet.

Re:Console Emulators

[Hatta]

Indeed! You can play Shadowrun under XP or Linux today if you wish.

Re:Console Emulators

[PenisLands]

Not to mention the (pretty much) same OS!

Re:Console Emulators

[Sparr0]

At best, playing Windows games in Linux is faster(1) and more stable(2).

1) BF1942 and World of Warcraft are two examples. Linux' superior underlying architecture (disk access, memory management, filesystem stuff, etc) more than offsets the few percent performance loss in API call translation. Myself and many others get 5-10% higher framerates and lower load times in a number of Windows games when running them in Linux.

2) I love seeing in my debug log "The game would have crashed here in Windows.", and the game keeps running just fine in wine or cedega.

Plenty of Win95 and Win98 games don't run on anything newer than Win2000. Plenty of WinXP games don't work on Vista. Every week MORE Windows games work in Linux. Continue that trend long enough and Linux is going to have better Windows compatibility than Windows does.

Re:Console Emulators

[CockroachMan]

PS1 emulation is almost perfect, at least the most important games (Square RPGs, Silent Hill, Resident Evil, the big hits.. ) are 100% emulated. For the PS2, I don't think that there'll be a computer capable of emulating it for a some time, the graphics are already as good as on the console for some games, but the speed is still too slow to be playable. As for the DS, there are already some good emulators out there, but without a stylus.. there's no fun. And Wine is not an emulator, it's a port of the Windows API for Linux. Cedega can run a lot of games at the same speed as they would run at Windows.

Re:Console Emulators

[Anonymous Coward]

Incorrect:
Pcsx2 0.94+ running on a decent core2duo/athlon64x2 plays most ps2 games perfectly, and in upsampled resolution (like the ps3, only not crappy).
nullDC 1.0b running on even an older p4/athlon64 plays most dreamcast games perfectly, and in upsampled resolution.

Granted, the emulation scene for Xbox is basically non-existant (probably because everyone who wants to play Xbox games can still get a (used) cheap modded Xbox), and there are no good emulators for Gamecube (probably because of the platforms relative unpopularity).

Re:Console Emulators

[illumin8]

Every week MORE Windows games work in Linux. Continue that trend long enough and Linux is going to have better Windows compatibility than Windows does.

I like your enthusiasm, but think about it for a second: How could Linux ever support more Windows games than Windows?

Re:Console Emulators

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps he should have said that Linux will have better support than the newest version of Windows, which as he mentions above, has a difficult time playing some of the older games.

Re:Console Emulators

[Lennie]

Hmmm...

Newer Windows versions (like Vista) might not run old Windows games and wine might still be able to run them.

It wouldn't be a big surprise.

Re:Console Emulators

[rcastro0]

I like your enthusiasm, but think about it for a second: How could Linux ever support more Windows games than Windows?

Well, just this weekend I tried to install "Shogun Total War" (original CDs, bought off bargain bin) on my Windows XP machine, and it didn't run. I went online and found out that this title, which was released for Win95, had compatibility problems with WinXP. It didn't work with "Win95 compatibility mode", either. There's room for Linux to exceed WinXP/Vista.

Re:Console Emulators

[g4pengts]

There is a working DS emulator called no$gba. You need the bios for the DS for it to work though.

Re:Console Emulators

[Laurence0]

I think it's fair to say that he meant that one day Linux will support more Windows games than $Current-version-of-Windows. Or equally, more Windows games than any /individual/ version of Windows.

Re:Console Emulators

[Spokehedz]

Wrong on the first point, and yes that is a hoot to see in the term.

I get worse performance in WoW, and a lot of other people do as well. The forums are clogged with the posts of people who can't even play because of a driver/shader change that nVidia implemented in the new 100.xx version of drivers.

For the record, I have a 8800GTX and a 64-bit CPU. Not the highest-end equipment, but it's up there and I only get about 45FPS in Linux under Cedega. I get well over 100FPs in Windows. So, your argument of 'faster' is not exactly the truth, at least not in FPS in WoW.

Re:Console Emulators

[Anonymous Coward]

Who said anything about Cedega? We were talking about Wine here.

World of Warcraft runs great at 1680x1050 on my Linux installation with Wine. This is on a machine that looks like this: 1GHz Duron / 256MB of RAM / Geforce4.

Re:Console Emulators

[Anonymous Coward]

This is on a machine that looks like this: 1GHz Duron / 256MB of RAM / Geforce4.

But what do you look like?

Honestly. Go look in a mirror. Like what you see?

Re:Console Emulators

[Anonymous Coward]

But what do you look like?
Honestly. Go look in a mirror. Like what you see? Maybe you'd like to be more specific on what exactly are you trying to say?
- I've only tried the one week trial period of WoW, so no, I'm not a WoW player.
- Yes, I'm very happy with my computer built back in 2001. Still no real need to upgrade it, and I'm not even running a minimal desktop environment and/or window manager, but a full blown KDE.

Or are you trying to make fun of me being interested in hardware/software? In case you didn't notice, this is Slashdot.

this is trivial

[Kuciwalker]

All you do is remove the OS check in the exe. It's no more difficult than a no-cd. And because of that, it won't be possible for any DX10-only games.

(And as I understand it, you can't just port DX10 to XP - its functionality requires the new display driver model in Vista.)

Re:this is trivial

[LingNoi]

Interesting that you say that because the WINE project (www.winehq.org) intends the port DX10 APIs to run on Linux. I can't give you the link but they did mention that once they where able to get WINE DX10 working it wouldn't be difficult to get DX10 on windows xp working too since its only reassigning DX calls to openGL.

You also said exactly word for word what a friend of mine said about this same issue so either you're my friend (which I highly doubt since he doesn't post on slashdot) or the Microsoft BS spin machine is on full power.

Re:this is trivial

[TheThiefMaster]

You _could_ port DX10 to XP, but you'd have to emulate some of the functions (due to the previously mentioned change in driver model) and it would be randomly incompatible and randomly slower than the real thing. Maybe after a few years of dedicated work it would be usable, but by then XP would probably be just a memory.

Much like trying to add DX9 support to wine for linux.

Re:this is trivial

[Kuciwalker]

Er, my mistake. I meant that it shouldn't be possible to hack MS's DX10 to run on XP, but it's probably possible to write a port from the ground up. OTOH, if there are no XP DX10 drivers, there won't be much point.

Re:this is trivial

[H3lm3t]

As I understand it, they're working on that as well:

"As a fitting start to this blog, I'm proud to release a preview of our Alky compatibility libraries for Microsoft DirectX 10 enabled games. These libraries allow the use of DirectX 10 games on platforms other than Windows Vista. No longer will you have to upgrade your OS and video card(s) to play the latest games."

Re:this is trivial

[IWannaBeAnAC]

I think you're still missing the point. MS's argument about requiring a new driver model for DX10 is FUD. It may be the case that a redesigned driver model makes it easier to implement the DX10 API, but it isn't plausible that it would actually be necessary.

Wine are talking about writing an implementation of DX10 that works on top of OpenGL. This won't require DX10 drivers, it will only require OpenGL drivers. And they already exist. So, in not too long it might be possible to download a DX10 emulation layer for WinXP that 'just works', no extra drivers necessary.

Re:this is trivial

[Compholio]

I meant that it shouldn't be possible to hack MS's DX10 to run on XP, but it's probably possible to write a port from the ground up. OTOH, if there are no XP DX10 drivers, there won't be much point.

Direct3D 10 (the most important part of DirectX 10, XInput being the other significant change) is still built upon much of the technology used in Direct3D 9. So, a port of Direct3D 10 is within the grasp of the Wine project and would not require special drivers since it uses OpenGL for rendering.

WWN Issue #325:

Wine's DirectX implementation contains enough features that we can begin working on DirectX10. Part of the recent rewrite of DirectX moved 3D rendering code into a common library shared by all versions of Direct3D.

Re:this is trivial

[mpe]

You _could_ port DX10 to XP, but you'd have to emulate some of the functions (due to the previously mentioned change in driver model) and it would be randomly incompatible and randomly slower than the real thing.

If you did this you probably wouldn't need to emulate Vista's DRM "features" (except possibly as stubs) which would help with both speed and stability.

Re:this is trivial

[Kuciwalker]

Translating DX10 calls into OpenGL calls is going to come with a performance hit.

Re:this is trivial

[Anonymous Coward]

not as big as the "lol vista time to rape your system" performance hit

True Innovation

[kid_oliva]

It is good to hear that they have it working under XP, not that I would buy either game. I have Halo 2 for xbox and don't want to play Shadowrun after seeing my brother play it. I think Mitch needs to grow up and accept the fact the game he help develop isn't all that. It is just CS with magic, ooohhh, that is sooo original.

Re:True Innovation

[Baljet]

Not innovative, we've had various mods since quake. However it is bloody good fun to play, I think they could of made better use of the Shadowrun IP in the press releases and cut scenes, but as far as a multi player only FPS goes it's fairly solid and seem well balanced...

Re:True Innovation

[Floritard]

Funny, I had zero interest in this game until you said:

It is just CS with magic, I don't know why but that sounds awesome to me. Do the bots still yell the action's hot here, then shoot flames out of their eyes? Here's my CC#!

What about legal issues?

[forgotten_my_nick]

I am curious, if that the games are being shipped out as "Vista only" in an attempt force people to upgrade. Can they get in trouble for that if it is shown it is only being done to force consumers instead of giving a choice?

Re:What about legal issues?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are lots of software that will claim they only run on "x" OS. When you call Tech Support to ask it it can run on something else they will say "It may run/you can run it on "y" OS but we do not support that config, etc. "You are on your own if you run it on that. [etc. etc.]"

Re:What about legal issues?

[HolyCrapSCOsux]

There is always a choice. In this case the choices are simple:
1. Buy vista and play game.
or
2. Don't play game.

If option 2 causes such grief and anxiety that it may become life threatening and therefore is not a choice, then don't buy Vista and let natural selection run it's course.

Re:What about legal issues?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really. The same could be said for OS X, or any of the linux kernels.

Just because there isn't support for all of the OSes out there doesnt mean its no longer legal...

DirectX 9 Only

[IndieKid]

The hacks from the article only work because these games still support DirectX 9 and DirectX 9 is available under XP. I'm guessing it will be an entirely different challenge to get DirectX 10 running under XP, which will obviously be required when games no longer support DirectX 9.
Admittedly, it will be a while before we see games that are DirectX10-only, but I doubt Microsoft will be getting too worried yet.

Re:DirectX 9 Only

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone know for certain that DX10 is impossible to run on XP. I know MS says it is but I have the sneaky suspicion that it is another arbritrary wall that MS has placed, just as saying Halo 2/Shadowrun will not run on XP.

Re:DirectX 9 Only

[Kuciwalker]

As I understand it, DX10 relies on features of the new display driver model in Vista for its performance enhancements, so it's a real technological barrier. Not insurmountable (after all, they're both Turing-complete) but also not just an OS check.

Re:DirectX 9 Only

[Anonymous Coward]

I realize that's what MS is saying why it can't port DX10 to XP but was just wondering if that's the truth.

Re:DirectX 9 Only

[Anonymous Coward]

DirectX is Turing-complete? Are you an idiot or just trying to impress?

Re:DirectX 9 Only

[Vegeta99]

Yeah, awesome new technological features such as "tilt bits" or "grenade pins" to make sure your game crashes any time there's a voltage fluctuation that the hardware could, without the digital restrictions management, handle without problems!

Re:DirectX 9 Only

[Miseph]

Since we can't see the source and probably never will... the world may never know.

That said, the wine devs seem to have a fairly solid plan for (essentially) creating a DX10 emulation layer for OpenGL which has been described in detail several times in other comments. Maybe DX10 actually can't be ported, but if they can create such a workaround then it's really a moot point.

Re:DirectX 9 Only

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, they intend to use things like Cg for DirectX 10, not just OpenGL so it is a bit more complicated.

Test case done

[Bullfish]

All they now have to do is wait for some good games to come out for vista and they are all set to run them on XP. Really Halo 2 is a how many years old xbox game? And Shadowrun benefits from being vista-only how?

Good for the hackers. There is no compelling reason to move to vista from an existing set-up, and neither of these games would compel anyone either. Stupid that you have to go to these lengths to run software. Stupid that MS would not catch on to the notion that it takes more than gloss like aero to get people to upgrade.

Re:Test case done

[KatchooNJ]

I think you meant that this was good for the CRACKERS. :)

Sorry to be anal.

A couple of pirates for you

[Anonymous Coward]

Saw this on pocketinformat.com

http://www.pocketinformant.com/Forums/index.php?s= 7c5317a05ae84814ac6bb4ab9a83e2ea&showtopic=11368&s t=0&p=61900&#entry619003

cracker iFalleni
aka Fallen
aka F/\LLEN
aka Syrkine, Vladimir
aka Vladimir Syrkine
russian living in australia, undergrad at university of sydney (honor roll according to univ.)

mailto:vsyr4253@it.usyd.edu.au

pirate sertoli
aka Anderson Barbosa de Oliveira
aka Anderson Barbosa
aka Anderson B Oliveira
aka Andros
aka androabo
aka mike terr
aka Barbol
aka tttsmith
living in brazil

mailto:andersonbarbosa@cardiol.br

Know them? They have pirated your stuff. Google them to see what it is these two hoods do.

Re:A couple of pirates for you

[Bert64]

Actually, all we know for sure is that they added new features to it (the ability to run on xp) or fixed a bug depending how you look at it.
They could have done this with a legitimately purchased version.
I know a lot of people who buy legitimate games but run them all with nocd cracks.

Re:A couple of pirates for you

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, I'm one of them. I RIP it to disk in iso format for archival, install it to disk via daemon tools, register the game using my legit cdkey (also copied to a txt file with the ISO) and then get the no cdpatch to play on an ongoing basis. It annoys me to have to locate the media everytime I want to play. Lately I've only been playing games delivered via steam. Then I don't have to worry about it... I can redownload the game should anything happen to it. :) I don't have the organization skills or time time/patience to locate the CD/DVD media in my collection.

Re:A couple of pirates for you

[inteller]

well, I give them credit for PROVING that you don't NEED vista to run these games. It reminds me of the old windows media player hacks to get it to run on NT4 when MS said it would only run on 2000. If you can thwart planned obselesance I say DO IT!

DOJ

[NeoTerra]

Seems to me that it would.

I think between wiretapping, major league sports and election results, not to mention all of the RIAA cases, the DOJ is a little preoccupied. Microsoft may be taking an oppertunity to run with what they can, while they can. But they would *never* dare to do such a thing, would they?

Of course, there could be somewhere in the EULA that only "allows" you to play on Vista, or you're in breach with the contract. Also something they would *never* do.

Why do we put up with this?

[TheWoozle]

I don't think that these cracks are helping...if anything, they are enabling people to go ahead and buy a product that is intentionally broken.

If there was a carmaker that wired a lock on the gas cap that would only open when it read a coded pulse from gas pumps at Exxon stations, the carmaker would go out of business quickly.

Yet, when it comes to software, instead of people refusing to do business with a company like Microsoft they just buy the software anyway if they can get around the restrictions.

Consumers need to grow a pair if they want things to change.

Re:Why do we put up with this?

[Dunbal]

If there was a carmaker that wired a lock on the gas cap that would only open when it read a coded pulse from gas pumps at Exxon stations, the carmaker would go out of business quickly.

      Ahh, but if the biggest car-maker had signed an agreement with the biggest gasoline distributor(s) to do this, they'd end up putting everyone ELSE out of business. Get it?

      I don't agree with it, but it's sort of the whole point of the publishers and Microsoft's DRM (and other little schemes).

Re:Why do we put up with this?

[Vegeta99]

Well the car analogy works, but like most car analogies, it fails. If General Motors and Exxon decided to do that, everyone would start buying Fords, Toyotas, Hondas, or any of the other major brands of cars that are mature and work quite well and they would buy their gas from Shell, Texaco, Sunoco or any of the other of hundreds of oil companies.

Now, if you're the only game in town, you can effectively lock everyone else out by doing this. If you're not, you'll commit financial suicide.

Re:Why do we put up with this?

[Junior J. Junior III]

If there was a carmaker that wired a lock on the gas cap that would only open when it read a coded pulse from gas pumps at Exxon stations, the carmaker would go out of business quickly.

Yet, when it comes to software, instead of people refusing to do business with a company like Microsoft they just buy the software anyway if they can get around the restrictions.

Consumers need to grow a pair if they want things to change.

Sure, that's one way to look at it. But on the other hand, we shouldn't ever have to put our reliance on corporations to do the right thing for us. If you ask me, having the freedom to mod and hack a solution that works better for your purposes is far more valuable than having vendors that do the right thing.

I may not like that $Vendor has implemented something stupidly, and would prefer that they do things differently, but I love the fact that I have the capability to put things right if I want to, to my satisfaction, without having to convince them to change their policies. It's far more expedient to hack a product than to lobby for policy by writing letters and voting with my pocketbook; I pretty much do that, but in a more pragmatic sense -- I'll spend my money on the closest fit solution and then tailor to my exact fit where I can. It's far more realistic than building something from whole cloth to my exact specifications, or hoping that somewhere, some company will know exactly what I want and give it to me in the exact right way that respects my rights and serves my needs 100%.

Re:Why do we put up with this?

[Dunbal]

General Motors

      Teehee - actually, Toyota is the biggest car maker nowadays.

Re:Why do we put up with this?

[TheWoozle]

I would agree with you if this were about hardware...but this is software. Even worse, it's *entertainment*. If people don't even have the willpower to pass over *video games* that are crippled, what chance do we have to actually change things that matter?!

And it's not like we're looking for something that fits an unusual set of requirements...we're just asking them to stop lying to us and illegally tying their software to a certain OS.

Re:Why do we put up with this?

[blahplusplus]

"Consumers need to grow a pair if they want things to change."

You forget most consumers are bloody ignorant, time constrained beings. Not to mention that many of these people who use such software products are not technologically savvy, or it does not effect enough programs to effect them.

Your example with the carmaker and the wired lock on the gas caps is much more visible and a *constant* inconvenience which anyone can obviously recognize. In software you can't "see the defects" visibly, nor due the defects inhibit your use as harshly since if it doesn't effect you (as a user) then you most likely ignore it.

Re:Why do we put up with this?

[Dhalka226]

Yet, when it comes to software, instead of people refusing to do business with a company like Microsoft they just buy the software anyway if they can get around the restrictions.

Software is still black magic to most people. They don't understand much about it. It sounds completely reasonable to them to hear Microsoft and their game vendor tell them, "you need a newer version of Windows for that." Needing to upgrade for new features is something they've dealt with before. And to be technical, they're not really being outright lied to; playing these games without DX10 required a software hack that many are unlikely to know about.

Further, to many people Windows is still the only "game" in town. Apple is gaining a bit of traction with OS X, which is good, but anything beyond that gets you blank stares. I've literally had conversations that go: "I don't use Windows." "Oh, you have a Mac?" "No, I use linux." "What's that?" Plus the use of another OS only helps in situations like these if the game is available for that platform. Otherwise you're depending on VM tech which requires you to have a copy of the other OS anyway.

Put together, most people are clueless about the deception and most of the (average) people who understand the deception don't see that there are viable alternatives, which may or may not be true in their particular cases.

Yes, in general consumers need to grow a pair to make situations like these better, but this particular situation--involving a monopoly as it does, on top of the rest--is really something that needs to be handled in the courts or by the government.

Re:Why do we put up with this?

[vikstar]

Why I put up with this? This is why...

I had installed Linux on my laptop a few weeks ago and I had problems with drivers especially for my graphics card and webcam. After spending many hours chasing this up i finally got it working. Next I took care of getting my laptop's multimedia buttons to work, which took another few hours to read through the forums and make the necessary adjustments to rc files etc, and even then it wouldn't work so well. The last thing I wanted to get working was my mouses thumb or "back" button but I didn't get a chance too since an update for KDE or xorg or whatever popped up so I installed it and it screwed my X installation. I could've spent more hours trying to fix it, but instead I chose to reinstall Windowx XP which came with the laptop, and everything works fine now. Sure Linux is cool and all, but I just don't have the time to waste on keeping linux running. XP just simply works for me and I don't have to worry about shit screwing up, so my question actually was "why am I putting up with linux?".

Sure I may have to do an OS reinstall every year or half a year or so, but even with that reinstall I spend much less time maintaining my system than with linux. I used to hate Windows and love linux, now I've changed my mind, windows rocks, linux doesn't work.

Sure if you like hacking away endless nights in /etc/X11 or wherever then go for it, but I prefer to spend my time on study/work/life.

Re:Why do we put up with this?

[edunbar93]

I don't think that these cracks are helping...if anything, they are enabling people to go ahead and buy a product that is intentionally broken.

Yes, but they are enabling people to go ahead and NOT buy the product that the first product is intentionally broken in a way that it forces you to buy the second product.

In other words, it ensures that their ploy does not work.

Re:Why do we put up with this?

[Vegeta99]

Not the biggest American one! I'm an American bigot :P

Shadowrun blows on PC

[Kelbear]

But it's a pretty damned good game on the platform it was created for, the console. The gameplay is top-notch stuff. I've played my way through a vast number of FPS games since Doom, and Shadowrun is ranking up near the top in terms of multiplayer gameplay.

But it's a raw deal on the PC. The control system is setup for a controller, not kb/m, so instead the kb/m controls are dumbed down. This is not that PC players are used to. The balance is there, the two platforms play on pretty equal footing, but only because PC players are not given things that have long been a standard for PC FPS play. You'll need Vista and Xbox Live Gold, which few PC players have, and aren't worth buying for this game.

The game is unusual in that it minimizes emphasis on aiming, and instead emphasizes tactics. I've played dozens of FPS games where aiming is emphasized and had a blast, but it's refreshing to see tactics govern the combat instead. It's simple to quickly get the crosshairs on an enemy. However, how long you can keep him in your crosshairs, and keep out of his, are now the determining factors, rather than shooting quickly. For example, I can fire a shotgun blast, teleport through a wall as he returns fire, teleport back out for another shotgun blast, teleport through the floor, and come back for a finish. I could render myself intangible to let his bullets pass through me and take a 100ft drop harmlessly with the Smoke power in an escape. I could let off Gust and blow the enemy straight into a corner, ruining his accuracy, and pinning him against a grenade I tossed. All in all, the gunplay is only half the battle, but guns alone won't get you anywhere. Quite interesting. Particularly in regard to how important teamplay becomes.

Also, Shadowrun has nothing to do with Shadowrun PnP. It should have been named something else.

Re:Shadowrun blows on PC

[Aladrin]

I rented it for the 360 and it wasn't what I thought at all. I liked the idea of combining 'magic' (advanced tech?) with gunplay, but after going through the tutorial, I quickly realized there was no story at all. I sent it back at that point, and while it may have gotten better, it would never have gotten to the point where I'd enjoy playing it.

What does this have to do with anything? Crappy marketing. They used the name to attract players, but didn't bother to make it clear that it wasn't the kind of game that name is associated with. So they've basically pissed off everyone, since those attracted by the name will be pissed, and those that would have liked the gameplay but were turned off by the name will be pissed when they find out they're missing out.

Someone has already said 'Why should I pay for the game if I'm going to have to crack it to play it anyhow?' This is a pretty prevalent attitude, and they are going to lose a lot of sales to people that play it on XP instead of Vista.

Having said that, I've heard that you can't play multiplayer at all (no Live) and it asks for the DVD at one of the later levels. So there's -some- incentive for them to buy the game, but only if they upgrade to Vista anyhow.

Re:Shadowrun blows on PC

[Baljet]

Also, Shadowrun has nothing to do with Shadowrun PnP. It should have been named something else. Say what? Trolls with miniguns and smartlinks, Loss of essence with each tech implant you install? Summoning and teleport magics? Elves with wired reflexes and Dicoted katanas deflecting bullets? Did you play a different Shadowrun PnP to the rest of us? I'll admit I've only played the training missions on the 360 but it seemed to be the same IP to me... Although if what you say about the PC controls being dumbed down is true that's pretty much killed it for me :(

Re:Shadowrun blows on PC

[otis wildflower]

Also, Shadowrun has nothing to do with Shadowrun PnP. It should have been named something else.

That's an understatement.

For my part, I still wish crippling, incurable and fatal cancer on all involved with this abortion of a game. It's worse than Highlander 2.

Re:Shadowrun blows on PC

[Anonymous Coward]

When the heck did Shadowrun tabletop get teleportation, aside from one holy-shit-did-you-see-that moment in a first edition adventure compendium? Yes, that's a nitpick, but I'm honestly curious. I stopped playing sometime during 2nd Edition.

Re:Shadowrun blows on PC

[Anonymous Coward]

Spare us the nerdrage. This latest Shadowrun game is reasonably faithful for something required to be an online-only FPS. Frankly, I'd like to see the same gameplay system put into an actual single-player experience.

Re:Shadowrun blows on PC

[Anonymous Coward]

He didn't play a different game, but you obviously did. Teleport is explicitly banned in all three editions (I deny the existence of Fourth), and I can't remember bullets ever being deflectable (even Missile Deflection or whatever that adept power was only worked on old-style projectiles like arrows, spears, knifes, grenades, etc.).

Randomly slower

[phorm]

Well, from everything I've seen and heard, video tends to be "randomly slower" on Vista anyhow. My co-worker's dual-SLI cards ran like crap on Vista compared to XP, even with the latest drivers. One of my clients was complaining that his DVD playback was laggy and rough in Vista as well. Numerous complains have abounded in regards to poor game/video performance in Vista compared to XP. With that in mind, a little of such going the other way wouldn't be terrible. If I can run DX9 games in Cedega/Wine without noticeable issues (sometimes faster than XP, since the driver for my laptop isn't updated by the 'nix one is) then I'd say DX10 shouldn't be that huge an issue to run on something other than Vista too.

Re:Randomly slower

[Rayonic]

My co-worker's dual-SLI cards ran like crap on Vista compared to XP, even with the latest drivers.

Were these nVidia cards by any chance? They really dropped the ball on Vista drivers.

Re:Randomly slower

[Kuciwalker]

SLI might have been the problem. I've noticed several games (SimCity 4 I'm looking at you!) that run like absolute shit under SLI but are smooth as can be when I turn it off. YMMV.

What about Linux?

[Spy der Mann]

If the games ONLY get released for Microsoft Windows (Vista or not), can't the community pressure them to run on other platforms? "This software requires Microsoft Windows version yadda yadda" was acceptable 10 years ago, but we're in 2007 and now we have Mac OS, Linux, Freebsd. And there are very good cross-platform libraries for game developing: Irrlicht, OGRE3D, SDL, OpenGL... why choose DirectX? Isn't that monopolic practices? Forcing the public to purchase an expensive third party product (Windows) in order to use their software?

Re:What about Linux?

[IndieKid]

I'm fairly sure ID software are continuing to support games on other platforms (via OpenGL).

EA even recently stated they would be releasing a bunch of games for the Mac (http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/06/11 /1856212&from=rss), so the 'Games for Windows' strategy is hardly producing the monopoly I'm sure Microsoft are hoping for (although in the Windows domain it may help drive Vista adoption at some point for the above reasons).

Re:What about Linux?

[LingNoi]

This would only work if 99% of game developers where not using windows.

To look at it from another angle look at what happened with web design IE vs W3C standards.

That is what game development needs right now.

We need to stop rebuilding the camera for each game, wasting 100,000 dollars on licensing game engines and contribute to/use open source engines like how web developers contribute and use AJAX engines (prototype).

If us programmers stopped wasting time on the engine then we can focus on the damn game! Not only could programmers get MORE programming on the GAME done, hiring more programmers would not be a problem because all programmers would have experience with the same open source game/graphics engine.

Ofcourse this will never happen because unlike web development you can't just quickly load up OSX or Ubuntu and do a quick test without knowing how to use them.

Re:What about Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

still using directx. They're using a Cedega (related to WINE) program to translate the calls.

Re:What about Linux?

[dave562]

Game development is a complex process. Most game developers are using game engines that have been developed by another party. Microsoft started courting game developers A LONG TIME AGO when they released DirectX. Apple didn't give two shits. Linux... WTF was that? In those days it was FreeBSD, System V or SCO... Slackware, Debian and the few others were in their infancy and the people running them cared more about IRC and MUDs than anything else. While the rest of the computer world was focused on making enterprise (Unix) and consumer (Apple) friendly software, Microsoft was making computers a cool platform to play games on. Because of that, Microsoft Windows is the premiere game development platform at this point in time and will continue to be for the forseeable future. But maybe you can go get some uber Java games to run on your ultra cool iPhone.

Re:What about Linux?

[IndieKid]

Completely agree. Microsoft went out of their way and spent a lot of money on making it easy for games developers to develop for windows. They even have the graphics hardware manufacturers on board.

If Linux/Apple want more game development for their platforms, they need to court the developers in a similar way. I'm sure the open source community is capable of coming up with something, and I'm not just talking OpenGL - DirectX is more than just graphics after all.

Sure to irk Microsoft?

[niceone]

Yeah you irk 'em. Irk 'em good.

Good For Them!

[morari]

It's just too bad that those games are completely uninteresting...

And if it runs on XP

[oliverthered]

Chances are you can get it to run under Wine. (Well a little hacking may be required)

I stopped working on Direct3D 9 for wine about 18 months ago and we were getting there then. Since then Stephan and the chaps have done a great job and Wine is giving Cedega a run for it's money. and the best bit is you get the source code to wine so you have to opotunity to get games that don't work, working.

Re:And if it runs on XP

[delt0r]

I stoped using Cedega a while back, because it was just easier to get most games going under pure Wine.

Re:And if it runs on XP

[Hatta]

Chances are you can get it to run under Wine.

Does this hold true for macromedia freehand mx?

Re:And if it runs on XP

[narfbot]

Oliver, we are almost feature complete. The biggest thing we need these days is more testing and optimization.

Re:And if it runs on XP

[oliverthered]

I'm going to start working on wine again soon (I know I keep saying that!!!)

I had a few ideas for optimization / performance improvements a while back and I'll see if there still applicable to the current tree.

Re:And if it runs on XP

[oliverthered]

If it doesn't currently work and your prepared to do a bit of hacking you should be able to get it to work. When I was working on wine I found that 'most' applications I was working on only needed a few tweeks / native dlls to wine to get them to startup YMMV, then it's just a case of fixing the bugs until you get the application stable enough for your needs.

If you do need native dlls instead of Wines ones then that's probably a good place to start hacking since you've got youself a good test bed in the native dll.

Vista = Apple ///?

[athloi]

The Apple /// failed because it was:

(a) too much like an existing product. Ran a 6500-series chip like the Apple //, used the same peripherals, had roughly the same capabilities.
(b) not enough like an existing product. Was incompatible with Apple // software, had no new support base, was more expensive without adding much.

Vista, as originally designed, was a technical marvel. I would like Microsoft to keep pushing toward that, which is what Microsoft engineers want. The MBAs and marketing team think differently. Vista's strength right now is that it replaces the archaic workarounds in the win32 API, and supplants the 1980s-style graphic display model with something better. So as I see it, it will eventually be a better system to use.

The entire Vista situation is poetic to me. The struggle of the human species to overcome its own limitations, get a better design out on the table, and do it while dodging the pitfalls of politics and the markets... human, so human!

Re:Vista = Apple ///?

[Anonymous Coward]

Architecture redesign aside, Vista *does not do anything better for the end-user than previous versions of Windows*, including XP and Win2K. There is simply no reason to buy it. From an end-user perspective, it actually makes things worse.

Time for me to go Wii Wii

[harshmanrob]

The religion of M$ is the "$"...the almighty dollar. That is why they are pushing Vista. They did the same thing with XP when it came out. It is all about money and control.

It does not work in countries who are outside the US, like the EU and China are shit scared about Windows controlling their data centers and US built-in backdoors. SELinux is another cancer we are constantly fighting against as well.

Re:Time for me to go Wii Wii

[Anonymous Coward]

Out of curiosity, why do you think that Microsoft is different from any other company with regards to their love of money?

Also.. SELinux is a "cancer" that you "are constantly fighting against"? What the hell? If this is a troll, it is a remarkably well-crafted one. Good job, sir.

Re:Time for me to go Wii Wii

[harshmanrob]

Notice the score you got buddy.

And yes sir, SELinux is most certainly a CANCER...maybe more like the AIDS virus. It is a constant enemy I have to deal with as an IT security professional when I work with other dev and support teams that want a "one size fits all" and load a product that is #1) does nothing to enhance security on any linux server, and #2) creates binary backdoors using algorithms the government developed to get back into to any server they wish.

Re:Time for me to go Wii Wii

[themildassassin]

You know, I've never read about any backdoors in SElinux. I was under the impression that the NSA provided to the source to everything and it was reviewed by the Linux kernel team since it operates at a kernel level. Please correct me if wrong, but I'd like to see some documented evidence of this.

Re:Time for me to go Wii Wii

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but if cancer cells let you modify their genes, they'd be better than regular ones.

Such is the case with Linux vs. Windows. Linux has nothing to hide, and Windows has nothing to trust.

btw, I'm ethana2- do I have to get a separate slashdot account for the games forums?

There won't be any "DX10 only" titles

[grev]

Most of the recent titles support DX7 cards. DX10 games will at least support DX9, without a doubt.

Re:There won't be any "DX10 only" titles

[AK Marc]

Halo 2 has been released. It is DX10 only. It does not support DX9. It runs on Vista only. If you want to run Halo 2, you must upgrade to Vista because Vista is the only OS with DX10 and Halo 2 supports DX10 and only DX10. (well, not counting the cracks)

Re:There won't be any "DX10 only" titles

[PhireN]

Halo 2 is actually only directX 9, with just a few directX 10 extensions, that can be used if you have a directX 10 video card. The only thing stopping Halo running on XP is the "running on vista" check, and perhaps the fact that it was never bug checked on xp.

It's a question of intent.

[A_Non_Moose]

or possibly lack thereof.

IIRC, NT4 maxed out at DX3 and "could not go any higher" according to the wisdom at the time, but it
was possible to graft DX5 onto it and it worked quite well as I recall.

Look at games such as "Slave Zero" (picture Carmageddon, only giant robot instead of a car) that were
so tied to Win98's directX calls that it usually did not function under other WinOS's.
Some enterprising hacker replaced the 98 DX calls with more generic functions and it worked great.

Vista exclusive games (DX10 Only) will be out sooner or later, and I'm sure that eventually it will overcome
the 5+ year's momentum that XP has, but I think it'll be very slow going.

The intent of game makers is to sell games, and locking out 90% of thier target markets is suicide.
(DX8/9 compatability at the very least will be around for a while, I'd think.)

Same with Microsoft, its intent is to sell Vista anyway it can, but unlike games you want/don't have, you
are likely running a WinOS of some stripe (gaming requirement, almost). The lack of want/need of a new
os, lack of games that won't run on XP (yet), resistance to change and XP "just working" (for the most part)
and/or just the way you like it setup makes for some heavy resistance.

The realy trick/story will be DX10 working under XP, or, DX10 game that have been changed like Slave Zero
to work under DX9 with few, if any problems.

Re:It's a question of intent.

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you have a link about the Slave Zero modification? I was just trying to run that the other day and ran into an that issue, I didn't realize there was a workaround though.

Source Code

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's the source code used to ensure the game only runs on Vista:

10 if $OS "Vista" then GOTO 10

Bah

[ichigo 2.0]

Many people bring up "Alky" as some kind of solution to the DX10 problem, but always forget that it's essentially a wrapper that converts DX10 commands to OpenGL. What this means is that it will always be slower than DX10 on Vista, and that it will be dependent on the quality of OpenGL drivers on WinXP. Then there's the question if OpenGL even has anything comparable to geometry shaders yet, so they might have to emulate those with software. Another problem is the increased overhead, so you'll need to spend much more on hardware to get a similar experience that a slower system gets in Vista. Even if you wanted to solve this by throwing more powerful hardware in your rig, it would only be possible for a year or so, as NVIDIA/AMD will not be interested in providing driver support for XP in future GPUs. To top it off, the "Alky" project seems to be coming along so slowly, that the demand for it will have disappeared when most of the XP gamers have migrated to Vista.

All in all, "Alky" is a waste of time (regardless of their placating comments to the Linux/Mac community). The people that can't afford to switch to Vista won't be able to afford the more powerful hardware needed for "Alky", and those who can afford good hardware but want to stay away from Vista will be disappointed by the performance penalty. Meanwhile, the unwashed masses will migrate to Vista and XP will die.

Re:Bah

[Laur]

What this means is that it will always be slower than DX10 on Vista...Another problem is the increased overhead, so you'll need to spend much more on hardware to get a similar experience that a slower system gets in Vista.

You make this assertion with absolutely no proof to back it up. If you haven't noticed, generally speaking Vista is noticeably slower than XP at doing the same tasks (surely you've heard of the differences in their hardware requirements?). Therefore, it is by no means certain that XP + some performance overhead will be slower than Vista with it's already increased performance overhead.

and that it will be dependent on the quality of OpenGL drivers on WinXP.

These are provided by the card manufacturers, and from what I know are excellent.

Then there's the question if OpenGL even has anything comparable to geometry shaders yet

They do.

Even if you wanted to solve this by throwing more powerful hardware in your rig, it would only be possible for a year or so, as NVIDIA/AMD will not be interested in providing driver support for XP in future GPUs.

XP has been around for six years, and has a massive installed base. Furthermore, the shift to Vista is not happening at all quickly. XP support will be around for a good long while. From what I've heard, Vista is the one with driver issues.

Re:Bah

[ichigo 2.0]

You make this assertion with absolutely no proof to back it up. If you haven't noticed, generally speaking Vista is noticeably slower than XP at doing the same tasks (surely you've heard of the differences in their hardware requirements?). Therefore, it is by no means certain that XP + some performance overhead will be slower than Vista with it's already increased performance overhead.

DX10 code is supposed to be faster than DX9 code that does the same thing, due to getting rid of legacy crud and reduction of overhead. I haven't yet installed Vista so I haven't been able to verify this, but I'm assuming that Microsoft isn't lying in this case. It would be interesting to have a real comparison of that.

These are provided by the card manufacturers, and from what I know are excellent.

I have been reading for years now that ATI cards suffer from much slower OpenGL drivers compared to their DX drivers. Maybe they've fixed that.

They do.

Ok, that's good to know.

XP has been around for six years, and has a massive installed base. Furthermore, the shift to Vista is not happening at all quickly. XP support will be around for a good long while. From what I've heard, Vista is the one with driver issues.

There were some complaints about NVIDIAs sluggishness in releasing Vista drivers at the beginning (from me included), but that has pretty much vanished. In my own experience, NVIDIA is using more resources to support the 8800 series on Vista than on XP. In the past half year the XP drivers have pretty much stood still with annoying bugs staying unfixed, while the Vista drivers have improved by leaps and bounds. I don't know if the Vista drivers are better than the XP counterparts yet, but I know for certain that the proportion of driver development resources will continue to tilt in Vista's favor. I wouldn't be surprised if the next card generation is the last to have official support on XP.

Obg. Quote

[Laserwulf]

"A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of Chess?"

Almost a good arguement

[DRAGONWEEZEL]

Except that you can't read the EULA until after you buy the said software. You should not be expected to read EVERY EUALA for EVERY piece of software you might use. What is fair on the consumer end? NOTHING. Thats why you have to negotiate, and work the system to get what you want.

There is a course of action that sometimes does work though. Shareware, Trials, and Expiring Full Versions. I agree that software is difficult to produce, and thus costs $ to create requiring protection. It's just unfortunate that the current system does not allow for either protection, or consumer rights.

Remember kids, Corporations are in it for the stock holders, the stock holders are in it for the money, the money is in it because we Print and use it for legal tender for all debts public and private.

Re:Almost a good arguement

[jasonmicron]

Except that you can't read the EULA until after you buy the said software.

Just an FYI - you can find the EULA on 99.9% of software company websites without ever buying said software. That's how they are able to deny returns if you don't agree to the EULA - "You should have read it. We provide it free on our website". Lame & stupid, yes. But hey, what can ya do.

Re:Almost a good arguement

[Afrosheen]

The assumption that the consumer has read a EULA posted on a web site wouldn't hold up in court. Not everyone has internet access.

Re:Almost a good arguement

[DRAGONWEEZEL]

Again, this wouldn't hold liquid, or a gel, and maybe not a solid (especially in powder form), because it was not purchased at the website. (and as another poster mentioned, that assumes that access to the internet is ubiquitous, in the USA it is not.

Most likely a new game, or piece of software could have been an impulse buy at a store, or maybe a recommendation from a clerk.
Maybe it was purchased for some other reason than:
"Consumer put research time into product x to determine it's viability in said user's life and found a perfect fit, or good compromise."
Most consumers don't do thorough research on items costing $100. It's a fact, and it's also the sweet spot for marketing. Most games fall into this category.

As for the physical things in the world that are licensed, such as sneaker design via copyright.

You are not going to get arrested, or even tried for marking your sneakers. If you mark them, and sell them, Probably still not. It's luda Chris.

Your car?
Aftermarket will NOT go away.

Coffee table? No one is going to bitch if you take a router to it. You loose warranty rights, that's all.

The genetically modified apple sold at the store?
If you plant the seeds, and they sprout, congratulations, you now own some great fruit trees! But if you grow genetically modified strawberries, and you don't cut off the runners, SWAT teams will seize everything you own, and probably your neighbors to because they watered them once.

Just kidding about the neighbors.

Replace a transistor in a radio for more "oomph". no big.

Modify the leaf blower so it has "MORE POWER" Sweet, post plans even.

Altoids? Use the box for a myriad of other projects.

Marlboro? You have to sign a waiver, but if you want to use the cigarettes to test smoke alarms or light fireworks, so be it.

Fast food? Not suitable for human consumption. Feed that bigmac to fish for bait, but be careful, that pole is O.K. but the EULA on the real is a bitch!

Really, it can get ridiculous.

Paper?

You can not print money, unless you do. Any art made on said paper belongs to the owner of the paper company.

Any art displayed on your monitor is subject to screen capture and use in Viewsonic commercials. Lets not even go there w/ digital cameras. Not only do they get to keep rights to the pictures you take, they also have a personal stash of the "good ones."

Re:Almost a good arguement

[DRAGONWEEZEL]

damn preview...

Didn't see some mistakes, your neighbors to should be too and "real" is supposed to be reel, really.

Re:Almost a good arguement

[quantum bit]

What's even funnier are on some web sites where you have to agree to some EULA-style agreement first. They'll have a "click here to read" link that pops it up in another window, a check box that you've read it and agree, and an OK button. I just check the box and hit 'OK' without ever reading it. Their web server has PROOF that I never read the EULA and couldn't possibly agree to it, and they let me in anyway. Can't wait for one of them to try to enforce it.

Re:Almost a good arguement

[Ciggy]

But is that available at the point of sale where the sales contract is made?

I have often made spur of the moment purchases with no prior knowledge of the publisher and with no internet access available; am I expected to visit every software publisher's website to check out the EULA of every piece of software on the offchance that I may see it offered for "sale" and decide the "buy" it?

I was told when recently "purchasing" some software that it was only licenced (and would refuse its return if the package was opened). However, there was no clear licence available on the package (only readable by opening said package in which case the shop would refuse a refund - I don't know how legal that would be), nor at the till to explicitly tell me what the licence was.

Incidently, on installing one of the pieces of software it came up with a message that the software was only licenced, not bought; it then came up with a message "thank you for buying this software". (Not buying a licence to use the software.) If the software (installer) publisher can't decide whether it is bought or not and tells us two conflicting statments regarding that, how can the rest of us know?

Re:Almost a good arguement

[DRAGONWEEZEL]

I love those little effers.

Same goes on the WoW Eula. After every update, they make the EULA pop up twice. Scroll, check, click, login. Nobody (defined as at least I dont) reads the updates.

Just Goes to Show

[Nom du Keyboard]

All this just goes to show that there really is nothing special about Vista, and the only reason to upgrade to it are artificial barriers created to try and force you that way. Your software is fully capable of running just fine on XP into the foreseeable future, but Microsoft wants your money, and Hollywood wants you forced into the worst DRM infested system yet foisted on us.

Why not OpenGL?

[CarpetShark]

Why exactly did Direct3D take off, anyway? Other "standards" of MS's have failed. OpenGL was already a success, in the high-end world. Was it just too high-end 3D for the low-end-3D game devs back when D3D started out? Maybe they've gradually grown up with D3D now, and are more comfortable with it?

D3D used to have a more high-level layer than OpenGL, I think (right?), but no one used it because it was slow. Was that at least a factor in drawing people in, even if they had to move to more low-level stuff to get performance?

Or is it did hardware manufacturers go with D3D for some reason, and everyone else had to follow? It did seem like Quake was the only thing forcing gaming gfx card manufacturers to implement OpenGL for a while there. That might even be more the case now (I'm not sure; haven't used windows in a LONG time).

Is there something about OpenGL implementation that's harder? Does it make it easier to identify cards with crappy performance, or something?

Re:Why not OpenGL?

[jasonmicron]

Or is it did hardware manufacturers go with D3D for some reason, and everyone else had to follow?

As far as I know, no video card companies have specifically limited the type of rendering their cards can do to a certain standard. I'm pretty sure my GeForce 7950 GX/2 will run OpenGL applications just fine.

Re:Why not OpenGL?

[PitaBred]

Direct3D focused on games, while OpenGL stayed in the "high-end" world like you said, catering to CAD systems and big-time rendering when gaming was in it's rapid growth stages. Not to mention I'd bet that MS paid a lot of developers to use their API. DirectX also contains a very good interface to, well, interfaces, which may have persuaded some shops to go with DX over OpenGL, which is only a graphics API.

Re:Why not OpenGL?

[GreggBz]

There are pros and cons to both. DirectX is not a bad API, in fact, it's rather good.

I think the integration of DirectDraw, DirectSound, the input, etc.. helped. All in one is good when developing games. It allows you to focus on the game, not any technology or compatibility hurdles. Also, it's now much easier to develop in. Very easy actually. Say what you will about Microsoft, but their development tools, particularly those associated with DirectX have been very good.

Also, while Direct3d and OpenGL accomplish the same things, they are very different. OpenGL is a state machine, with a standard API. Direct3D directly bangs the hardware with a minimal driver, maintained by the manufacturer. You could argue that it's faster, in practice, sometimes it is and sometimes it is not.

OpenGL is more abstract, and has a set of functions that can be used through it's API, and it is then up to the hardware manufacturer to create a layer of communication (the driver) between the hardware and the OpenGL state machine. OpenGL drivers are more portable, but harder to make efficient. I think this is overall a little more robust. Functionality wise, they are both very close. I consider this almost irrelevant, because there are so many features in both, that game programmers have a hard time keeping up, and particularly are weary of using the bleeding edge. I've learned to program in DirectX and only a little in OpenGL. I can't say I have a clear favorite though.

Re:Why not OpenGL?

[KDR_11k]

Yeah but if you have Ati you can expect loads of bugs with OpenGL. That's the reason I have an NVidia card in my PC now.

Re:Why not OpenGL?

[Targon]

There is a large difference between supporting an API and having it accelerated by the hardware. This is a big reason why Intel GPUs have been shown to be so bad when it comes to games. Without hardware acceleration, the drivers need to do more to allow the API to talk to the video card(s). At this point, I am not sure how much acceleration there is for OpenGL on the video cards produced by AMD/ATI and NVIDIA.

This issue is why there is a lot of confusion on the part of many people out there. They install DirectX 9 for example, but their video card only handles DirectX 8 in hardware. They don't understand that to get decent performance, you need the video card to be able to handle DirectX 9 in hardware to get the performance and in many cases the features that games have to offer today.

As for why companies went with DirectX, from what I have read, when DirectX first came out, Windows itself was a HORRIBLE platform for games. At that point, you had the option to write DOS apps(and support the video cards yourself, needing different drivers for each one), or you could go for a native Windows application, where DirectX was a HUGE improvement in many ways. As time went on, and Windows native applications became more and more appropriate, programming for Windows performance was more important.

Once a company was working with DirectX, future projects went DirectX as well, just because the API was known. Even when OpenGL started to catch on, for a Windows-only application, why go OpenGL at that point? Linux wasn't really on the radar, and MacOS had more issues than just the graphics API as a reason not to be concerned with the Mac environment.

As a side effect of this, ATI had never come up with a great OpenGL driver for their cards, and there was never much pressure to do so for most of the user base(CAD and a handful of other applications the only exception). So, if your ATI users will encounter lower performance, and there is no serious benefit to making your application multi-platform, then why NOT go DirectX?

To make an application that is multi-platform, aside from the graphics angle, the company needs to consider the following question: Will the number of sales from each additional platform compensate for the additional development costs for that platform?

Linux users, due to the free nature of the operating system, tend to look for other free applications. Paying money for an application would be seen as unusual, and is even frowned on by those who are into the whole "Open Source" movement. This implies that even if there were 10,000,000 Linux users out there(not installed machines worth), there might be only 10,000 of them who might BUY a game. Not everyone enjoys the same types of games, so you now have the problem of how many copies will be sold. This is why the emulators you see for Linux and MacOS have gained the popularity they have, because unless your application is a high end/expensive application, there is very little to be gained from making a multi-platform application. $60/copy just won't cover the cost of development of new ports.

Re:Why not OpenGL?

[Steve525]

If I remember correctly, the first versions of Direct3D were aweful. Glide (3DFX's proprietary API) and OpenGL were much better. By version 3 of Direct3D, Direct3D was good enough that most developers didn't have a strong preference. (ID software and others, choose OpenGL for portability). From what I read, MS essentially stole all that was good about OpenGL and stuck it in Direct3D. What eventually tipped things in Direct3D's favor (besides MS's marketing muscle) was Direct3D was faster at supporting new features on video cards. MS did a good job of getting together with the video card makers and tailoring the new versions of Direct3D around the new video cards. OpenGL appeared slower in supporting new features, although I think almost everything was accessible by extensions.

Re:Why not OpenGL?

[powerlord]

OpenGL was actually in the lead, and then got hamstrung by MicroSoft.

MS, SGi, and HP designed a standard called Fahrenheit for a new low level API that OpenGL and DirectX would plug into, where they would both write to a "Low Level API". And then applications would just right to whatever they wanted, making the OpenGL/DirectX war a moot point.

MS screwed SGI (surprise), and released DX7, were drastically late on releasing the low level API, finely released it as an "unsupported component" and never released an update.

Re:Why not OpenGL?

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at the gap between when DirectX first came out and when OpenGL 2.0 finally came out. DirectX added features on a regular basis while OpenGL sat in committee. One company provided the direction for DirectX instead of an entire industry. It moved faster while OpenGL stagnated. OpenGL is hot stuff again, but I remember YEARS of whining about OpenGL not keeping up with DirectX. Then I come on here and see some serious selective memory going on (I'm not talking about you, but about other theories on here.) What a joke.

Re:Why not OpenGL?

[Anonymous Coward]

A sure fire way to find out how well your card handles OpenGL is to open a 20K or so poly model in a typical polygon 3D modeling program. (Wings3D or Blender are great if you're not wanting to spend the $$$.) If it artifacts a lot or slows down significantly, there's some unresolved issues going on behind the scenes.

Re:Why not OpenGL?

[jellomizer]

It was during the 90's where people didn't care about CrAzY things like software source portability, strong security, stability. They wanted the best performance no matter what. Hense Direct X. Which is an API that Bypasses most of Windows offering highest performance with minimun overhead. No honest and moral developer would try to make an API that bypasses so much of the OS, because of Risk of breaking things badly, as well problems of moving from one version of the OS to the Next. Microsoft could get away with it because they knew what will break and when because they had the source for Windows. So they didn't need to follow the same rules. Just like integrating the web browser into the OS. Everyone though it would be great because the browser would have a lower level access to the equiptment, not thinking (I did say it was a bad idea at the time by the way) that if there was any security hole the attacker would have full control of the system. Performance is not the end goal of a good application the end goal is good performance, stability, security, and does what it needs to do.

Re:Why not OpenGL?

[10101001 10101001]

Linux users, due to the free nature of the operating system, tend to look for other free applications. Paying money for an application would be seen as unusual, and is even frowned on by those who are into the whole "Open Source" movement. This implies that even if there were 10,000,000 Linux users out there(not installed machines worth), there might be only 10,000 of them who might BUY a game.

I think that this is more a chicken & egg problem (and not the one normally stated). From personal experience, the main reason I was so willing to switch to Linux is because I had so few paid-for Windows-only games (basically, I rarely bought anything but id or DOS games). I was used to playing shareware and freeware games on Windows, and a switch to Linux meant most of those sorts of games were included with the distribution.

Having said that, another main draw of Linux for me was that it was Free, not just free. While my initial reason to use Linux might have focused on all the free software, the fact that most of the paid-for games have had their source released as Free has driven me to mainly *want* only games that are Free. The fact that most game makers (and WINE compatibility layer writers) aren't willing to release their software as Free makes money spent on them seem less and less of an investment, as Windows support for currently games will eventually become obsolete; I say this from the perspective of someone who was a large DOS fan, and who now has as much luck running DOS games under the latest versions of Windows and a later distro, both under DOSBox.

The fact that so many people are willing to live with Windows XP in spite of this would seem to indicate most other people aren't so fixated on their games lasting indefinitely, or they merely never invested in enough DOS games to "matter". I'd say that long term Linux use actually makes one *more* inclined to having backward compatibility (ironically enough) because the risk of losing backward compatibility is invariably a technical challenge, not some inherent flaw in the system. Btw, this is one reason why flash being closed and a major new online platform for games, video, etc is so worrisome.

Re:Why not OpenGL?

[thejynxed]

It took off because the DirectX control set offered an integrated toolset to work with. Sound, video, controllers (joysticks/mouse/keyboard,etc) all in one package. With OpenGL you got...graphics. It wasn't a complete toolkit library, and instead of the mish-mash that you end up getting trying to cobble together toolkits for the other components of games to go along with OpenGL, they chose to use DX. Even though most programmers were like, "Ewwww, Microsoft games?", were also like, "Complete toolkit to develop with...we don't have to waste time coding in all of this extra stuff to the toolkit? Sign me up."

Re:Why not OpenGL?

[Sancho]

It was during the 90's where people didn't care about CrAzY things like software source portability Most people still don't care about this. Apple's increasing market share means that people are starting to care more, but even the recent announcement that EA will start supporting Macs is smoke-and-mirrors--they're going to be supporting it using Codeweavers software, if I recall correctly.

Microsoft could get away with it because they knew what will break and when because they had the source for Windows. And because they're a virtual monopoly.

Just like integrating the web browser into the OS. Everyone though it would be great because the browser would have a lower level access to the equiptment(sic), not thinking (I did say it was a bad idea at the time by the way) that if there was any security hole the attacker would have full control of the system. I can't believe that was the real reason that they integrated the browser with the desktop. I just don't see the benefits. All of the common controls are available to any application, so the browser doesn't need anything special there. More likely, I think it was to reduce code use. Browsing a file system and a browsing the web are similar concepts, and it logically makes sense to combine the code bases in some way. One way to combine the code bases is to abstract out the common parts so that you can change the higher level code and the changes propagate to both Explorer and Internet Explorer. Another way to combine the code is to simply make them the same executable (and this is the path that Microsoft took).

Re:Why not OpenGL?

[StikyPad]

This is a big reason why Intel GPUs have been shown to be so bad when it comes to games.

That could be because Intel's "GPUs" are specifically designed to be affordable, basic 2D graphics chips in a market where virtually nobody else is making them. They're perfect for most laptop users and server hardware, especially rack mount, where 3D would never be used.

Re:Why not OpenGL?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just to add to your excellent post that MSFT certifies graphics cards for DirectX. Without this certification, each company would have to do their own to ensure their code gives the same output on different hardware. Sounds obvious, but consider that OpenGL has no equivalent and that each vender's OpenGL implementation _is_ different, it's easy to see why companies are not using OpenGL as much.

Re:Why not OpenGL?

[Hal_Porter]

I think DirectX is more tuned to its target audience.

If you look at how games worked in Dos, they basically needed these functions

1) Set the graphics mode
2) BitBlt (for 2D)
3) Draw a list of polygons (for 3D)

Since every game had its own engine, this was the only layer which they could agree on. Most games used Vesa to set the mode and had software handlers for BitBlt and DrawPolygons.

Early 3d cards provided all these but there was no standard for the register interface. DirectX was a thin wrapper over a device driver standard which provided all three. So when you port your game to Windows you could use acceleration of all three on a decent card. Presumably they spent time talking to the graphics card companies and game companies and invented something which was what both wanted. There was some Windows magic too, basically creating a window and getting hold of the COM interfaces that DirectX is based on, but that could be cut and pasted from the samples that came with the free DirectX SDK.

I read that it still took a while to get right - e.g. the initial vertex standard for DrawPolygon had terrible cache behaviour so they hired a games programmer to design a new one. There were other modes where you could pass a whole scene and let DirectX render it but almost no games used them. The initial DirectX forced people to build execute buffers by hand - basically tables of things to be drawn. But the end result is that you could take a Dos game engine, port it to Windows and have it run a lot faster on all modern cards very quickly.

Re:Why not OpenGL?

[Hal_Porter]

Incidentally I found a remarkably candid article about DirectX

http://www.shacknews.com/extras/2007/032907_alexst john1_2.x
Alex St John I actually attribute my reasons for being successful there to listening carefully to the game developers. My strategy was very simple--I go to them and ask, "What kind of crack would you get addicted to?" They'd tell me, and I'd go back to Microsoft and say, "If we make this crack, those developers will buy it." Very simple. Direct X was essentially the crack they asked me to make. That's the way you hook somebody--ask them what they'll pay money for, then go make it.

Fair enough.

What's remarkable is the other quotes :

Alex St John: You'll never hear this from anybody else because they probably don't know. The original codename for Direct X was "the Manhattan Project," because strategically it was an effort to displace Japanese game consoles with PCs and ultimately the Xbox. We called it "The Manhattan Project" because that was the codename for the program developing the nuclear bomb. We had a glowing radiation logo for the prototype for Direct X, and of course as soon as that got out and the press covered it, it caused a scandal. Microsoft PR said, "You have got to change that. You cannot be using a radiation symbol and calling this thing 'The Manhattan Project'." So we renamed it Direct X but we said, "Everybody loves the radiation symbol, so what we'll do is add legs to it to make it an 'X'." There are probably 3 people in the entire world that know how that came about. Microsoft was very funny when the Xbox launch, they said, "Oh, well, some artist made the green thing, and we thought it was cool," and I just said, "Oh stop, that was the color scheme for the Direct X logo from the very beginning."

Clearly not a man afraid of saying the wrong thing in an interview.

Here's what he said about Vista for gaming.

Alex St John I don't think Microsoft did anything to help the PC as a gaming platform with Vista, and that's a tremendous frustration because I take it very personally. If I would've been there, I would have made much more aggressive efforts to make sure Vista stayed out of the way of games. What you see with Microsoft is, without people at Microsoft who realize that the operating system does not add value to gaming, it gets in the way, they think they can add more value by adding in more shit that only gets in the way of making a good game. Unfortunately, Vista does that. Microsoft added more shit that impedes game development. It's certainly possible to make great games in Vista, it's just more of a pain in the ass than it needs to be. I think Vista is a missed opportunity for Microsoft to have done a better job in supporting PC gaming.

Ouch. And about Microsoft's culture

Alex St John I came in to do my presentation, and I got about three slides into it before I was interrupted by one of the executives saying, "This is all great stuff, you have a perfect plan. Developers who are reasonable should all support it, but what do you do if none of this works." "What do you mean?" "What if in spite of your best efforts, your best arguments, you best relationships, you can't get them to support them. How do you force the industry to support Microsoft anyway?" "Force them? Well, I don't know." "Come back when you have a plan that answers that question."

That perplexed me for a long time. I'm thinking, "What the hell does he mean, force them? I can't hold a gun to their head, so how do I put all these companies in a position where, regardless of what they see is in their best interest, they have to adopt your technology?" That experience had a major impact on my thinking. I realized that a major part of my job was to figure out how to use technology control to create economic force, or leverage, such that money and business flowed in Microsoft's direction, and people had to go [to them]. That, ultimately, is when I became a "Microsoft guy," when I got that concept.

Re:Why not OpenGL?

[sjames]

A big part of the problem is that unlike most other devices in the system, users have developed a tolerance for a near complete lack of standardization in video cards. While there are a bazillion different IDE chips that all provide exactly the same register level interface, video cards seem to be more like snowflakes.

Way back when, the non-standardization was justified (right or wrong) by the need to wring every last bit of performance out of hardware that could just barely manage what was being asked of it. We are currently at a point where, with the exception of the foaming at the mouth performance freaks (who somehow believe that a frame rate that is merely double what is perceptable to the eye just isn't enough), the hardware can manage what it needs to do and have enough left over to present a standard interface. Now if it would just do so.

Microsoft, NO dice for you in this area

[unity100]

Gamers are a hardcore crowd. You cant win against them.

For starters, around 8 million people are playing wow, another approx a million on swg, another some million on eve, some on everquest, guildwars - start counting and never stop.

these work on xp. these people dont need vista.

this move assumes that pc is like a console - something that you can lock people in. it was old times, pal, you cant do it anymore.

see, they already cracked your consoleish trickery.

Re:Vista is dying

[Control-Z]

Doesn't matter if Vista is "dying" or not, try to go buy a new computer without Vista. Vista will gradually be adopted as people upgrade their spyware and virus infested machines.

Lack of REAL innovation

[lullabud]

This is the problem that comes when you're not innovating nearly as awesomely as your hype makes people think. If MS had actually done something amazingly different with vista, backwards compatibility might not have worked, but since just rehashing the same old stuff with minor differences. Go figure.

It's not like we're not used to having to fight to get games to work on older MS platforms, or even newer platforms.

It's not like we're not used to getting them to even run on completely different OSes.

.Huh?

[Vexorian]

So I guess what's "news" is that apparently some people were not expecting it to happen?

crack it? they sure did!

[c6gunner]

And you'll all be happy to know that Shadowrun kicks some serious butt. I now have even less reason to switch to Vista!

use cURL to download just the interview

[Anonymous Coward]

Use cURL and HTTP Range requests to download just the good part of the interview (offsets marked in Audacity, rounded out to byte offsets by using mp3splt to calculate exact frame offsets):

curl -r 5147417-13799590 -LO http://www.oxmpodcast.com/podpress_trac/web/86/0/o xmp_070_20070622.mp3

But your honor, I didn't crack anything ...

[Skapare]

... I just ported it to a new platform without creating a derived work.

How about XP only games on 2000?

[PoderOmega]

If you can get Vista only games to work with XP, how about next they make XP only games (Company of Heroes, Supreme Commander) work on 2000? That must be easier than Vista->XP.

Re:How about XP only games on 2000?

[elFarto the 2nd]

For Supreme Commander you can use my handy-dandy patch.

Regards
elFarto

Re:How about XP only games on 2000?

[Anonymous Coward]

Add a /novalidate switch after the .exe in the shortcut for SupCom? :D
At least GPG knows gamers well enough (and actually has the common sense) to create an official loophole, even if they won't officially support it while running in this condition.

Re:How about XP only games on 2000?

[jonwil]

There is a win2k compatibility patch for Command & Conquer 3 floating about somewhere although I don't have a link handy.

Re:How about XP only games on 2000?

[elFarto the 2nd]

Actually SupCom can't be run on Win2k without patching, as it imports 3 functions from kernel32.dll that don't exist on 2000. These need to be removed or windows refuses to run it.

Regards
elFarto

Re:How about XP only games on 2000?

[Anonymous Coward]

IIRC, Doom 3 also had the 'requirement' of XP - it ran fine in win98 after changing exactly 2 bytes of the executable. I'm guessing that by now, pretty much all the games that can be run on pre-XP systems will have patches (or they're terrible games and nobody can be bothered to do it)

This is good for Microsoft

[moneyning.com]

Why would Microsoft want to limit the playing field by having it Vista only? I mean, if it is to move people into Vista quickly, this is just wrong since they are just forcing people to buy a PS3/XBOX/Wii instead.

Re:This is good for Microsoft

[Billly Gates]

It worked for windows95.

Re:Shadowrun on XP - Try it yourself...

[Tatsh]

Not sure what Slashdot's policy on linking to warez, especially torrents. :/

Morons

[WilyCoder]

"The news is sure to irk Microsoft who may now face an increased delay in some consumers adopting Vista at this early stage."

Anyone whose motives to upgrade to Vista for either of these two games is a moron who should be flogged into oblivion.

I'll drink to that

[gadlaw]

It's comical is what it is. Take our DRM loaded, slower and less able Vista over the stable XP. What's wrong with XP? It doesn't have as many 'protections' for you, we mean protections against you using your computer as you might wish. And these super special shiny new games can only play on Vista! We promise, we swear! Wha what? Some warez dudes fixed that for you? You can actually play those games on XP? Don't worry, we'll get every man we have on this problem - there, download this emergency patch to your XP, and or your game. There, we told you it doesn't work on XP. Fixed it. Thanks bye. (A-holes)

"Relatedly"? How?

[MS-06FZ]

How is some dude objecting to a bad game review "relatedly" to the deal of Microsoft trying to use games to get people to switch to Vista, versus the people trying to circumvent the measures Microsoft has taken to that effect?

I mean, is it "relatedly" just because the game was mentioned, briefly, earlier in the article?

No Online Play

[Ahnteis]

Windows XP doesn't work with Live.com or whatever they officially call the multi-player service -- so the requirements are, in fact, correct. This is a lovely workaround if all you want is single-player.

Of course, this fact tends to be overlooked because it's not in agreement with preconceived notions about what Microsoft "should" do.

Yes, they COULD add in Live compatibility to XP, but you'll have a hard time convincing me that it would really make that much sense for ANY business to continue promoting and providing new capabilities for their 7+ year-old software.

Re:No Online Play

[Reapman]

You mean the 7 year old system that until less then a year ago was their newest version of this product line? The one ours and some other straggling companies are just now switching to (literaly)? Obviously this is a gaming related thing but just saying that they should'nt be suprised that even home users still haven't all made the switch yet. Really, if you have a 1 year old computer that runs great, and you want to play one of these games, your adding $100+ to the cost for really no good reason other then to drive their bottom line. Not illegal, but sure as hell not nice.

If we were talking Windows 2000 or 98 I would see your point, but we ain't, so I don't.

Don't forget...

[Anonymous Coward]

...OpenGL Child Window Support so NWN will work, and there's still a GDI bug with refreshing selection textboxes (check out decker.sf.net I believe, the binary there shows it intermittently in lists while playing.)

Hacking Group Warez?

[Anonymous Coward]

Am I the only one who finds it funny that the article calls them Warez instead? Normally, this being Slashdot, there would have been dozens of jokes about this mistake.

Oh wait... This is Slashdot. Nobody reads the full article.

Re:Vista is dying

[BrianGKUAC]

*checks under the Medium Business section on Dell's website*

Age of Empires III's false XP requirement

[lymeca]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the extremely relevant precedent set by Age of Empires III. Although I exclusively run GNU/Linux now, at the time of Age of Empires III's release in November of 2005 I was running Windows 2000 Pro with no intention of ever using Windows XP. This isn't the time or place to discuss why I refused to use XP, but suffice to say that my experience getting AoE III to work foreshadowed what was to come in any Microsoft published game.

Being a fan of the earlier Age of Empires games, I acquired a copy of the newly released AoE III which turned out to list Windows XP as the only supported operating system. To my extreme (albeit momentary) dismay, running the setup.exe on the first game disc produced an error requiring an upgrade to Windows XP before installing the game. I simply refused to believe it, seeing as how 2000 and XP are extremely similar operating systems and that there's no technical reason this game would require one and not work on the other.

Five minutes of Googling later, I ran the setup.exe from the command prompt, passing the "/n" command line switch to the executable. This switch runs the game setup in network install mode: the setup program believes it is installing the game over a network, so it doesn't check the operating system version! Needless to say I just pointed the installer to a local directory and it installed without a hitch.

Even better is that the main game executable didn't require any patching. Directly after installation, the game ran perfectly under Windows 2000! Only the setup.exe on the game disc had the farse "XP-only" restriction, and a simple trick, built-in to the executable no less, proved that the operating system requirement was merely a shallow marketing decision by Microsoft to force people on to Windows XP.

This anecdote might be interesting for those who haven't played AoE III (or haven't tried getting it to run on another OS besides XP). It has taught me to never trust a game published by Microsoft, and because of my experience, as soon as I heard that Halo 2 PC was going to be Vista-only many months ago I instantly knew that it would be a superficial hack akin to the OS check on the AoE III setup.exe.


Of course there are going to be people who relish in being able to break this superficial and shallow marketing decision, but I'd like to send a big THANK YOU out to those who actually put the time and effort into doing so.

Re:Age of Empires III's false XP requirement

[aikouka]

How is it a superficial hack when Windows XP has no Live for Windows support? There's currently a hack to make the game run in Windows XP, but the hack supports everything but internet play (since that's Live for Windows). You can play over networks and such though. This Falling Leaf software package is supposed to add the Live for Windows support that is missing, but it also will not be free.

I bet Microsoft wouldn't mind migrating Live for Windows so much if they made you pay for it, but people would probably be in even more of an uproar.

In reply to the mention of the Shadowrun review

[Anonymous Coward]

I just listened to the podcast listed at the bottom of the article. Biggest Set of Copouts ever.

"Why doesnt have any more modes? Theres only one mode in Football!"
"Why doesn't have any more maps? Because you only play dust"

Durrrrrrrr this guy is the reason why shadowrun is getting bad reviews, not because people "don't get it" as he likes to pretend.
and the interviewers could not get the brown off their noses.

Re:Shadowrun on XP - Try it yourself...

[Anonymous Coward]

AHEM... TorrentSpy links? I hope you don't live in the USA because you're already busted, along with anyone else stupid enough to use your link.

Why don't you think it is illegal?

[EmbeddedJanitor]

No doubt people just lacked the balls to point this out. Even if it is legal, it is at least in the very gray zone and could have been used as an argument.

Crack DirectX 10?

[fluor2]

Why don't they just crack DirectX 10 too? Nothing special about it.

Autodesk does.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

You'd think the big companies like AutoDesk would prefer to make it easy for students to learn the software's ins and outs by offering a nice student discount, or maybe some sort of "student edition" of the program.

Autodesk does.

My wife was taking interior design courses at a Silicon Valley community college and used it.

If I understand it correctly it's just like the commercial version except much cheaper, you're not licensed to use it for commercial work, and when you make a hardcopy of a drawing it prints something to that effect in heavy block lettering along the border on each of the four sides of the drawing.

DirectX 9 uniformity?

[DragonHawk]

That is is DirectX's advantage: if the system supports "DirectX 9," you know that exactly all of the features of Direct3D 9 are supported.

Hmmm, one of the features I saw touted for DirectX 10 was that it is a single, uniform, all-or-nothing platform. Microsoft's ad copy said that DirectX 9 has something called "capability bits", or "cap bits". Games were supposed to check the cap bits to find out what DX9 features a system supported. That would seem to indicate that DX9 wasn't a uniform platform, no? And so while that might mean DX10 has an advantage, it would seem to make that argument invalid about past DirectX releases, yes?

MOD PARENT UP

[Nicolay77]

The fact that there are so many MMORPG is to me a significant market difference with the 98/ME -> XP upgrade.

I would add a much greater group of gamers that play multiplayer online games, like Unreal, rFactor, good old Starcraft or even opensource games like OpenArena.

Their individual groups are smaller, but remember: this is the Long tail.

Brave New Software

[HumanSockPuppet]

Microsoft charged out the front door with a raging hard-on ready to cram Vista onto everyone's hard drives with half-witted selling angles like releasing a two-year old FPS that was good on a console. Too bad they went flaccid the moment they hit sunlight.

The beautiful part is that free market capitalism is perfectly poised to solve the problem on its own (especially with the Internet around). People will always adopt methods or software which best suit their needs for the lowest cost - and if that means downloading pirated software or cracked operating systems online for free, then that is what people will do. The fact that the general population is becoming increasingly computer-literate won't help Microsoft maintain its stranglehold on the industry for long.

We are approaching an era when open source will overtake commercial software development. Imagine what kind of new online democracy that will produce.

Antitrust lawsuit?

[kithchung]

So...wouldn't this count as another antitrust violation? If Jack Thompson want to make himself useful in suing game publishers, this is probably the only case I'd sanction.

Nope

[rhombic]

Not the "language is unchangeable" argument, the "something ought to be listed in the books as a crime before we call it that" argument.

Thank God my legal rights are defined by the US code and the code of the state of California, not by an "accepted enough term". If you check out the US code at the Cornell Law site, you'll find that piracy is listed in 53 sections of the Federal code, and not a single one of them has anything to do with copyright infringement.

More importantly, most copyright infringement is a civil cause for action, not a criminal offense. Hence the RIAA/MPAA/MAFIAA suing people in civil court, and the FBI mostly not worrying about kids in the basement swapping songs. By calling it Piracy, you elevate the civil offense to a perceived criminal act, and make it MY responsibility (as a taxpayer) to deal with it, rather than making the rights holder take care of things through the civil system. In my opinion, this is a way for the media companies to try to shift one of their costs of doing business onto me, and I really don't appreciate it.

Re:Nope

[Anonymous Coward]

That's nice, it's technically correct, and no doubt a lawyer would absolutely agree. But piracy has been used as a synonym for copyright infringement for over a century. Getting angry now isn't going to help.

Also, your final point is wrong. Naval piracy is not really the responsibility of governments or taxpayers*... it happens outside their jurisdiction. So by calling copyright infringement piracy you aren't obliquely calling for the government to get involved.

*at least, not as much as many other crimes - there are some international treaties etc.

Re:Nope

[ceejayoz]

"beating someone up" isn't a crime on the books - they call it "battery" - yet it's a commonly accepted term that no one bitches about. Why are you whining only about "piracy"?

Why bother with these games?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm surprised anyone actually wanted to play these games... I mean an overrated FPS for a few years ago, and another overrated FPS that does nothing at all for the Shadowrun setting? Both are very bland games that minus their titles wouldn't be worth it as $20 budget titles.

But I guess you can only use the shovelware that M$ puts out...

Re:Why bother with these games?

[pandrijeczko]

I have to admit that I never understood the popularity of Halo either.

Sure, I completed Halo Combat Evolved on my PC - it was good fun, if a little annoying with the "Disney-ish" aliens running about but not a patch on Half-Life or Far Cry.

As for multiplayer, I played a little on a friend's X-Box but have never tried it on the PC purely because it's not going to better Unreal Tournament 2004 or Counter-strike.

Halo's a reasonable game but owes far more of its sales to hype rather than quality.

Re:Vista is dying

[Lost Engineer]

I think you hit it there. Vista is genuinely more secure, mainly do to UAC and UMIE (User Mode Internet Explorer(tm)). People will notice when they don't get popups, ant their computers run roughly the same speed forever.

File size

[krono6]

What I find funny is that the crack is less than 1MB. I didn't think it would take that little to crack Microsoft's "incompatibility issue"..

St John interview on Shack.news--Great Post!

[Ken Erfourth]

Follow the link. Read the article. Thanks for posting it.

That is all...

Completely as expected.

[Plekto]

In the case of any application that runs on direct-X, it's nearly impossible to program any game that came or comes out on a console so that it won't run on the older versions. Sure, it may look worse or not run all the features, but they are stuck, because, for instance, the X-Box runs direct-X 9. Some games are actually Direct-X 8, even(Halo 2, originally). Also, since the game doesn't *require* a Direct-X 10 card to run, it's obviously just a software nerf Microsoft is doing here.

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3153097
The 360 cannot run DX-10, so basically if the title comes out on it and the PC, it can be hacked regardless of what Microsoft tries to do to annoy users.

So this is expected. A small hack and presto - the thing runs in DX9.

Both games have been doing very poorly in sales as well. Microsoft needs to stop the B.S. and give us useable games out of the box.