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Microsoft Makes Direct X 11.1 a Windows 8 Exclusive
BluPhenix316 writes "Microsoft has made Direct X 11.1 a Windows 8 Exclusive. I think this is merely an update to make Direct X more integrated with Windows 8. Is this going to be the trend? To lock you into the OS updates so Windows 7 doesn't last as long as Windows XP has?"
The update is pretty minor, but it does add Stereoscopic rendering, and there seemed to be an implication that no new DirectX updates after this will be made for Windows 7.
and we won't have to put up with this anymore.
As per the subject, this just adds to the reasons for using OpenGL
Dan. -- So what if it's spelt wrong, nobody's perfect
If a company releases a new product, they have to add new features to get you to buy it. Why add features to a product people have already bought when they're trying to push the new shiny?
The real story would be if they didn't continue with security updates and bug fixes, but I doubt that's the case.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
Wine has a Direct X implementation. Wouldn't it be hilarious if they Wine on Windows working well enough to make older versions of Windows able to run modern Windows applications?
Microsoft used the same trick to market Vista to gamers with DirectX 10.
The big game-companies and the indies know that only newly bought pc's and laptops will have win8. Nobody else is going to make the switch and I assume a majority of new buyers will 'downgrade' to win7. So they won't develop for it. Maybe they use the api as a extra option, but they all will make sure their games run on win7. Because win8 is going to be the new ME/Vista. Nice on tablets, but keep that crap away from my desktop.
This is a single Microsoft employee who is referring to "plans" in a division he admittedly isn't in, right?
Supposedly the big draw for Vista was the coming of DX10 and all that entailed. Side by side comparisons of DX9 vs DX10 were so minor the magazines (yes, those still existed in 2006) had to draw red circles around the detail, they made wireframe renders of DiRT so you could see all the extra triangles in the flags and water... that you couldn't see without the help, along with paragraphs explaining how what you couldn't see was so high tech.
I certainly can't tell the difference between DX10 and DX11, and 11.1a has got to be so minor as to be ignored by developers -- why would you want to alienate your customer base like that? Like microsoft, they're in the business to make money too. Whatever gains were had with the tessellation improvements in DX10 were offset by the improvements in technology; it's just too hard to tell the difference between DX versions these days.
Has rendering technology finally matured?
moox. for a new generation.
Isn't this basically what they did back with Vista and 7? After the legacy-support nightmare (from Microsoft's perspective) that was XP I expect Microsoft is tired of supporting old software on old systems. I can't say that I blame them -- at some point you just have to draw a line in the sand and say "I'm not supporting 5.25" floppies anymore."
We can argue about exactly when they should stop supporting old OSes, but at some point it makes sense to move resources from your old product to your new product.
Anything out there requires it?
Nope?
Non issue
Unless the new os sees adoption developers won't care
I'm hardly a Microsoft fan, but I don't expect them to just keep churning out new software for their old products. Why should they support older versions of Windows for new versions of their software?
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
The baseline requirement in nearly all games being released today is still DX9, because that's what XP supports. MS absolutely failed in trying to leverage gaming requirements as a means to pawn off unwanted upgrades on users. Because of that previous failure, DX10/11 still feels new to most people and they won't be demanding upgrades for it anytime soon. In the meantime, the delay in new DX feature adoption gives OpenGL-based open source/indie game developers time to catch up, just as before. And more OpenGL means less dependence on Windows as a whole, so this is a win-win-win situation.
Just like tying new IE releases to Windows upgrades. Chrome, Firefox, etc. cannot thank MS enough for that.
Rendering technology has been pretty mature for a few years now. Still some possibility it might start changing again, but on balance my guess is that we have reached stability.
From a commercial point of view, when you release software on windows, you want to be able to target the most people possible. As most people won't have windows 8 for a while, no ones going to develop for it. Personally I am still using XP on my home computer and have found no problems with it. I bet theres quite a few people still on XP. Most software still runs perfectly well, plus its hardware requirements are lower.
It's not just about visuals, it's also about performance. It is now much cheaper (GPU utilization wise) to do today what was done yesterday. Also, keep in mind that a lot of games don't have that great of visuals because they limit themselves to match consoles. The Call of Duty franchise is a perfect example of this. Anyway, take a look at this to see what is new. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/hh404562(v=vs.85).aspx Also, this is what games could be doing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duSIE2TkpH4
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Display_Driver_Model#WDDM_1.2
Sounds like a key feature of DirectX 11.1, the stereoscopic 3D rendering, is a feature of WDDM 1.2 and given WDDM 1.2 is only available in Windows 8, that kinda ties DirectX 11.1 to it as well.
Windows 7 uses WDDM 1.1. Could Microsoft safely update this to version 1.2 such that DirectX 11.1 could be made available for it as well? Probably (Microsoft developed it all, so there's no reason why they couldn't). Would it be a worthwhile investment for them to do so? Probably not; they're having enough trouble getting people to want to use Windows 8 as it is - forcing people to shift to it in any way possible, no matter how slimey, is not above them.
I doubt it'll matter much though - you'd have to be particularly crazy to develop a game that requires DirectX 11.1 any time soon. especially given the backlash against Windows 8.;
Most people on Slashdot are fucking idiots.
Microsoft didn't back down on the decision to backport DX10 to WinXP, so I doubt there's much hope here...
Just like they wanted people off of WinXP, the desperatly want people to migrate to Win8 (one was push, the other was pull, but the net result is the same).
Honestly, the only thing important to DirectX 11.1 besides some optimizations is a standardized way to support 3D instead of proprietary nVidia 3D vision and AMD HD3D. And if you don't care about S3D, then 11.1 is a non issue. Sounds like a bunch of FUD to me. Regardless, until you see a bunch of DirectX 11.1 exclusive games and DirectX 11 support is dropped (which will never happen), people are ranting about nothing.
Well that seals the deal on games being made for DX 11.1 for the next 8 years like we had with developers targeting DX 9.
Locking up DX 10 for Vista only didn't do anything to push people to buy Vista, and this isn't going to get people to move to Windows 8.
WE WILL NOT BE USING WINDOWS 8!
I'm already using Windows 8. Yes it works fine you luddites. Speak for yourself, thanks.
And no one bought that any more than they'll be buying 8.
Instead of worrying about DirectX, you can worry about which versions of which distro has a driver for your graphics hardware.
But sure, the grass is always greener and all that.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
If they were providing 8 as a free update, you might have a point, but who is really going to be shelling out $100 for it?
Until it gets as fast as opengl is with the latest drivers, why should we care? Everyone now uses engines that compile on to multiple platforms. Taking DirectX out of the picture makes maintaining those engines easier.
In other news, Google releases android 4.2 with a new camera, a new keyboard, and smoother rendering. They aren't porting any of these features back to 2.3 or 4.0. Is this what it's come to?
Linux has incorporated btrfs into the 3.x kernel and isn't porting it back to the 2.4 kernel. Is this what it's come to? Etc. etc. etc. Yes, this is Slashdot, but the MS bashing was played out sometime around 2006. If you're going to pick on them, at least pick something legitimate and don't whine about them not backporting features ad-infinitum.
They axed most desktop gadgets with over a half a year left before 8, and have axed all gadgets shortly before 8 launch. They are really doing all they can to force adoption of 8 and frankly, they can kiss my butt. I do NOT want a touchscreen interface before I have a freaking touchscreen monitor.
WDDM 1.2 has something called a composer that schedules between CPU and GPU tasks with directX 11.1 on top. It is a major performance improvement and great for power saving features.
Unfortunately, it can't be backported to Windows 7/XP as they would no longer be Windows 7 and XP anymore as it is a kernel rewrite. IT would break corporate software which is why they love using obsolete platforms for decades as it never changes.
Well no wonder IE 10 is not available on Windows 7. All that hardware acceleration has to be redone and fine tuned for a WDDM without a composer.
http://saveie6.com/
This is like the same reason I never bought another Black Berry. Not long ago I paid 500 bucks next update was not for my phone.
Screw them when they do this shit. I move on.
Wait till your smart TV dont get one.
Shit games today still require DirectX 9. Why? MS didn't want to port DirectX11.
IN actuality there are hardcore technical reasons like WDDM (the composer) being only available in WIndows Vista or higher. MS did port DirectX11 to Vista eventually as game studies still use the decade old DirectX 9. ... just sad considering games need to be cutting edge. WDDM 1.2 is not available for WIndows 7 but WDDM 1.1 is. YOu could theoretically port Direct X11.1 to Windows 7. It just requires more work if MS is serious about developers using it? Otherwise they might just finally upgrade to DIrectX11 and stay there.
So Microsoft but software requires OS upgrades before people switch. People switch only when software requires. It is a catch-22 and of course software makers want to keep the Windows 7 loyalist crowd who will be even more angry and resistant to change in a decade than the XP crowd. God forbid.
http://saveie6.com/
Sounds like deja vu with past Windows releases... this same exact thing has happened several times in the past.
Only now, Linux is catching up in big ways with the help of both Valve and nVidia, so how much longer will having the latest DirectX version even matter as a selling point for the the latest version of Windows?
Enjoy it while you still can, Microsoft.
I have to upgrade my DirectX 9?!?
This is part of the new wall protecting Microsoft's new playland it's creating to squeeze unsuspecting customers dry and competition out of the market.
That is the gentle rustling noise that a snowball makes.
See, it is rolling down the hill.
Steam.. Games on Linux.. M$ forcing users to upgrade to Win8, users leaving Windows and using Linux for the gaming experience..
Uh-oh!
That snowball is getting bigger pretty fast.
Maurice W. Hilarius Voice: (778) 347-9907
Because they'll have to.
Windows 8 is a toilet (remember, it's the "other version" every "every other version of Windows sucks") and they're forcing obsolescence on Windows 7 far too early.
ONly ATI 5600 series or high card from 2010 are required! THat is a bumb considering some ATI HD 4870 SLI users who blew big $$$ for their gaming rigs just 2 years ago are shit out of luck with Windows 8.
Now I know why as only very recent cards support 11.1 shaders.
http://saveie6.com/
Gamers tend to upgrade a lot more often than other people to begin with and the Windows 8 upgrade is only 40 dollars. I don't really see a problem here.
Has rendering technology finally matured?
It's the game developers that have matured. The technology hasn't changed that much -- but the developers have gained experience and understanding. They aren't willing to jump to the latest version just because it's the latest version anymore. They have some business sense now; Which is why the Windows 8 app store looks like a barren desert. Developers know they won't make money there. Same with game developers -- they go where the money is, not where the marketing is. So when you're looking at DX10 versus DX11; The API doesn't make much difference in performance, so why not stick with something supported by more video cards out there, and better optimized in newer video cards anyway?
The developers have matured -- they have a business sense now, not just technical proficiency. DX11.1 can bite their shiny metal ass. Nobody will be developing on it for years to come.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Rendering technology is waiting for the next generation of consoles. Devs are scared of doing pc-exclusive "super-graphics" because it will be PC-only and that market is mired in doubt of piracy and confusing sales numbers thanks to the myriad of digital options which aren't listed in the regular sales numbers.
Nothing radical will happen in the near-future apart from input methods such as Oculus Rift.
Is this going to be the trend?
You do know that they already did this in 2007 or so with DirectX 10 and Vista, right? Summary sounds unaware of this fact.
(And it failed then too.)
If you have programmed shaders before you know that new APIs make absolutely no difference in advancing graphics since any graphics effect that has and will ever exist can be programmed using even ancient shader models like GLSL version 2. New APIs serve only to lock users into their own API artificially, even though the graphics capabilities already exist and will be the same for a long time to come. Using shaders, a programmer can do anything using graphics, even things that don't exist yet. All of the effects advancements like SSAO (screen space ambient occlusion) and raytracing are advancements in algorithms that can be easily written in any existing shader language. A new DirectX API version in my opinion is completely useless and only serves no purpose other than to try to get people to buy Windows 8. Programmers don't need a new API to make better graphics, they need creativity and ingenuity using existing shader languages which will never need to change.
Linux sucks as a desktop os
Microsoft always does this bait and hook game. Already XP can't run IE9, and sites are stopping support for IE8. There's no option, accept Microsoft doesn't maintain support for their OS without forced upgrades, or just don't use it. There are some options.
The thing many people are waiting for I think is some simple way to stream win32 API suport to run any win-app you want, on demand, from one single box sitting on the network. Then get rid of every Microsoft product in sight.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
I would guess it's the developers who can tell the difference. Have you ever heard anybody say, "Gee my machine is so much faster now that it supports SSE3!"? No, but you bet people use those instructions.
Yes, there is an incentive to stick with older more compatible versions of DX, but that's the same as always- the old compatible version vs. the newer [faster|easier|secure] version.
I still haven't even got software that requires DX10. Why do I care what some future version of DX that I don't and probably never will use only runs on a shitty gimmick OS?
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
IE 10 will be released for Windows 7. A preview/alpha/beta is suppose to be released this month.
Since you seem to know something about WDDM, I have a question. Microsoft had plans for WDDM 2.0. 5 years later we're still at 1.2 and I see no recent documents about 2.0 from Microsoft. Were 2.0's changes pushed into 1.2?
My ~2007 macbook works fine except apple keeps trying to squeeze me into buying new hardware (not just software!) -- looks like M$ learned some of their tricks
As someone who has been using Win8 RC since about August, throwing the whole desktop on the GPU isn't quite as good as I had hoped. My example is as follows. My hardware specs are AMD FX-6100 @ 3.7GHz, Radeon HD 7850, 16GB RAM(1600). When running iTunes/Winamp visualizations on one monitor (windowed or full screen) the GPU usage skyrockets (as per Open Hardware Monitor) and the entire UI on both screens becomes less than a slide show. CPU usage rests at about 10%. Now whenever you run a mildly GPU intensive task in a window your system basically becomes completely unresponsive. My GPU is not the best out there but the majority of systems out there ship with much less, I can't feel a bit less then ambitious that this won't effect most people negatively overall.
As for your claim that it would require a "kernel rewrite" I have to say I'm impressed. Apparently you know the implementation of the system which apparently up to now was believed to be closed source. I am curious how you know how the kernel would have to be "re-written" when according to the version numbers they just went from 6.1 to 6.2.
A loop, by its nature, continues. If that didn't make sense, start reading this sentence again.
Early on in DX10 times, it was the exact opposite. Switching to DX10 renderer cost around 10-30% performance over what you would get on DX9.
It wasn't until DX11 and win7 that we started to see games that would actually have proper support that didn't come with a massive performance hit when switching from DX9 to DX11. And even so, DX11 still generally is a net fps loss because of the extra features that put extra load on the hardware. Load that isn't there in DX9.
Most of the games I play on PC have a DX11 on/off mode in the menus. If several Free 2 Play games have this option (on UT3 engine), I can't see why a game can't be developed with a DX11.1 mode check box.
EA and Activision both predate Quake 1 by a number of years. It's not as if the game industry popped up overnight and delivered us the Xbox 360 and PS3, followed shortly by lolcats and image macros on Reddit. Fallout 3 is not built on a new IP, nor is Quake 4 or Skyrim for that matter. John Carmack was making smart commentary about the gaming industry in his .plan files almost two decades ago.
I see that you're trying to make a point... but I think you need to reach back about ten years prior to the era you're thinking of.
moox. for a new generation.
With the power of modern machines, they could probably skip most of the "fine tuning" if there was any will to do this.
Rather obvious that there isn't any, and even more obvious as to why. Microsoft needs win8 to succeed badly.
They did the same thing with Windows7 and DX10.. The result? Game publishers didn't write DX10 games for a LONG time, and if they did the games would work in DX9 or 10 via a settings change. There are still games out there that don't support DX10. Way to go MSFT... how many times can you shoot yourself in the foot before you finally bleed out?
You apparently cannot tell time. I've had a 4870 for almost 4 years, and it wasn't fantastically new when I bought it.
You guys are fast to barricades and yelling at Microsoft, but do you even know what you are talking about? Microsoft did some nice changes updating to WDDM 1.2 and DXGI 1.2 for more speed and reducing memory footprint. Linux and OpenGL are far behind. Seeing the general opinion here disgust me. We should aim for the optimal quality, not return to the past.
Steve Sinofsky, the "brains" behind Windows 8, has just been given the boot.
Gee... one wonders why.
http://allthingsd.com/20121112/breaking-windows-head-steven-sinofsky-to-leave-microsoft/
Maybe it's because 8 is a stinker and they have to deep discount the so-called upgrade to 15 bucks just to get people to try it?
--
BMO
Ready the Downfall parodies.
:|
along with paragraphs explaining how what you couldn't see was so high tech.
and the judge wasn't going to look at the 27 8x10 color glossy ...
pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Looks like they're taking some lessons from apple. That's kinda sad.
Wuddooeyeno? IITYWYBMAD? Like nuts? eclecticallyincorrect.com
Crysis has DX9 and DX10 modes. I definitely notice a difference in DX10 - shadows are more defined, the motion blur is actually not annoying since it blurs at different amounts depending on distance - hard to describe the difference but it certainly looks nicer, and the lighting is a bit more effective.
Deus Ex: Human revolution has DX9 and DX11 modes. DX11 allows tessellation, which means things like ears and collars appear as smoothly rounded surfaces rather than sharpy cut. Shadows and depth of field are also improved, and the delay between alt-tabbing from the desktop back into the game is reduced significantly in DX11.
So some of the benefits are subtle yes. But they are cumulative, and the summation of all these little improvements add up to an overall better experience. Having said that, rendering technology has definitely not matured since we're still effectively performing hacks to get 3D worlds to work. Ray-tracing engines with real-time performance is the next big step.
Most people on Slashdot are fucking idiots.
Holy shitcakes, we can see stuff in 3D with a 3D card now? And there is a standardized interface to support it, but only available on a single operating system? Well time to throw all my OpenGL manuals in the garbage, DirectX here I come!
I guess they never learn. A major reason DX9c games are still getting published is that DX10 wasn't compatible with XP. Now they repeat the same scenario, or at least it sounds like it. They might think this drives customers to Win8 but in reality it only drives developers to stay in DX10/Win7.
I was actually excited when I first saw DirectX 10 screenshots. You actually get foliage with DirectX10, especially in the third set. (Check out the mountains in the back.) Pity that Vista's poor uptake meant nobody besides Crysis or Hellgate: London did much with with it.
DirectX 11 was even more impressive--tesselation essentially gets you a hojillion transformable polygons for free. Check out the crowd animated entirely in GPU hardware.
If you really can't tell the difference, just rejoice, quietly, that all of your gaming needs were met nine years ago. You'll never be tempted to buy a new video card for that XP rig.
DATABASE WOW WOW
So how much does MS pay you to post here? You can't be someone who reads slashdot yet posts objectively about microsoft! That's blasphemy!
I won't.
Been trying it as a virtual machine on my workstation and in IMO the Windows 8 UI is out of place on a desktop.
With that said, I can totally see it on phones, tablets or maybe even a workstation with a touch screen.
I dropped Gnome when 3 was released for similar reasons.. just feels like it belongs on a touch screen or a set-top type device. ...geez I just upgraded from WinXP a few months ago :-|
They have to say that. Can't let anyone know they sent him on an Elop mission. I wonder whose board of directors is about to get a nasty surprise.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
And yet in your example, the developers still felt the need to clearly label in ALL CAPS which one was which.
moox. for a new generation.
It's about time they stop supporting archaic OS's. And Steam is hardly needed now that we have the Windows Store. Good riddance to the older platforms, I say. Let's keep moving forward!
I've been a long time fan of windows, and microsoft. but really? F- U microsoft for giving me windows 7 then telling me, hey btw if u want directX 11.1 you've gota get our shitty windows 8
This is a Mac, what you have there is an embarrassment to your fellow computer users.
I know, man. Screenshots, axes, lab specimens... those developers will label anything.
DATABASE WOW WOW
True. I only have one DX10 game on my laptop, and turning DX10 on means a 30-50% drop in frame rate compared to the DX9 engine with no glaring difference in graphics.
So if some new technology comes out... won't work for Windows 7. Imagine if this spring, some new version of WiFi is released that works over distances of 20 miles, at gigabit speeds, and allows infinite porn downloading.
You mean, like IEEE 802.11ac? :-D
More seriously:
A new feature will probably be supported the same way Bluetooth was supported before microsoft included it into the service pack: an ugly vendor specific hack included with the driver.
So the end user will be stuck between two hard choices:
- keep the older OS version and put up with the crappy stack
- pay and upgrade to the newer OS version with buil-in official support
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
you misspelled "Sadist":
"...satisfy Sinsosky's Saddist fetishes."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadist
-The Mgmt
I have a shit ton of memory, I have a fast system, what compelling reason do I have to buy yet another OS, I dont even like using JUST to play some DX9 XBOX360 ports?
That looks rather cool, but annoyingly it's only in 720p. Consoles again I suppose.
One thing that I personally hate in games is depth of field, and it's not even because of the performance hit. It's just so bloody annoying to have to move the cursor to something to see it properly, not to mention if you accidentally point at something at a different distance - now you can't see what you were actually looking at.
I do wonder if it'd be possible to do accurate eye tracking to do depth of field, even though I still suspect I'd want to disable it because of the same issues.
Depends probably what games you looked at. If these were not optimized for DX10, you won't see much of a difference of course.
DX 10 brought pretty impressive optical improvements in terms of water (water surface ripples, waves etc looking way more realistic, fountains, under water effects etc.), the ground cover in games looked much more realistic, especially its lighting and fade-in of spots with ground cover. Distance blur inproved, softer shadows, polygonal round shapes becomes truly round.
Might not be much for you but it matters a lot if you play for example a MMO for years and re-visiting the same area quite some.
DX11 brought better surface plasticity without modeling it. See here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtNHmj7vznI Not sure otherwise, I haven't seen anything in games yet that fully uses DX11 functionality.
...for it to be ported to Windows 7 without rewriting the kernel....until someone from the community comes out with an installer for Windows 7.
Oh wait, DX 11 introduced stereoscopics for Nvidia, I remember the talk at EQ2 forums and how impressed people were. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eD_WpjH586M Anf here is a good overview, basically DX11 is DX10 effects plus a bit improvement with better performance. I've seen rain drop calculations on ocean waves in the Crysis 3 Engine as example, very nice. Of course if you play a game where you just race through you won't realize these things most likely. http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/directx_11_deconstructed?page=0,0
Wrong. There are still hundreds of millions of users with perfectly good computers that are running XP. They don't want to upgrade and migrate all their data and settings. They don't want to pay for new software that will let them do the things they do already. Hell, the feature touted in the thread summary (stereoscopic rendering) is already on Windows XP in OpenGL (and has been forever, including lots of effects that Microsoft forced you to get Vista for). Requiring an OS upgrade for simple features has nothing to do with technology (since OpenGL has no problem) - it is all about bilking you for more money.
According to StatCounter XP usage is now tying MacOSX and Vista usage! Look under United States and add November statistics to do the calculation?
XP is a security nightmare. THe only place where XP and IE 6 are huge is CHina. Outside of that market it is dying. It is time to move on and stop fearing change. XP security is really bad just like IE 6 which came with it as the grandparent stated was from a different era where a good password is all you needed and oh stay out of websites you do not know etc.
Today, you get hacked by just having flash out of date or java installed through an infected ad network. I setup a new install of WIndows 7 just the other day and someone hit the blue E and BAM msn.com had an ad. Had to re-image the damn thing. XP lacks ASLR, DEP (except on a few services), and heap-spray protection. ASLR = random address layering (out of order). All you need to do to hack an XP box is know which ram addresses core dll files use. You can do this as a regular user.
Just insert some code by overflowing a buffer or integer in XP and BAM your code is running as admin, even if the code started as a regular user. Dep and ASLR with Windows 7 can stop this. VC10 has bounds checking when a program crashes to prevent loss of control ... again does not work on XP. XP does not seperate processes and priveldges and even impersonates administrator and hardware devices ... wow.
XP
- can't scale beyond 2 cores efficiently
- SATA driver can't multitask with command queing
- Swaps like a mofo due to a terrible paging algorithm (double pennalty if you use the default SATA driver) even if you have plenty of ram
- Slower and shitty graphics due to not supporting WDDM and a compuser below DirectX11 and the hardware. This makes your computer more stable
- Driver BSOD protection
- No UEFI support
- No Trim SSD Support
- No modern browser support after 2014 (Chrome and FF will drop it)
I assume if you work in IT (like most slashdotters) that you are under 30 and are used to behavior that dictates run unupdated ancient platforms but DO NOT TOUCH IT. THose of use over 35 remember doing it every 2- 3 years like your phones.
It is irresponsible and dangerous to run XP today and especially after next year. It is time to move on my friend. It is 2012 now. Your PC is not an appliance like a fridge if it is internet enabled. We wont support you anymore and it wont be our problem for not supporting IE 6- 8 and XP. That problem is yours.
http://saveie6.com/
Just like what happened to IE 10.
Initially Microsoft only let users of Win 8 to enjoy IE 10, shutting out millions and millions of Win7 users.
Only now, rumor has it that M$ gonna let Win7 users use IE10 - http://slashdot.org/submission/2350635/ie-10-for-win-7---would-it-be-a-little-bit-too-late- - but it would be too late.
The same thing may happen here.
Only after Linux gathering massive Steam (pun intended) Microsoft gave up and allowing DirectX 11.1 to run on Win7 - and it will too, be too little, too late.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
enterprise use is going 7 and 8 is not that bad but the real killer for 8 is the NEW UI that is based on touch / 1 app at a time cell phone use ideas.
and moving that to that to more then one screen / big screens does not work that well. Also why no start menu in desktop mode??? at least as a on / off choice?
Microsoft had its good times. People aren't so tolerant of artificial limitations in their OS, especially the still-warm Win7. Back in the day M$ could throw its weight around and force devs & consumers to comply. Now people can just say goodbye and move to other compelling OS's. While iOS is a fine platform, it'd be jumping from one walled garden to another. Don't get me wrong, it's great to have a viable alternative an competition in the market. It's just that iOS as the lone alternative would be just as stifling.
Linux, which spearheaded the open source movement, has arguably had the widest impact as the foundation of Android and myriads of distros. The community rallying around open source has been amazing. While not perfect, I'm often awed by the number of people willing to contribute to all manner of open source projects. The type of work available out there was simply unfathomable in the silo'd days of yore.
I'm typing this in Chrome running on an Android tablet with a keyboard dock. The clamshell design looks like any notebook. I've not used a Windows laptop in over a year. Microsoft's worst nightmare has come true and as consumers we're better off.
Give it a week if there is any value. Someone will write a non M$ patch.
You simply don't get it. I'm not saying that Windows XP is better than Windows 7, no one is. What we are saying are two things: 1) many people are not like you and don't routinely change their working computers just for the latest fashion, they change when their computer dies; 2) Windows 7 is better than Windows XP, but not sufficiently so for the way most *ordinary* users use it. You are writing from your techie perspective and simply don't appear to understand what the rest of thinks about these forced upgrades to get trivial graphics features (which, as I point out, are implemented in Win XP under OpenGL
It is irresponsible and dangerous to run XP today and especially after next year. It is time to move on my friend.
I'm not talking about my computing preferences, and again you appear to fail to grasp the concepts I'm talking about (preferring instead to flaunt supposed superiority because it appears you imagine yourself as some kind of early adopter). I'm talking about how *ordinary users* are working (including the vast populations that live outside the US, like myself). Ya know, these regular folk have the systems people like you and I have to maintain. It is these people who are having their arms twisted to upgrade unnecessarily in order to run programs that don't actually need the new APIs.
Too bad. Not to sound like a dick but you do not expect to buy a car (yes the hated car analogy) and expect free service forever. Otherwise everyone woudl drive 30 year old cars with 200k miles on them if someone else footed the bill.
Corps are the users who see it and like it. MS and webmasters such as myself have to put our feet down and say no. It is your problem. Most of these users you describe use IE as smart users have upgraded mostly to better browsers. Yes new apis like .NET 4.5 are out that are not compatible with XP. Metro apps and cloud apps, and every app under the sun integrated to the net are part of Office 2013.
Eventually they will be expected to be integrated together inside office itself or Metro. These users will get hacked over and over too. It is not arm twisting as they were arm twisting us forcing external costs to us to make IE 6 hacks in 2011 is rediculous!
Ordinary users had it made for more than enough time and it is not arm twisting to stop sinking money for them. Backporting significantly increases the cost of development and it is not fair to early adopters who want to see HTML 5 and CSS 3 actions and run applets but can't due to a 11 year old OS and browser.
http://saveie6.com/
A desktop, any desktop, is for using, not for admiring the same bloody animation over and over again. I use windows for gaming but have EVERYTHING turned off except the font options. Aero was disabled years ago. And I just tested it but my start menu shows instantly. A second? I would already be killing Ballmer with a rusty spoon if it took a tenth of a second. My life is worth more to me then wait a second everytime I want to do something.
You are aware that all these startup animations and such are completly useless?E17 had to articiially slow the loading process on Linux to be able to show off its animation effect of the loading screen. Nice... and disabled. What the fuck is the logic behind that?
My PC is not a movie prop. It doesn't have to look the part, it has a task to do and it should do its task as quickly as possible. Maybe if you disabled all the bling, your PC wouldn't need a full second to load a start menu.
Is your life that devoid of meaning that it needs the soothing animation effect to make it tolerable? It is like people who complain about a tearing effect when they move a window around... who the fuck cares? I select a window, drag it to where I want it and I want it done as fast possible and not as nice as possible. I guess there are people who really do have all the compiz options on for more then the 1 minute it takes to get utterly tired of them.
Maybe I am just wrong in thinking an OS is about its applications, not about its bling.
Considering the Windows 7 guy was fired and the Windows 8 and Office girl was promoted, I am starting to feel very alone.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
League of Legends looks way better with DX11 than with DX10. With the latest iNvidia drivers and DX11, my graphics are awesome with more solid frame rates. The game is free: http://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4efaeb1eb680d980013579
The problem is that there is rapidly becoming no default vendor for industrial-scale general purpose computing. We've become complacent, assuming that if nothing else we can always order another 25 workstations and 5 server boxes from Dell/HP/whoever and stick the latest Microsoft OS on the workstations and whatever server software we wanted on the rest. Even if companies don't upgrade voluntarily, sooner or later the current generation of hardware will start to fail.
But what happens if Microsoft do fall and the only people left to replace them are the likes of Apple (assuming they do any better, since their downward slide seems to have started as well)? If the biggest game in town is some new guy's locked-in software platform, the big name hardware vendors are likely to fall in line, as we've already seen with Apple appearing to lock up the entire supply chain of certain key components for their signature devices so developing competing products is difficult. If you just want to build your own PC and run Linux, you might still be able to (at a premium price, probably), but if the mainstream is moving in a completely different direction then the value of any such system will be greatly reduced.
Ultimately, any computing platform is only worth as much as you can do with it. If you can't access the content you want, connect to the communications channels everyone else is using, play the games you want, run the creative software you want, and so on, the fact that you're running on an "open" hardware platform and OS isn't worth very much at all.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Really, this kinda stuff is code once, then forget about. And people who write game engines are not stupid, these are people who can do 3D calculations in their own head, they can handle an if/else construct. Two different video cards to set? My GOD!!! The HORROR!
This is a non-issue and kinda shows MS is running out of ideas, Vista didn't become an hit despite tying itself to DX10, why would a point update that only adds 3d support, do it? 3D support has been done for YEARS, without a directx api, they will just continue to use the existing methods.
DirectX only matters to amateurs who need their hand hold. For everyone else, if MS doesn't supply it, someone else will. Look at the loading screen of your game, you can see TONS of library providers. Look up openal, why would you need a 3rd party sound library under DirectX? Because it is better? More flexible? Gosh... so even when DirectX does provide support, some developers STILL choose other libraries. ODD!
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Backporting significantly increases the cost of development and it is not fair to early adopters who want to see HTML 5 and CSS 3 actions and run applets but can't due to a 11 year old OS and browser.
Again you still don't get it. There is nothing preventing HTML5 working in WinXP (since Firefox and Chrome can do it). There is nothing prevent steroscopic 3D working in Windows XP (since OpenGL does it). You are trying to make technical argument that doesn't hold water. I'm a developer and know all about backporting - but use technologies that work on Windows XP as well as everywhere else - it is just that you have your blinkers on regarding technology, at least from my point of view - and even the uninformed can see through the bullshit arguments Microsoft is making, once you point it out (hence the umbrage taken by myself and other informed posters). I'm not against Microsoft, just the way they sometimes do business.
The features of DirectX 11.1 over the "11.0" version are mostly improvements to device and resource sharing across different processes and API versions, on top of certain features that make it possible to better implement hardware-accelerated UIs. 11.1 is win8-exclusive because we don't need to handle HW-accelerated "metro" in windows 7. As far as games are concerned, 11.1 doesn't bring anything interesting enough to add a new rendering path to the game engines.
We won't give a shit soon enough. I switched to DirectX a few years ago, as OpenGL 2.1 was getting to my nerves due to everything breaking with new drivers. Well, DX11 ain't pretty either. Lots of drivers bugs when shaders get .. hairy.
OpenGL has now caught on, DirectX is trying to push Win8 (I have it for free being a student but no thanks, not installing that), PIX is not working very well anyway for complex shaders, so bye bye won't miss you, back to GL.
Dont tell me linux isnt the same but by accident.
Can I shoohorn in the latest X+libc into Fedora14?
or Ubuntu 9 using older gcc?
Sure we can force it, but watch things break.
Stupid MS though, im sure 99.99% of the api/code doesnt use any Win8 specifics, lets hope someone can hack the installer. They should be smarter and develop a truly smart compiler/binary system that can work with many versions.
This is what sucks about most OS's and Software systems, 20000 libraries, each with their own matrix of dependencies and incompatibilities.
But if people got a clue and designed in a more organic way, then more varieties of code could inter mix with each other.
Instead of each windows being a new species of animal with incompatible DNA, it should evolve in a compatible way.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
stereoscopic rendering is already available on Windows 7..........
No no no you got it all wrong.
Steam on Linux is just there so they can go to an even more perfect (controllable) environment such as, say, a Steam console. Isn't this blatantly obvious since they day they first mentioned it? *sigh*
Hivemind harvest in progress..
I second the above. I work at a rather successful game company and on Windows we target, no joke, Win98. We make family friendly games and our target is, as you might have guessed, the entire family. Since most people aren't hardcore their systems are average on years old hardware at best, and while many families have hand-me-down boxes and laptops now those are running *even* older hardware. If our games run like crap on someone's ancient box they won't blame the box, they'll blame us, and then not play our games.
So yeah, we could *totally* make use of "the shiny" but to grow our user base that's just not something we can afford. It's how everything's going...id software's id tech 5 is scalable, Unreal Engine 3 is surprisingly scalable, Unity can target mobile platforms AND desktops, it's everywhere. I'm glad that some companies are dedicated to using "the shiny" but as we've all seen it's gameplay that matters, not graphics, and typically when you pump up one the other suffers.
"Just a fox, a whisper."
Some of that is cryengine (glass breaking).
Stuff like "particle shadowing" and "fancy water" is do-able in software. I can make morrowind look like those cryengine 3 test runs. People are even modding their own post-processing and HDR rendering.
Game developers have all kinds of rendering tricks they like to use to provide adequete pre-rendered illusions of this "enhanced stuff".
The smart ones will build clean fast code that runs on as much hardware and software as possible. I think most game developers are getting smarter. WoW runs on virtually everything.... even if its un-supported. At worst game companies will have to purchase a redistributable "liscence" if they wish to use something in DX11.1a if they just can't live without it.
Someone else pointed out the AMD 4800HD which is 3-4 years old, but then again why is 6 or 7 fine?
Games out now have GeForce6800 requirements. Not supported in windows.
OSS drivers supported well, 15 plus years, and you can update them yourself if you really want it.
When Vista came out, no drivers for many HP or Brother printers, most scanners, etc.
Not writing a driver for a new OS means you get to make someone buy a new card.
Uh, we have a 32 year old car and you can still get replacement parts for it. Lots of people in fact have such old cars.
They generally also get service for the same price as new cars (which is not free though), you might have to find a place that still has clues about them though.
A lot, if not most, people do not want such old cars, but there is hardly a huge issue with keeping them working (and yes, that does include "upgrades", like being able to handle newer fuels).
But either way we are talking about Windows 7, an OS still being sold, not something that hasn't been sold since 30 years.
Because then Steam doesn't have to say "Supported under Red Hat 15" or whatever AND, as they've found before, they can gain some rather large improvements on performance with FOSS drivers.
Such drivers, if for example AMD did this, would make them "preferred partners" and "supported on AMD cards".
...are now mandatory!
Congratulations, my Windows-using friends!
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
The best summary is from Rock, Paper, Shotgun:
Itâ(TM)s been a while since Microsoft pulled the olâ(TM) âoh no, this new version of DirectX couldnâ(TM)t possibly work on earlier versions of Windowsâ(TM) scamgasm, but as the relatively friendly age of Windows 7 is overshadowed by the dawning of the firmâ(TM)s desperate desire to make Windows 8 a cross-platform goliath/software shop, an old habit has returned.
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/11/12/old-dog-old-tricks-ms-locks-directx-11-1-to-win-8/
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
The best summary is from Rock, Paper, Shotgun:
It's been a while since Microsoft pulled the "oh no, this new version of DirectX couldn't possibly work on earlier versions of Windows" scamgasm, but as the relatively friendly age of Windows 7 is overshadowed by the dawning of the firm's desperate desire to make Windows 8 a cross-platform goliath/software shop, an old habit has returned.
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/11/12/old-dog-old-tricks-ms-locks-directx-11-1-to-win-8/
(reposting because /. stupid UTF-8 non-support mangled the quote the first time)
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
There's barely any games out there that even use Directx11 right now, due to 90% of games being rushed console ports, meaning Directx9. So I honestly couldn't care less about something no games within the next 3 years will ever use.
Because AMD's OpenGL drivers are crap. I remember when Brink came out, one of the only games to use OpenGL recently. Ran great on nVidia cards, no surprise since graphics weren't all that high end, but poor even on high end AMD cards.
Any gamer with an AMD card would rather see a DX title: It'll run better.
People seem to forget that Steam is just a platform to sell games, an online store. It doesn't port your games. So Valve putting Steam on Linux means very little, unless companies start porting their games to Linux.
For that to happen, there will have to be a worthwhile amount of sales for existing Linux titles. Publishers will need to see that the cost of the port will be worth it. Remember it isn't as simple as "Just use OpenGL and you can port it!" Each platform takes work and QA and that means money. They have to see an ROI to want to fund it.
Valve can like Linux all they like, if people don't buy games on Linux, and publishers don't port games to Linux, it won't matter. Valve is worried because they think people might start buying form MS instead of Valve. They make a lot of money doing very little. Steam lets the be highly effective middlemen and make a killing at it. They are worried the Windows Store will threaten that.
Game publishers are much less likely to care. They just want people to but their games in large numbers, they don't care how the people choose to do that.
That was largely because DX10 support was gimmicky and done incorrectly. DX10 was a major new model for how things worked (hence the break) and so it required doing things differently. Early attempts didn't, it was just a "Oooo look at what we have!" kind of thing.
You did see the occasional game that did it right, but only later. Now most games use DX11 (since it is backward compatible with DX10, just with less features on 10 hardware).
At first, I read the headline as 'Microsoft Makes X 11.1 a Windows 8 Exclusive' and was impressed that MS has taken an open sourced X11, revved it up a notch, and then made it a Windows 8 exclusive.
My machine is still a dual-core Athlon X2-5200 with 4GB, oh, but I upgraded the video to one of those fanless Geforce 210 cards.
It runs Ubuntu and LibreOffice just fine, and I even enjoy the occasional game on it.
My laptop is about 7 years old and I'm waiting for it to finally die. If it doesn't die, I might still get a new one complete with OS. I had my eye on Windows 7 so I could have a hybrid kernel, as OSX has. I'm not a gamer but I know there are 3d apps that are useful and if they demand Direct X y.w version in the future, what's the point in choosing Win 7, especially since it's already not the latest thing. I have zero interest in Windows 8, so I might have to finally cave and get a MAC, or else just use Debian, or both if possible.
The question is "Is this going to be the trend? To lock you into the OS updates ... "
The answer is yes. I've just learned how close I am to falling off the OSX/Apple boat. Until last week I had a 6th gen. ipod nano (the square one about 2cm on a side), but it went through the wash and was ruined. So off I go to buy a new ipod. Easy, right? No, they now come with the thunderbolt connector, so all my 30-pin accessories no longer work, and I've got several. Screw you, Apple! Oh wait, there's an adaptor. No, it costs frikking $30. Screw you, Apple! Angrily, I bought it anyway.
Then it gets worse. The new nano requires itunes 10.7 or up; I've got 10.6.7 or something. Off to update itunes, where I learn that 10.7 requires Mac OSX 10.6 (Snow Leopard) or greater. Fortunately, I'm running Snow Leopard, so I'm in. But I can guarantee the next version will deprecate Snow Leopard, meaning in order to buy a new ipod I'll have to upgrade my OSX, which knowing Apple won't run on my hardware (Mac mini bought in 2010), so I'll probably be required to buy a new computer too.
And at that point, I will give up. I've liked my ipods, but it's ridiculous that getting a new one also requires you to buy a new computer. Screw you, Apple! At that point I'm going to rip the whole mess to some other format and buy a cheap-ass MP3 player and give Apple the royal finger. I was listening to MP3s on Linux a decade ago, and this upgrade treadmill is getting on my nerves.
To anyone wanting to respond with a snarky "that's what you get for using Apple products," here's a pre-emptive "screw you" to you as well. I knew what I was getting into; it just took until now to get to the point where I'm pissed off. I think this is called "boiling the frog."
If this were Usenet, I'd killfile the lot of you.
I was pretty stingy on my OSs. I ran windows 2000 for as long as possible. Once at a LAN party, we tried to play Age of Empires, but I couldn't because I didn't have XP. So I copied the installed image and registry sections from and XP computer and attempted to run it. It came up wth a binch of missing DLL errors which I write down and copied the files off of the same XP computer (all DirectX files) and then it ran... Perfectly.
So this isn't anything new. MS has been using DirectX to push people into newer OSs for at least a decade.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
Log in to World of Warcraft ( or find a friend ). Note your framerate, switch from dx9 to dx10 ( or vice versa ), note your framerate. Big difference.
The transition from 9 to 10+ was all about geometry shaders, which means more processing can be shifted from the CPU to the GPU. Yes, the image quality is undoubtedly the same. But the games can push more triangles through, which means more objects on the screen and better detail.
The systems are fairly similar so there's probably going to be a way to install DirectX 11.1 on Windows 7, just like you could install version 10 on Windows XP with some patching.
First, its hardly a change that will make anyone move to 8. Second, game developers most certainly are not going to drop Win7 support anytime soon, even if M$ wants them to. Third, this just pushes devs away from Direct X.
No idea where everyone gets the no one is upgrading, Wife, work, friends, family, and I have already upgraded. It is windows 7 with some very nice tech upgrades and an app store. First time I tried to move a folder and it told me which application had it open I was sold :P. Also moving MSCONFIG startup to a user friendly tab on the task manager was awesome. Was easy to teach my aunt how to find out which apps was slowing down her computer start up time. So you guys might not think so but a lot of people are upgrading.
Ask IBM about their busy work in Germany during the late 30s and early 1940s...
Forget StatCounter. It's shit. The only statistics you can trust are from Wikipedia. Everybody uses Wikipedia and it has no fucking pony in the race.
Wikipedia's stats still show XP at roughly 1/3rd of Windows installs.
When running iTunes/Winamp visualizations on one monitor (windowed or full screen) the GPU usage skyrockets
Found your problem bro. I'm running Windows 8 on roughly equivalent hardware and have yet to see what you are describing.
You are right about the kernel rewrite thing being an exaggeration though. Rest assured it would be non-trivial to backport a new driver model though.
I wish that PC builders would employ software engineers and all go in together to get ReactOS together for a drop-in windows replacement.
Too bad they're all just in the sledgehammer business and don't care about making anything. They buy a case, a few components, an OS and sledge it all together. They don't care about making anything, it's just a numbers game to them.
Maybe trying another GPU intensive task (bitcoin mining, OpenCL/CUDA,etc) will trigger what I've found. My Winamp visualization is Milkdrop and the settings are pretty much cranked at 1080p resolution.
A loop, by its nature, continues. If that didn't make sense, start reading this sentence again.
The people you talk about also use IE and never upgrade their browsers either. Those who do run better browsers have left XP mostly or plan to do so next year. Statistics do not lie.
So basically it now creates a problem for website makers too. There is everything stopping Steroscopic 3d in XP. First WDDM is on the bottom which requires a different driver framework to handle DRM (h.264 license requires this), then DirectX 11 uses things like Shaders 3.0 and most ancient GPU's do not support it.
OpenGL does not take advantage of the hardware the same way directX does for everything otherwise developers would use it and not DirectX.
They will never leave if you stop making software that runs on that platform and increasing your own costs and time in the process. They will eventually leave at this point but not if you keep backporting shit. Or you need to charge a boatload like web developers do if a customer wants IE 6 support. After they started charging double the bosses finally decided to upgrade.
The problem with this idea of PCs disappearing is that we will still need general purpose computers with large screens and input devices that are comfortable to use for many hours at a time. Are you going to develop a website on your mobile phone, or your games console? Even if you use a tablet, it would be like sitting at work all day staring at a 10 inch monitor. Tiny monitors are not good for productivity at all. Also, touch screens are not good for entering large amounts of text, a task which is quite common.
Perhaps though, you will be able to plug your tablet into a bigger screen on your desk, and also plug a nice keyboard into the tablet. Also a mouse would be nice. Then you realise that you are basically reconstructing a PC. Welcome to the post PC future that still actually needs PCs.
I've been testing 8 a little bit. I really generally don't have much of a problem with it. Performance-wise, I'm running on some pretty old hardware, I think XP originally shipped on it. (A Dell desktop, optiplex of some kind). Seems comparable to Win7 to my observation.
I can't stand metro, of course, but I'm thinking that this can't possibly appeal to ANYONE. So, someone's going to come along with a hack or tool or something, like a little startup script, that's going to kill it, and dump you into the old explorer interface. Done deal. If one doesn't show up in a couple of months, I may try to do it. I *do* like the new copy-progress dialog. It actually tells you what the fuck is going on instead of: "your copy-job may or may not finish in x years. . . "
I develop OpenGL games for a living and play a number of games for fun. One would assume that would have exposed a scheduling problem if there was one.
Car analogies aside, I don't expect to pay MS to beta test their OS for a couple of years, still not get a fully functional product and then get told I need to beta test the next iteration because - oh look - ponies!
I would love the chance to use W7 as I paid enough for it, but please, at least could they make it usable for those who don't want it to emulate a bloody boutique storefront? Oh yeah, and take it out of damn beta before moving onto the next version?
BTW, why is it I keep reading about people using 7 (& now 8) where you type the first few letters of a program to find it to run it? WTF is a GUI supposed to be for? If I wanna type in program names to run them (assuming I can remember all those I have on my system right now) I'd be using DOS 5! GUI = point, click, done. What is all this crap with having the need for a sodding search engine on your PC to do simple stuff?
Unfortunately, it can't be backported to Windows 7/XP as they would no longer be Windows 7 and XP anymore as it is a kernel rewrite. IT would break corporate software which is why they love using obsolete platforms for decades as it never changes.
You just made this up. There's no "can't be backported blah blah" in this situation where you control the software stack. There are actually about three possibilities:
1/ It's technically possible but so expensive it really can't be justified (this is just about acceptable if true).
2/ MS want to force Win8 upgrades (highly likely)
3/ It's technically possible but MS are too incompetent to do it (with acceptable reliability or something).
UGH I would kill myself to use XP again in that way.
The instant search was my only reason I could give myself to tolerate Vista on my slow laptop. It became nice as I had a lot of files from finance, HR, and other things. The instant search does more than just find programs without a mouse.
It can find documents and even text within documents, such as Sales for Acme 2009 etc. You then have both the excel file with the data and the word report you wrote 3 years ago. Neat hu? I like it too on portables where I used to carry a mouse with me. KNow I use the touchpad just a little bit and can open several things fast. Also I have A TON of entries in all programs. I just run some adobe programs, pc utilities, VS, and Office yet have 12 entries alone. Instant search means I never see that ugly mess.
http://saveie6.com/
And even so, DX11 still generally is a net fps loss because of the extra features that put extra load on the hardware. Load that isn't there in DX9.
Never speak of game development again. You clearly have no clue.
"Never speak of user experience again. You clearly have no clue".
See, that is a train that goes both ways, and just because you always rode it one way, doesn't make you the expert on return trips.
If you want to let Microsoft do this time and time again to you, go ahead and continue using Windows. If you want to put a permanent end to this behaviour, make the change to Linux and don't look back. Today's Linux distributions are loaded with software to make the transition easier than ever. Wine is continually being improved to run Windows software on Linux. Try a main Linux distribution like Fedora, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, it won't cost you anything except some time.
Yes, we know you have posted under numerous accounts, astroturfing for M$. Plus you have made several comments as an AC as shown in this comment . Plus your death threats are not funny either.
So until my next account... bye....
Yes, you will be back with a new account, and another, and another, ad infinitum.
--
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk
Friends do assist M$ addicted friends in committing suicide