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You Will Get DirectX 11.2 Only With Windows 8.1
SmartAboutThings writes "Microsoft has just announced the next version of DirectX, 11.2, on its website. But the real 'problem' is that it is going to be exclusive to Windows 8.1 and next generation consoles — Xbox One and Play Station 4. This is not news, as DirectX 11.1 was exclusive to Windows 7 & 8. But is this going to help Microsoft convince people to ugprade or will make them angry?"
Direct X is for games. And people who want to play their games will give up all sorts of important things in order to play them.
Recently, the always-online and amazingly intrusive Microsoft eye have caused Microsoft to back off on some things and that's encouraging, but the behavior is obvious and Microsoft wouldn't try it if they didn't think they could get away with it.
"Oh, I hate Windows 8...I'll never use that... oh? What's that? The next release of my favorite game? Only on Windows 8? I hate Windows 8... oh well... Windows 8 'just so I can play my game.'"
DX 10 being limited to Vista and newer kept it from being used for a long time, I guess the same will happen to DX11.1 and 11.2. Game companies won't make games that don't run on an OS the majority of the players use (Windows 7).
"...is going to be exclusive to Windows 8.1 and next generation consoles — Xbox One and Play Station 4." When did Microsoft start developing for Playstation 4?
Undoubtedly it will make the some people angry.
But for anyone that does Windows graphics development and knows something about the underlying system, it's not a big deal. We've known that adding some of these features to Direct3D would require making some changes to the underlying display driver stack (WDDM), which is why D3D 11.2 requires WDDM 1.3 drivers, and WDDM 1.3 requires Windows 8.1. Unless of course you want Microsoft backporting a new version of the display driver stack and breaking your old OSes...
TL;DR: D3D 11.2 requiring Win8.1 can't be helped
Well, it's true that I don't play a lot of games these days. I spend a lot more time pursuing my goals in life, so I don't have hours and hours to just sit down and immerse myself in all sorts of high end games. I tend to stick to a few that I like and play them from time to time, and DX 11.2 isn't required by any of them, or even the new title(s) that I'm interested in which are still WIP.
Other than that, I spend the vast majority of my time on Linux with KDE 4. Even moreso with Minecraft working on multiple platforms due to Java. The only new title I'm currently interested in is Planetary Annihilation, which if I recall correctly, will support a Linux port. So I guess my care-o-meter about this announcement is somewhere around zero.
I will say this, though. The user interface style that was developed, with a task bar and normal start-menu (not this metro start screen crap) was developed and refined over a period of 20+ years or so now. It's available across many operating systems and kernels. It's there because it works rather well. If you ask me, this touch-centric crap that Microsoft is pushing isn't much good beyond tablets and phones, where your primary mode of interface is your finger on a screen.
So, tablets and phones came along and a new interface style was designed that worked better with almost-exclusively touch-screen interface devices... Then Microsoft decided that *everything* should use this interface. I'm not interested in relearning how to use my Desktop's or Laptop's interfaces. Screw Windows 8. If I found a part of my computer's user interface to be highly inefficient, requiring a redesign to solve the problem, I'd be very aware of it. I hate wasting time. But the stuff before Metro in most cases doesn't give me that impression. Metro does.
So there's my possibly subjective rant. But hey, the article asked.
My new high-end HP running Win 7-64 with 32GB RAM takes 5 minutes to boot..
I know that HP sometimes make it hard to find the power button on their PC, but that is a bit ridiculous.
...that doesn't want to upgrade to 8.1? It's a free upgrade and, as far as I'm aware, doesn't make any changes for the worse. The only thing I can think of is "local searches are sent to Bing," but since that's easily disabled, I can't think of a reason not to upgrade if you're already running on 8.
The start menu is still broken by default, but now it comes with a useless button. Definitely an upgrade!
The start button functionality has been streamlined to meet customer demands. Windows 8.1 will inspire a new generation to greatness.
The sames things were said about Vista and 7.
Frankly, I was less than 2 months into 7 that I looked back and realized I had been stupid to skip Vista purely on "it's new and different" grounds and similarly to wait until 2011 to go to 7. Both were huge improvements on XP. Vista got a bad rap because shithead low end hardware (and a few cases software) makers wouldn't fix their drivers in a timely manner. Since 7 could mostly use Vista drivers when it came out, it was perceived as better despite really just being a cleanup and consolidation of good choices in Vista. Windows 8.1 will be the same thing.
I would be using Windows 8 on more hardware, but Intel decided to f*ck everyone on Atom / GMA based touch devices who bought hardware released even the same year as Windows 8 if it didn't include their Windows 8 hardware tax. Basically, the problem is consistently not Microsoft, but the hardware OEMs who produce crap or poor support. Microsoft's own internal studies are showing somewhere in the neighborhood of 80% of BSODs on XP/Vista/7 were not due to the OS, but directly due to graphics drivers. With Vista and 7 they created a framework for being able to control and reboot the GPU drivers and BSODs have massively dropped. Frankly, more Microsoft KB articles and help fields should point the fingers at software and hardware manufacturers when applicable. They've always been way too nice and softballed the error sources.
You're confusing the UI with the underlying OS. MSFT continues to improve the OS itself, but at the same time they, for some crazy reason, feel it necessary to radically modify the UI every time they have a new release. Not only is this annoying to their dwindling home users, it adds training expenses and delays to it's corporate adoption. On top of that the Metro UI is basically the antithesis of productivity.
Give up and look at his posting history. He's a troll that delights in deliberately appearing to be stupid.
Ok I did some digging and found this:
At the Game Developer's Conference (GDC 2013), Sony said, "PS4 Shader Language is very similar to HLSL, allows features BEYOND Direct X 11 and OpenGL 4.0"
Then some moron interpreted that as meaning Sony would use directx and extend its features but all it meant is Sony saying their shader language would be better than direct 11 and opengl 4.0.
No, the difference from Vista + SP2 + bunch of hotfixes to 7 is hard to spot. ...
Try the original RTM Vista. Say hello to horribly slow explorer file copy, indexer and background defrag kicking in at the most inappropriate times, paranoid default UAC settings,
While as a Windows OS users for' 20 years I don't LOVE 8, I do see where they are trying to head. No Windows 8 is not perfect, but it is the first OS that is trying to bridge the tablet/laptop gap. I'm currently typing on my Surface and love a lot, hate a little. My hope is that over the iterations, I will love more and hate less.
The real game changer for me is that the keyboard is close to the screen and touching the screen for many things is a lot easier than keyboard shortcuts or using a mouse/touchpad. When I move to a laptop, I find myself touching the screen to try to do basic functions. I do wish all laptops came with a touch screen now and am understanding the direction of Win 8. For all of the failures and frustrations with 8, try to consider the direction they are heading and the potential awesomeness of small, portable, touch screen devices with real keyboards that allow for productivity and interactivity beyond the typical laptop and with most of what we like about tablets. My daughter's Lenovo Yoga is also perfect in this regards. My son's powerful Asus Win 8 laptop is a little frustrating...no touch screen.
My point comes down to this, anyone reviewing Window 8 should do so with a touch screen. Never install in a desktop. If you are doing a gaming computer, wait for MS to find a better balance between desktop use of their OS and the portable design, which metro is intended for.
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is [DirectX 11.2] going to help Microsoft convince people to ugprade or will make them angry?
That's my secret... I'm always angry.
"Is that why so many people don't like it?"
People don't like change. Change means updating software and retraining users. For people to accept change, they must see some form of benefit to themselves to justify the difficulties. Windows 8 looks a lot like change for the sake of change - or, for the more cynical, change for the sake of furthering Microsoft's long term business ambitions in the mobile and service areas. Either way, it's a change in interface without apparent benefit.
We've been through this before with Office and the Ribbon - and to this day, even though almost everyone is now used to the ribbon, it's really hard to find something it makes easier than the old drop-down menu system did.
My point comes down to this, anyone reviewing Window 8 should do so with a touch screen.
No. No I will not and it is because Win8 is being sold as a desktop OS. I don't have, want, or need a touchscreen for my desktop OS so you are 100% wrong in asking that we change our work flow, that has been polished over many years with a keyboard and then mouse interface, to what amounts to a mobile UI.
Further this move is yet another force play by MS to push their mobile UI on to us desktop users. Which they are doing for a number of self interested reasons that offer desktop users nothing in return.
Yes I have heard that Win8 boots faster. Seriously? That is the only tangible thing that I've seen other than some questionable performance gains from whatever other code updates have been done beyond the UI. And I hate to break it to MS, and its shills and fanboys, but I've had an SSD for years now and boot times are not an issue.
It is clear that with the 8.1 update, something MS has not done since Windows 3 (wow!) that they are trying to "fix" their self created problem. However they only went part way because were they to actually fix the whole problem they would be undoing their whole plan that benefits them alone.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
This question has been asked on slashdot with literally every release of Windows that I can remember back to at least 95. Yes, people will complain, no it won't hurt Microsoft's sales. No, people won't stop buying their product because getting a major new feature requires you to upgrade the whole OS. I eagerly await this exact same thread two years from now.
Sorry I have to modify this slightly.
For Most people to accept change, they must see some form of benefit to themselves to justify the difficulties. However there will always be those who refuse to accept the change and fight it just because they really can't accept change.
We did an ERP software shift at work. the move itself hasn't been bad. while it isn't perfect, there is a single problem I can't seem to get beyond with one user. She refuses to look at a single column, when the entering information. It clearly shows a major error in Units of Measure. All she has to do is change the Unit of Measure and everything will line back up. But nope. she can't get into that habit. I have to go back in and fix it afterwards. This same person has allergies. She refuses to adjust her allergy meds even though they clearly don't work anymore.
Some people will never accept change.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Funny thing, actually, on Win 8 booting faster: it's largely because they quietly turned "Shut Down" into "Hibernate". When you select "Shut Down" in Win 8, you're really hibernating it. The only way to properly shut it down is via the command line. I learned this the hard way as a PC repair tech; I couldn't mount a Windows 8 volume using ntfs-3g, even though I'd "properly" shut it down Win 8. I did some digging and learned the truth, and shut it down via the command line, and was able to mount the drive using ntfs-3g.
By reading this you acknowledge that you have read it.
There are cross platform solutions such as OpenGL and OpenAL. If games developers focused on them, then I don't care about the state of DirectX. The fact we see games being released on Steam that can do cross platform, shows there are alternatives to MS API lock-in.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.