Taking the Piss Out of Vista

I think a huge number of people including myself would simply be happy if DirectX 10 were taken out of Vista and grafted into Windows XP. Microsoft can keep its piss.

I've been saying this since it was first revealed that DX10 would be a Vista exclusive.

ALL developers know EXACTLY what is going and what this means, but nobody is going to say anything for fear of the MS ire. Someone like John can say anything he wants without such repercussions.

The whole Vista + DX10 tie in is nothing but a farce and a push to sell Vista.

That whole Games For Windows thing? meh. Its really just a marketing thing designed for publishers and retailers who want to cash in on the marketing dollars that MS is throwing at it. Of course, that too has the Vista tie in. For more, go and read the specs over at www.gamesforwindows.com

A new box with a logo (GfW) is not going to help PC gaming.

A new OS (Vista) is not going to help PC gaming.

Only publishers willing to develop, market and sell [good] PC games will help PC gaming. Its really that simple.

As for DX10, anyone who remembers that whole 3DFX Glide thing knows that it won't take long before a DX10 wrapper that works on WinXP is released. This will enable any of those "DX10 only" games to run just fine on Windows XP. In fact, thre is nothing - absolutely nothing - in DX10 that developers absolutely must have in a game. Not.a.single.thing.

And there was no plausible reason why DX10 could not have been released for Windows XP. And the first person to tell me nonsense about that whole WDM being the deal breaker for XP, is going to get slapped.
This comment was edited on Jan 12, 10:30.

Derek Smart, Derek Smart, Derek Smart!

Ohh, I am too late.

We really do need a lot more game makers commenting on this. Even in just the forum, so if Microsoft tries to leverage their words against them they can always claim it is an impostor.

The only thing I want DX10 for right now is Crysis, and only until recently all the videos and pictures where done on DX9 hardware anyway, so it is not that critical.



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Windows Piiiiiiiiissta...

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This pretty much falls under the "duh" category. Carmack's word is pretty much next to God's around here, so maybe some people needed to hear it from him, but we've known for quite a while that Microsoft was going to do everything it could to twist people's arms into upgrading. They dropped WinFS, which was the only other major feature that seemed to have generated a lot of interest. So what do they have left? DX10 is really the only new tech that most people want. So they're going to beat us over the head with it until we upgrade.

I'm not doing it anytime soon. I'm sure eventually I'll have to if most game development goes DX10, but for now I'll just have to pass on the shiny new titles for Vista. Wake me whenever a service pack gets released and I'll look at it again...

Information doesn't want to be free, it wants to be tied up and spanked. It told me so itself, in a naughty little whisper.

Alex St. John shouldn't be critiquing ANYONE, that fucking spyware pedaling fraud that he is......

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I am a Blues Nazi.

LOL, hmmm.. why would WildTangent have a problem with Vista and its security features

Speaking of Carmack, maybe this will push devs towards OpenGL and push for more enhancements to OpenGL to support DX10 card features. Not that it'll happen, but it would be nice to see OpenGL games under XP that would graphically rival DX10 games under Vista.

Edit: I guess OpenGL already supports most if not all DX10 card enhancements. There just needs to be a concerted effort among PC game developers to use it. With OpenGL/OpenAL being cross platform and DX10 being Vista only, there should be incentive to develop OpenGL games and also provide a solution for WinXP nexgen card gamers. Here's some interesting discussion on the opengl tech:

http://www.opengl.org/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=3;t=014831;p=0


This comment was edited on Jan 12, 12:16.

Yeah, no Windows Pissta for me. In fact, this makes me want to support PC gaming LESS than before.

Once PS3 games support keyboard+mouse, I'll completely stop supporting MS and their crap.

"Once PS3 games support keyboard+mouse, I'll completely stop supporting MS and their crap."

Just because some chick is being a total bitch is no excuse to go gay.

"Just because some chick is being a total bitch is no excuse to go gay." .... huh

I'm thinking of hoping on the ps3/linux wagon also. This vista thing may just be enough to convert me to console and ditch MS. I will not buy Vista so it really leaves me with no other choice in 2/3 years.

This comment was edited on Jan 12, 12:18.

Only publishers willing to develop, market and sell [good] PC games will help PC gaming. Its really that simple.

quoted for truth....

And Microsoft instead of "saving" PC gaming is sticking another stake through it's heart by removing even more incentive for developers to stay with PC's as opposed to migrating over to consoles.

...that every two-bit Internet website writer wants to "leverage Windows" by inanely criticizing it in order to draw attention to himself? Not only that, but why is it that some people will believe every word that comes out of the mouths of such unknown, faceless Internet critics while turning a deaf ear to almost everything Microsoft has to say publicly about its own operating systems? You tell me, because I sure can't figure it out.

Happy to say that it's true that Vista isn't by, for, and about 3d gaming developers. Microsoft has much bigger fish to fry, but I would think that would be obvious. According to Microsoft the big deal about Vista isn't 3d gaming--it's *security*--which has become the most often used buzzword on the Internet today. I'm an avid gamer myself and even I know that. So what is the excuse the numskulls that write this kind of crap have for not knowing that? Beats me.

Yea, you heard it here...;) Vista isn't about 3d gaming, it is about *security* from the kernel on up. In that regard everything about Vista is massively different than in XP.

Having said that, though, does this mean that Microsoft is going to abandon the 3d-gaming developer community? Even the person who wrote this little ditty about Vista knows that Microsoft has already announced its intentions for supporting gaming in Vista as "...a commitment to its revival, describing an 18-month drive to build a Games for Windows program." [quote/unquote]

So, what's this guy's real angst? It's that he might have to--*gasp*--buy a copy of Vista--oh, horrors. But apparently spending hundreds of dollars per year on the latest games doesn't bother him a bit, for some strange reason. And I guess it also didn't bother him that he had to buy XP after Win95/2k, either, because all he's talking about is how utterly wonderful WinXP is for gaming.

But when XP was first released, just like when Win95 was first released, and now when Vista is set for release in a few days--XP was criticized roundly almost everywhere on the Internet by the same....old....dreary people who just can't stand to see anything new come along. The fact that it might be *better* than what they've become used to apparently doesn't enter their skinny little noggins...:D Oh, no--to these people "different" cannot possibly ever mean "better." That's sad, I think (for them.)

People often forget that John Carmack is a games developer. He is not tasked with writing and selling computer OSes around the world that will be used for many, many more things besides running 3d-games. Nope, Carmack's exclusive focus is on 3d games, and only on 3d games, and specifically only on the 3d games that id Software writes. Carmack's concerns about "security" on the Internet extend no farther than Punkbuster, far as I can see. When Carmack speaks he is only telling you how the picture looks from his point view, and to give him his due credit, he never pretends to be speaking for anyone else. I remember all too well Carmack complaining years ago about AMD's Athlon simply because optimizing for it presented him personally with more work than he'd have to do if he only had to worry about Intel processors and nothing else. Likewise, Carmack also doesn't like the move to dual-core processors and for exactly the same reason--it's just more work for him--as he sees it. So, I think it is entirely predictable that he'd complain about having to change some things where Vista is concerned, because doing it the XP way has for him become as comfortable as an old shoe.

But this in no way means that Carmack is a "bad" fellow. Not even close, of course. It just means that people who read Carmack's comments must themselves learn how to put them into perspective before they can truly appreciate them, let alone understand them. Last but not least, it must never be forgotten that Carmack is not a god of any kind and I have absolutely no doubt that were you to ask him he'd tell you exactly that right to your face...;)

Regarding Games for Windows, I actually can see a benefit if we're talking about MS actually acting as an entity that enforces TRC-type specs.

When you do console development you have to submit your stuff at various stages, spanning from design to actual build(s). The goal of this is to ensure that certain standards are met and that you're not embarrassing the platform.

These submissions are largely regarded as being a pain in the ass. However, in the end it does help the game. The average console title is released to higher standards of quality than the average PC title. Why? Because it has to be.

Or more to the point, because no one is scrutinizing my PC build for quality and standards. I don't have Sony, Nintendo or Microsoft telling me that it's not good enough. I don't have an entity that makes sure my savegame always works, or that the control scheme isn't going to cause players to develop Claw Hand, or has tested that every level loads properly, or whatever.

Sure, there's QA. But QA can be (and often is) overridden. Maybe you disagree, maybe you don't care, maybe you just don't have time. Sony, on the other hand, you can't ignore. At least most of us can't.

Will it actually work out that way? I don't know. Will people care enough about that label to subject themselves to a submission process, especially if they're a PC only studio that has never had to do it before? I don't know. But whether the whole thing was originally conceived as a marketing device for Vista or not will be entirely moot if you end up getting less shit and more gold in the boxes marked "PC Game".

I'm thinking of hoping on the ps3/linux wagon also. This vista thing may just be enough to convert me to console and ditch MS. I will not buy Vista so it really leaves me with no other choice in 2/3 years.

So you're going to leave Windows, for a platform that's even MORE crippled than DX9? In raw computing/gaming power, the PS3 has benchmarked around a 800MHz P3 within Linux. No 3D hardware. No access to all the processors, and the hypervisor putting a constant drain.

Alex St. John shouldn't be critiquing ANYONE, that fucking spyware pedaling fraud that he is......

Wild Tangent's engine/driver is no more spyware than Steam. Both spell out that they collect information in their respective EULA's and privacy agreements. So, you can't legitimately label one as spyware and not the other.

This comment was edited on Jan 12, 13:48.

GfW is strictly voluntary, unlike console requirements. Big difference.

And on the console thats not done in order to save gaming. It is mandatory in order to gauge quality. Though how those console bugs which required patches and whatnot snuck through is anyone's guess. Can you say EA?

WildTangent have a problem with Vista and its security features

WildTangent has no such problem with Vista. What Alex is rightfully complaining about is the fact that the small and independent game developers whose games he distributes cannot afford to get their games rated by the ESRB which is required for inclusion in Vista's game explorer parental controls. So, unrated games get blocked and disappear from the explorer if parents turn on the feature.

sponge,

In terms of gaming processing power, the PS3 far surpasses my PC. I have a decent setup--an overclocked 754 Sempron and a 7600GT. But the PS3's RSX is based on the 7800, and the Cell's computational power is far beyond my Sempron.

So naturally, I won't run games under Linux on the PS3; that idea is just idiotic and unnecessary. I'll run PS3 games natively and use Linux for browsing the internet, writing, communicating, etc.

GfW is strictly voluntary, unlike console requirements. Big difference.

And on the console thats not done in order to save gaming. It is mandatory in order to gauge quality.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I just got done saying exactly that :-)

That's pretty much my point though. Voluntary or not, selling point for Vista or not, if the end result is the introduction of a mechanism which makes us pump out better PC games, then I fail to see the evil that some have implied lurks behind the whole thing.

GfW is strictly voluntary

It isn't really voluntary. Games which don't show up in the Game Explorer are going to be relegated to the technically skilled minority. For the AOL and casual games crowd (which is a huge segment of the market if not the majority of computer users), games which are not supported by the explorer won't exist. Sure the migration to Vista won't happen overnight, but it will happen and most likely a lot sooner than the skeptics think given how consumer PC vendors typically only ship the latest OS from Microsoft.

At the end of the day all that the Games for Windows and Vista push will result in is higher game development costs for developers (through mandatory ESRB ratings, code signing, and increase QA testing) and ergo higher game prices for consumers.

This comment was edited on Jan 14, 19:54.