Topic: DX10 and up

[dbuske]

Why hasn't directx 10 caught on? Most PC games still use DX9.
Did Microsoft make selfish poor choices in the buiding of DX10 and 11?

[Alan v.Drake]

Why hasn't directx 10 caught on? Most PC games still use DX9.
Did Microsoft make selfish poor choices in the buiding of DX10 and 11?

They did not support XP.

EDIT: Also, gaming consoles holding back the progress. (Since nobody pointed it out)

- Alan

[dbuske]

Yes those consoles have even got Id software to think of PC development as secondary.
Id has dropped development of Smart phone games.  Not enough money in it.
Id is going to start to develop on the PC for the PC again. They were developing on
the console and then porting the code to the PC. It did not work well.
The PC is far more powerfull than the anemic underpowered consoles.

Yes, there are alot of XP systems running yet. More than anyone realizes.

[Ponch]

Yes, there are alot of XP systems running yet. More than anyone realizes.

I'm still running XP. I tried Vista as soon as it launched, and I disliked it so much I reinstalled XP. I use 7 at work, but I still have good ol' XP running at the house. I know I should move up to 7, but I just never seem to get around to it. 

[Iceboty V7000a]

Same here. XP at home and 7 at work.
I'm actually okay with upgrading as XP has been released for more than a decade now. The problem is, I am not willing to pay a fortune for upgrading a system OS.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

I was so apprehensive about windows 7 that I actually dual-booted it off my xp machine, but fortunately I've grown to like it and haven't booted back into xp in years.  DX 10 has a lot of nice features, though they are largely around shaders and surfaces.  My favorite one though has to be dynamic wet surfaces.  When I first played Call of Juarez, the town level where it was raining and you had to do a quickdraw gunfight the rain was dripping off my character's hat and clothes and it just sold the whole thing for me.

[Ascovel]

I use XP and 7 both now. Haven't come across an app that works well in DX10 yet though. Even f...... Batman doesn't like it.

[Tamanegi]

I use Dx9 because my machine won't handle anything above XP well... a single-core Pentium4

[dbuske]

I have Windows 7 ultimate now.  Works great.
Ags runs fine.
I am using dx9 for my Science Fiction game.
With the Skygoblin editor using 1280x720.

[amateurhour]

Where did you get the skygoblin editor? I know they talked about releasing it a while back but I didn't know they had done so.

[Anian]

I'm still wondering why AAA games don't have 64bit versions (like Borderlands 2 for example).

[amateurhour]

I'm still wondering why AAA games don't have 64bit versions (like Borderlands 2 for example).

Mainly because there's still a HUGE playerbase that's either running on 32bit processors (which IS dwindling, admittedly) and most of them still run a 32bit OS. The big PC distributors really just started bundling 64bit versions of the OS with new machines in the last two years.

I think 64 bit will begin to become the true standard right around the time that a 128 bit processor begins to hit the mainstream market. : )     

[Khris]

Where did you get the skygoblin editor?

It's not the editor Skygoblin used to make The Journey Down HD, and even though it would be cool if they released it, it's much closer to pure programming than AGS.
dbuske is talking about this: https://gitorious.org/skygoblinags/

[dbuske]

https://gitorious.org/skygoblinags/
Download the master tar file. 7Zip opens it no problem.
Just use the editor in the bin folder. Copy it over your AGS installation.
Always backup before doing this, or make a new ags experimental installation in a different folder.
Enjoy the new custom resolutions.

[MurrayL]

Mainly because there's still a HUGE playerbase that's either running on 32bit processors (which IS dwindling, admittedly) and most of them still run a 32bit OS.

I'm not so sure about the first part. Looking at the Steam Hardware survey, you can see that 68.79% of all participants are running a 64-bit OS. That's only 31.21% using 32-bit OS. Still a large number, though - I'll admit.
But then look at the stats for CPU cores. Only 6.16% of people have fewer than 2 cores - and very few dual-core processors were released that aren't 64-bit capable.

Obviously the figures might be telling a different story, but as far as I can tell it shows that almost 95% of gamers (who use Steam) are 64-bit capable, they just don't use an OS that supports it.

[Calin Leafshade]

The main reason that most games dont have a 64bit version is simply that they dont need nor want one. The (arguably) only advantage to a 64bit program is that it can reference more memory registers.

If you look at the ram usage of most games it's actually pretty low (very few games use more than 2gb of ram) and so targeting them to 64bit is wasted effort because they can't not ship a 32bit version.

Simply put, writing a program to be cross architecture requires some extra work which they just dont want to do.

EDIT: Also, a very large number of AAA games support DX10 and 11 including:

Just Cause 2
Bioshock
Gears of War
Max Pyne 3
Crysis
Devil May Cry 4
Civ 5
Assasins Creed
RE5
Stalker
Dragon Age.

I could go on..