[dZeus]

Originally Posted by Arwin

Vista SP3 = Windows 7, almost. So the two can't be fully compared. But Vista's UI had some really annoying flaws, like defaulting to huge icons with no text, and unintuitive ways of setting/remembering folder view settings across the board. Windows 7 is basically Vista with a better UI, and the internal version number shows it. Plenty of other optimisations happened, many of which went into Vista in the form of SP3.

Now Windows 8 is actually quite similar to 7 internally when it comes to the PC side of things, and then there's the new RT layer that runs, as far as I can tell, basically on top of Windows 7 on the PC and on x86/64 based tablets,, and by itself on the ARM tablets and phones.

I think that should inform your expectations regarding performance and compatibility ...

pretty much. And now Microsoft is resorting to not backporting certain applications to their older NT6-based OSes (Vista and 7) as to lure people over to their new OS.
Including not delivering on their promises (I'm still waiting for WMP12 for Vista).

I'm guessing that if Microsoft had switched to an incremental OS upgrade system starting at Vista and up, and charged lower amounts for each upgrade, things would have been much better on their side.
While Metro is a definitive step up for touch-UI, I get quite bothered by it on my regular non-touchscreen notebook. Might push people over to stick with what works for them (mostly 7), or to switch to Apple. We'll see...

On the plus side, ultra-fast wake up from S3 sleep and super low memory usage because of more services started on-demand are very nice

[UniversalTruth]

Microsoft was left by Windows unit head

http://translate.google.com/translat...a.html&act=url

Sinofsky resigned just three weeks after the official start of sales of Windows 8, and while network resources are full of comments such as "not sustained disgrace" and similar jokes, the true reasons for leaving one of the old residents of the corporation, which he devoted almost 23 years of his life remains a mystery...

[CouldntResist]

Originally Posted by dZeus

pretty much. And now Microsoft is resorting to not backporting certain applications to their older NT6-based OSes (Vista and 7) as to lure people over to their new OS.

Just for the record, backporting is a misnomer. MS never ever "backported" DX in its entire history. It simply developed their API from the beginning with multiple Windows versions in mind. It's a fricking hardware abstraction afterall. The term "backporting" was creatively applied by Microsoft apologists during Vista & DX 10 case, to put the blame on imaginary technical burden, impossible to handle by the company. Now, when this shit is repeated in even more blatant way, let's call it for what it really is. It's deliberate API denial.

[I.S.T.]

DX10 and XP would be backporting as DX10 was a loooooooooooooot more than just shader model 4.0. A lot of it is friggin' OS level changes. To port DX10 to XP it'd require enough work to count as a minor OS release unto itself, ala the yearly OS X updates.

[CouldntResist]

And you still believe it, without evidence.

[AlexV]

Originally Posted by CouldntResist

And you still believe it, without evidence.

I take it your expertise in software design and implementation is extensive. Sorry, could not resist (pun intended).

[CouldntResist]

loooooooooooooot

Name one Direct3D 10 feature that you think is impossible/difficult to implement in XP, and example of game/application that depends on it.

[Ethatron]

The API to channel the hardware-abstracted information is rigid. The driver-code maybe wants to offer the feature, and the OS wants to use it, but there is no way those two can come together.
Microsoft doesn't add/plan extension-mechanisms for their low-level APIs, like those for high-level APIs fe. the OLE-layer. The result is that you get "funky" hacks like ATI did with their cool DX9 add-ons. But basically it ends there. We won't see partially-resident textures in DX for the near future, because there is simply no way to add it in any meaningfull way to the old APIs.

[Dominik D]

Originally Posted by CouldntResist

Name one Direct3D 10 feature that you think is impossible/difficult to implement in XP, and example of game/application that depends on it.

It's not about DX API, it's about driver model. Graphics stack changed completely between XP and Vista and shell (UI) as well as IE are tightly coupled with it for performance reasons. If you pull WDDM in, you have to change the underpinnings of Explorer, UI controlls, IE and probably a dozen more applications. The alternative is updating old driver model with new features. How many HW vendors would update their XP drivers with tons of new features? Here's a guess: none would.

[CouldntResist]

Originally Posted by Dominik D

It's not about DX API, it's about driver model.

This is entirely irrelevant, driver model is not a D3D feature.

You can prove me wrong, by giving me example of game/application that "uses Vista driver model".
Of course I know you can't do it, but I needed to illustrate you technical absurdity of this explanation.

Originally Posted by Ethatron

The API to channel the hardware-abstracted information is rigid.

What you say provides factual reasons why there was need for D3D 3, D3D 5, D3D 6, D3D 7, D3D 8, D3D 9, D3D 10, and D3D 11. But it has nothing to do with nonexistence of D3D 10 for XP.

[I.S.T.]

For the love of God, you can't just separate out D3D from a DX version like that.

Christ.

[Blazkowicz]

The main feature of Direct3D 10/11 is running on that new driver model, then you have geometry shader and tesselators as little features we can live without (until the new consoles use them, that is).

How does that help?, well I guess the newer way is less wasteful of CPU cycles.
Hell, I'd like Microsoft to implement Direct2D in Linux so I can try the acceleration in Firefox, I used pirated Windows before so they owe me, right?

[Dominik D]

Originally Posted by CouldntResist

This is entirely irrelevant, driver model is not a D3D feature.

You can prove me wrong, by giving me example of game/application that "uses Vista driver model".
Of course I know you can't do it, but I needed to illustrate you technical absurdity of this explanation.

Driver model has everything to do with this. Drivers on Vista+ are built around a completely different infrastructure provided by the OS than they were on XP. All of the drivers had to be mostly written from scratch. The way driver is being notified about stuff application does in DirectX is different; when it's notified changed; how you divide resources have changed; everything is different. DirectX APIs "just work" because there's a DX infrastructure and gfx driver underneath that deal with applications' requests.

You have to realize that you can't get DX10/11 features without support from the driver. You just can't. So what and how driver does matters profoundly. DXGI doesn't exist on XP and it's required to even start any DX10/11 application. And none of the XP drivers supported it because it didn't exist on XP. And you can't just make it part of the XPDM because it requires system-wide facilities for virtual video memory, proper scheduling, fault tolerance and many others. These come with WDDM.

There are only 3 ways to get DX10 features on XP:
- rev DX9.0c to DX9.0d or DX9.1 or something, essentially forking and fragmenting application development even more, requiring hardware manufacturers to work on two generations of drivers in parallel
- port WDDM to XP with everything that comes with it, pretty much making a completely new Windows XP (remember not to charge consumers for this work, after all they are certain it was done magically by itself)
- create a fake DX10/11 layer on top of DX9 making APIs consistent but exposing only DX9-level features through DX10/11 APIs, essentially changing nothing

I simply couldn't resist adding this: go and write some DX9 code, then write some DX10 or DX11 code. Go read XPDM and WDDM documentation. Then come back discussing what's possible and what isn't. And possible doesn't mean "can be done with infinite time and resources", it means "within a reasonable time frame by a reasonably sized team". We occupy this space called reality, stick with it.

[swaaye]

If only OpenGL still mattered for PC games.

[zed]

There are only 3 ways to get DX10 features on XP:

you're missing number 4
use opengl, which gives you dx11 features on XP.

hmmm wait a second

[Npl]

or port the wine emulation layer to run on windows.

[NRP]

Or just upgrade your freaking OS and quit whining.

[MfA]

They ported the new WDDM model from Windows 7 to Vista at the time ... any way as I said when I saw all this coming, WDDM 1.2 is nice ... but also irrelevant since they aren't backporting it. They are killing PC graphics/gaming with a thousand paper cuts, also themselves.

[Dominik D]

Vista shipped with WDDM support. In fact it was one of its big features (and was known for some time as LDDM - Longhorn Display Driver Model).

[MfA]

Yes and they backported 1.1 to it.

[Dominik D]

Ah, that's what you've meant by saying "ported the new WDDM model". Sure, true.

[CouldntResist]

Originally Posted by I.S.T.

For the love of God, you can't just separate out D3D from a DX version like that.

Christ.

If this is your way to say you can't name one, I rest my case.

[CouldntResist]

Originally Posted by Dominik D

Driver model has everything to do with this.

Driver model is your red herring. I gave you simple task:

Name one Direct3D 10 feature that you think is impossible/difficult to implement in XP, and example of game/application that depends on it.

That's by far the easiest possible way for you to prove me wrong and that reasons for nonexistence of DX10 on XP were indeed technical. Allegedly there are looooooooooots of features. Vista has been out there for 6 years, so there are lots of apps too. If what you believe were true, the evidence would be at your reach of your hand.

Drivers on Vista+ are built around a completely different infrastructure provided by the OS than they were on XP. All of the drivers had to be mostly written from scratch. The way driver is being notified about stuff application does in DirectX is different; when it's notified changed; how you divide resources have changed; everything is different. DirectX APIs "just work" because there's a DX infrastructure and gfx driver underneath that deal with applications' requests.

You have to realize that you can't get DX10/11 features without support from the driver. You just can't. So what and how driver does matters profoundly. DXGI doesn't exist on XP and it's required to even start any DX10/11 application. And none of the XP drivers supported it because it didn't exist on XP. And you can't just make it part of the XPDM because it requires system-wide facilities for virtual video memory, proper scheduling, fault tolerance and many others. These come with WDDM.

DX10 application cannot depend on something, that isn't part of the DX10 interface and its contract. What's inside the black box, is private matter beteen Windows devs and driver devs. Game/app developer doesn't need nor want to have anything to do with the insides. Unless he is dealing with driver or OS bug, obscure undefined behaviour etc. but that's outside of our scope.

So, instead of producing the evidence, you responded with elaborate mumbo jumbo vomit, that is irrelevant to the task given. Irrelevancy aside, you made some kinda vague claims that need to be addressed:

- You seem to imply that Vista's WDDM is part of the only possible implementation of DX10 interface.
That would be absurd for anyone who can comprehend basic concepts of software engineering.

- You seem to imply that DX10 level hardware cannot function without Vista's WDDM.
For this, there is one giant, well known counter evidence. It had 20th birthday this summer (hint).

There are only 3 ways to get DX10 features on XP:
- rev DX9.0c to DX9.0d or DX9.1 or something, essentially forking and fragmenting application development even more, requiring hardware manufacturers to work on two generations of drivers in parallell

Hardware manufacturers do have been working on two generations of drivers in parallell since Vista came out. They continually release Windows XP DX9 drivers for their DX10 and DX11 level hardware. The work hasn't stopped. It's just that one of those two driver generations has to be limited to DX9 level.

- port WDDM to XP with everything that comes with it, pretty much making a completely new Windows XP (remember not to charge consumers for this work, after all they are certain it was done magically by itself)

For once again, you are making assumption that DX10 level hardware magically requires Vista WDDM to function.

- create a fake DX10/11 layer on top of DX9 making APIs consistent but exposing only DX9-level features through DX10/11 APIs, essentially changing nothing

Great, now all you need is to explain exactly why Windows devs would have to refrain from going one step further and exposing also DX10-level features. What magical force would stop them from throwing in support for geometry shaders, texture arrays, SM 4.0?

OpenGL managed to do it with just that, throwing in bunch of ARB extensions. But you believe that Microsoft wouldn't be able to do it with clean rewrite of their own API.

Oh, it's "fake" API, I forgot. Your fake DX10 would be enough for any DX10 game out there to work. Even Wine allows some DX10 games work in entirely alien operating system, but you believe Microsoft wouldn't be able to do it with all games, in its native environment.

We occupy this space called reality, stick with it.

You are the one who believes in extraordinary claims without evidence, and against counterevidence.
And save your efforts on this aggressive rhetoric, no amount of it will make you right.

[BRiT]

Alright, this discussion is clearly going nowhere.