Microsoft UWP Discussion

[Ike Turner]

Highly recommended read: Remedy talks about developing the UWP version of Quantum Break

http://www.pcgamesn.com/quantum-bre...plan-to-blur-the-line-between-pc-and-xbox-one

 

[Bludd]

Not gaming related at all but here are some self-described ranting and quotes from Peter Pawlowski, dev of foobar2000, on UWP

Windows Universal app is being made as a part of the foobar2000 mobile project. We're hoping to make it available to general public next year.

<rant mode>
However, the development is very slow due to very poor quality of Microsoft's development tools and bad documentation. Our iOS and Android ports are functional already and neither of those platforms has given me as much ******** as Windows Phone / Windows Universal.

Honestly, having developed for Windows using Microsoft Visual Studio since 1998, I'd rather write Mac software than deal with this nonsense, Apple tools generally work and the documentation makes sense. I'll be glad to resume the unfinished OSX port when this is over and you have Microsoft to thank for that.
<end rant>

It is not easy to convert classic Win32 to Universal Windows Platform (UWP).

UWP is has more in common with Windows 8 "Metro" and Windows Phone than with classic Win32.

You need to redo significant portions of Win32 API calls ( though many of old functions seem to have been dropped just to piss people off and get them using wrappers ), rewrite all user interface and use entirely new filesystem API to access user's music and documents libraries.

Background music playback must be done using a separate process ( implemented in fb2k mobile ) and run through a new set of APIs, which are buggy.

foobar2000 for UWP is making progress, since the codebase and UI is 100% shared with the Windows Phone port, but you're better off using classic foobar2000 for Windows for quite a while, at least until Microsoft fixes their bugs.

https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,108175.msg906751.html#msg906751

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Three developers all saying that it needs more work. Not surprising. Rome wasn't built in a day.

But the way to advance it is use it in anger, find the issues and report them to Microsoft.

 

[CSI PC]

Well maybe one positive is that maybe this would also break Denuvo (anti-tamper integrated solution that may or may not add overhead to large environment games - not ones like FIFA)
Still, until they sort out other aspects such as VSYNC/independent overlays/modding capability/etc I cannot see who would want to use UWP implemented games.
Some games need the modding community to actually make them playable let alone enjoyable or add a bit of life to a game feeling stale.

 

[Pixel]

Three developers all saying that it needs more work. Not surprising. Rome wasn't built in a day.

But the way to advance it is use it in anger, find the issues and report them to Microsoft.

Not a good analogy, because once Rome was "built", the Roman Empire went on to conquer and crush and surpress the freedoms (religious (burning heretics/pagans/druids) & economic & self governence) of other ethnic groups outside of its territory.

 

[BRiT]

Not a good analogy, because once Rome was "built", the Roman Empire went on to conquer and crush and surpress the freedoms (religious (burning heretics/pagans/druids) & economic & self governence) of other ethnic groups outside of its territory.

Were you there to witness all this or just believe it because of what you read in some text book or seen in some movie?

 

[Silent_Buddha]

People have long memories, so time is irrelevant to them. And it wasn't long ago MS tried (again) certain anti-consumer policies that's hurting a certain device now. So yes, consumers would (should) be skeptical of "any company" with a history of policies not being consumer friendly.

I know right? Just like the United Kingdom are still a colonial power bent on world domination and subjugating all people that aren't white protestants! Or how Sony are still bent on corrupting your computer by installing kernel level rootkits without letting the end user know they are doing. Or how the Dutch are still bastards because they are the worlds biggest traders in Slavery?

Yup, nice to know that you can never escape from your past.

Or how Apple and Google are still years ahead of Microsoft with regards to monitoring, tracking, harvesting, and spying on user data. As well as controlling what can be installed on their devices. Oh wait, Microsoft are evil because they do less of it than Apple or Google. Or wait is it because Microsoft are evil because they aren't Apple or Google? I always get confused on that one.

I guess you'll have to pardon Microsoft thinking that because people think it's OK for Apple and Google to do that stuff, that they should be fine to do some of that as well to try to improve the user experience.

I find it laughable that people complain about what Microsoft has done in Win10 when it's just a drop in the bucket compared to what Apple and Google do on their smartphones and tablets, that most of those people are likely using.

Regards,
SB

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Were you there to witness all this or just believe it because of what you read in some text book or seen in some movie?

I'm sure most historians and archeologists would have a good laugh out of that one.

So now all the recorded and researched history about the Roman Empire is a construct made up by Sony fans to put Microsoft in a bad light?

 

[BRiT]

I'm sure most historians and archeologists would have a good laugh out of that one.

So now all the recorded and researched history about the Roman Empire is a construct made up

Remember, history is determined by the winners. It just all could be one giant big lie, especially early on when not everyone was able to read and write.

Sorry for the OT, but I read that post right after reading through some extreme conspiracy theorist threads elsewhere.

 

[Kaotik]

Back on the subject itself, if it hasn't been posted already
http://wccftech.com/sweeney-admits-...t-proves-hes-not-up-to-date-on-uwp-specifics/

Microsoft is a black box. I know a lot of people there who are really awesome, smart people who want to do the right thing, but then there are other people there who appear not to be because some of the bad decisions they’re making on Windows 10. There is not proof of an evil plan to do this, but just the fear.

He also admits he's not even up to date on all the UWP stuff

 

[Albuquerque]

Thanks whichever mod moved my post here, now I know this thread exists

If MS goes forward with introducing new windows features for UWP software only then that would indeed fuck with steam, gog and origin, as well as any independent publishers (battle.net, and so on.)

The only "features" I've seen UWP provide on top of standard Win32 is, well, broken things. You know, lack of multi-card rending as a feature, and lack of vsync control, and lack of native file system visibility, and these sorts of wonderful items.

Now, to the contrary, building something in UWP isn't ever going to be the same as Win32 because the entire point of UWP is cross-compiled featureset for other platforms. If you're ONLY targeting the "thick PC" ecosystem, then UWP should suck it -- build your app in Win32 and be done, as UWP can only hinder you from that point.

Want it on phones? XBOX? PC? All at the same time on a common code base? Welp, guess what buttercup? UWP is in your future, sorry.

 

[Malo]

To be fair it's not a lack of multi-card rendering, it's just that previous methods by AMD/NV require full screen exclusive mode unless it's hacked by them as well. DX12 brings much better multi-device rendering capabilities so DX12 UWP games should use it but it has to be done by the developers as part of the engine rather than hacked by the IHVs.

 

[Albuquerque]

To that point, it's not a feature "missing" from standard Win32 libraries. In the eyes of several, it's broken, but it was an intentional break.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Buttercup?

 

[Albuquerque]

Buttercup?

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=suck+it+up+buttercup

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Remember, history is determined by the winners. It just all could be one giant big lie, especially early on when not everyone was able to read and write.

Sorry for the OT, but I read that post right after reading through some extreme conspiracy theorist threads elsewhere.

To be fair the Romans brought reading and writing to many of the places they went and attempted to teach it to the natives. Some took it quite well. The Irish used those Roman teachings to preserve a lot of the knowledge that was lost when Europe entered the dark ages after the Roman empire fell.

Oh wait. Sorry, that doesn't fit the meme. Burn you Roman heathens! We don't need no reading or writing! Or knowledge or science or any of your fancy aquaducts bringing fresh water to the cities!

The point there being that Rome made all member states equal members in the Empire. Or at least attempted to. Doesn't necessarily mean that conquest was a good thing, but they weren't just invaders pillaging the land like most of the European countries and city-states at the time.

On a related note, I still wish the Carthaginians had won their war with the Roman Empire. You just don't get much cooler than Hannibal crossing the Alps with a bunch of Elephants!

Regards,
SB

 

[BRiT]

Here is an article from ArsTechnica relating to the broad issues that Mr Sweeney is missing: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/03/tim-sweeney-is-missing-the-point-the-pc-platform-needs-fixing/

Some snippets from the op-ed article to get you interested in reading it entirely:

The PC is honestly a bit of a mess

Why are the UWP restrictions worthwhile? What Sweeney seems to miss is that the PC platform is, for many people, broken, and a lot of people don't actually like it. The "consoleization" of the PC, like the consoleization of the smartphone before it, isn't motivated simply by some desire to seize control of software sales. It's motivated by the desire to make the PC not horrible.

The PC platform has a bad reputation. Malware in all its various types is endemic. Even good software comes bundled with undesirable spyware. Software applications suffer incompatibilities with each other; they suffer incompatibilities with device drivers. Programs do not uninstall cleanly, leaving detritus scattered hither and yon. They also don't upgrade consistently, with every single application having its own patching and updating infrastructure. Even when everything works, upgrading your operating system is prone to breaking it all. These problems may be overstated somewhat by the platform's detractors, but they're all true to at least some extent, and these problems serve only to boost non-PC platforms.

...

Therein lies the rub. The combined restrictions (and capabilities) of the Store and UWPs make Windows a better platform, forcing developers to clean up their act. Sweeney wants to take away the Store aspect, leaving only UWPs to be a free-for-all in the way that the Win32 platform already is. This would undermine the value proposition of the UWP/Store combo. Microsoft created the store and UWPs to address real problems. They're not whimsical or arbitrary; they're designed to make the PC a better platform. Following these rules has value, and games companies have traditionally been really bad at following the rules.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

I'll refrain from making any puns about the authors name and the quality of that article but it’s not very well written imo.

The author assumes everybody wants a walled garden Windows because, according to him, everything will always work and nothing will ever break that way.

He completely ignores that the PC’s openness is exactly what its power users want. If everybody wanted a plug and play environment nobody would be buying pc’s anymore.

People buy consoles because they want something cheap they know will (mostly) work for ~6 years. I say mostly because it’s not like console OS or games are bug free. So much for your sandbox making everything problem free.

People buy pc’s because they want to be able to do whatever they want like modding their games or changing settings in a way that suits them.

Yes that comes with certain downsides but so does a sandbox environment where what you can do completely depends on what whoever runs the platform allows you to.

Stuff still breaks anyway, just look at Android. Plenty of apps require updates between OS updates or between different manufacturers. Maybe Apple can pull this off with their tight integration of hardware and software and their very limited hardware configurations but on an ecosystem like Android or PC no sandbox is going to guarantee that stuff you make now is still going to work after major architectural changes in soft and/or hardware.

Giving up control over your device isn’t necessarily what you want either. Its acceptable for a mobile OS since most people use it for fairly basic tasks and giving up some level of control for the sake of convenience isn’t such a big issue but what if MS decides everything now has to go through the Windows store?

Want a different browser? MS can just say no. Want a different store? MS can just say no.

Apple did/does the same where e.g. they didn’t allow any other keyboards or browsers until recently.

So now there you are as a gamer. Can’t hunt for deals anymore because everything has to be bought through the MS store.

Can’t change the settings as you want because MS doesn’t want you touching time.

Can’t mod anything because MS much rather charges you 10 bucks for a texture pack.

Of course the advantages are there, but mostly for MS. The more they can control your device the more they can earn off you.

I’m sure they’ll try to make things easy for devs as well because there need to be benefits for them as well to get them on board but if it’s good for gamers? I don’t see a walled garden as the solution. Obviously it works for MS because they’ll have one package for all their platforms but do you care about that if you are a pc gamer?

I for one was happy that I could mod some ini’s to have killer is dead run at 60fps because the dev coulnd’t be bothered to implement that for the pc version. Good luck with that on UWP.

I game on my pc because I want to highest quality, the highest fps, the most freedom etc. If I didn’t want that I’d be gaming on a console or phone.

And let’s be honest here, pc a bit of a mess? Yeah if you are a clueless idiot but buy a half decent intel cpu and a half decent gpu, set your windows and drivers to auto update and 99% of the time stuff will run fine out of the box. It’s not the 90’s anymore.

 

[eastmen]

I don't get the problem .

MS is putting their games that were previously not avalible on the pc in their pc store.

If you want to play them buy them and deal with it. If you don't want to buy them because you don't like them or you don't like the restrictions then don't buy them.

Its really simple. They haven't disabled steam or origins or any other thing on windows 10. They haven't forced third party exclusives like Tomb Raider to be exclusive to the windows 10 store.

They only have their first party and second party games on their store

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Sweeney wants to take away the Store aspect, leaving only UWPs to be a free-for-all in the way that the Win32 platform already is.

I don't think Sweeney cares about Microsoft's store, his issue is potentially not being able to sell his compiled code through his own store or a third party.

Im not seeing what critical part to facilitate UWP the Microsoft Store adds. I may be missing something, I may be missing a lot of things, but UWP doesn't look like a platform as much as a binary runtime structure with its own APIs.