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I guess this means that if I want to get the most out of my games I'll have to "upgrade" to Windows 8.1. Not super excited about having to configure away all o
by Rickasaurus 13y ago
I guess this means that if I want to get the most out of my games I'll have to "upgrade" to Windows 8.1. Not super excited about having to configure away all of the metro garbage.
- dmm 13y agoAsk your favourite developers to use OpenGL instead. Even xp users get the latest version of OpenGL.
- MichaelGG 13y agoOpenGL support seems rather iffy on Windows. Minecraft uses OpenGL and wouldn't run on my i7. At one point it wouldn't even load, but a while later it ran, but at laughable framerates.
- duaneb 13y agoDid you have the drivers installed? Minecraft runs just fine on many, many, many windows i7 machines.
- dmm 13y agoExactly. On windows the OpenGL implementation is supplied by the graphics vender. AMD, Nvidia, or in the case of the i7, intel. Windows comes with an OpenGL implementation but it's an ancient version.
- MichaelGG 13y agoWell before it failed with an error about initializing graphics. When I tried a year later, that error no longer appeared but the FPS was in the single digits. I didn't dig around for special OpenGL drivers, no, I just let Intel and MS push certified drivers out via normal update mechanisms.
- theandrewbailey 13y agoOpenGL has generally been great on Windows, due to the overwhelming demand for high performance graphics on Windows. While i7 GPUs are good in terms of integrated GPUs, they are still not great compared to discrete GPUs (try a GeForce or Radeon).
- pjmlp 13y agoIf you are serious about graphics never invest in Intel graphics cards. They are the running joke from graphics programmers.
- shmerl 13y agoThey are getting much better, especially Iris.
- stackcollision 13y agoAs a DirectX developer who's tried out OpenGL a few times, I found it horrific and painful to program in. But then again, I'm sure OpenGL devs complain about DX in the same way. I honestly think DirectX is a great API. And let's be honest, by the time this is release in "Holiday 2015", it'll be at least until mid 2016 before anything comes out that uses it. Combine that with the rule about every other MS OS being good, and we should have a fairly decent Windows 9 to run these games on.
- sillysaurus3 13y agoOpenGL is less painful in the long run, because you won't be tied to Microsoft's APIs. Those APIs weaken you and your ability to think about graphics programming. All you need is a good GL wrapper. If writing your own is painful, just use someone else's. But it's important to be able to write your own, because if you can't, then that's what weakens you.
- to3m 13y ago"Those APIs weaken ... your ability to think about graphics programming." - what is the justification for this? I don't really see that it follows, as virtually all of the interesting stuff (CPU code, shaders) is API-agnostic.
- sillysaurus3 13y agoA GPU doesn't work in the way that Microsoft would have you believe it works. By restricting your worldview to Microsoft's predefined notion of what it should be, you'll never know the true extent of what you can do as a graphics programmer. A secondary reason to avoid DX is because gaming on windows has a high chance of being dead within the next decade. If that seems laughable, think of how laughable it would've sounded for anyone to say that about CDs for music in 2001.
- to3m 13y agoWell, I was hoping for some further explanation, but for what I paid this is fine ;) I was under the impression that DX11 (and DX10 before it) actually do a decent job of exposing basically everything that's widely supported, and in a manner that can be made to work tolerably efficiently across a range of different hardware. But I was told this by some guy from MS so maybe I shouldn't have expected him to say anything else. Assuming it's the case, perhaps I'm just cheating by not thinking of the leftovers as useful - not because the behaviour is useless, I mean, just because if you're targeting PC, you just have to accept that the underlying hardware could be anything. OpenGL extensions could provide you with more, but support can be a bit hit or miss. Reminds me too much of MS-DOS. But I could have been misinformed, or my supposition is simply outdated, and the article suggests that could well have been the case, in which case my conclusion would be partly bogus too.
- theandrewbailey 13y agoAgreed, but at this point, we should be getting users and things off XP, not on it.
- MBCook 13y ago> Even xp users get the latest version of OpenGL. Only as long as nVidia and ATI keep releasing drivers for you. At some point XP will be abandoned.
- jenscow 13y agoLike it or not, but there's currently more reason for the manufacturers to support XP than even Linux. (~30% market share, 2nd most popular)
- bananas 13y agoIt's not all that terrible. I've not been poked by metro once for about two months.
- valarauca1 13y agoCryengine, Unreal, and Unity are all moving to support Linux. I wouldn't worry about this.
- ksk 13y agoOr you could just wait till a DX12 game is out and decide if its worth upgrading. DX11 got a fairly lukewarm response from most studios when it came out.