Tiptup said:lordjedi said:Your comment about newer effects not needing to rely on a driver model to work is laughable.
Okay. :)
DirectX 10 gives access to hardware-based effects that the latest version of DirectX 9 won't allow gamers to access. (DirectX 9 is the highest Microsoft will allow XP to go.) For Microsoft to claim that they can't support those effects in DirectX 9 is laughable. For you to claim it wouldn't be possible for them to "easilly" support those effects in DirectX 9 is also laughable to me. :)
Edit: Your other points are worthless to me. If you like the amount of money you have to pay to Microsoft to get your new hardware and software to work every three years or so, you can do that and I won't care. I expect a bit more support for a piece of software that costs me over a hundred dollars to purchase.
Your first comment is totally inaccurate. Read what I wrote again. DX9 gives access to the same effects, the difference is that DX10 makes those effects easier to do. DX10 does have some more advanced effects, but games like Bioshock, Crysis, and Company of Heroes look the same in both DX9 and DX10. Anyone that has taken screenshots has seen little to no difference. There are a couple of games coming that will be DX10 only, but it remains to be seen how well they do.
MS is not claiming they can't support those effects. As I've already said, DX9 supports those effects. You may think backporting DX10 to XP isn't that hard, but you also don't know the code. I've seen whitepapers from MS that show the difference between the driver models in XP and Vista. Again, they would have to completely rewrite the driver model in XP in order for it to work. It wouldn't be a little patch, it would be a major change, probably involving a service pack. DX10 hooks into the drivers in a completely different way that is faster and more efficient. XP is 7 years old now. It's just not worth the effort to do it.
I don't have to pay anything extra to MS every 3 years to get my new hardware and software to work. My current hardware works just fine in XP right now. It'll work fine in XP 3 years from now. My old video card ran in XP for 2 years and still works to this day. Any new video card that supports DX10 will also support DX9, so it'll work just fine. I didn't pay MS any money to make any of it work. In fact, I haven't paid any money to MS since I bought XP back in 2001.
You expect more support? Hey genius, try going to Apple and getting support on OS 9. I bet they don't do it. Getting support from MS for XP is the same thing. It's an outdated OS that has run its course. Just because you still think it's worth supporting doesn't mean it is. I know people that are still running Windows 98. I don't expect MS to support them anymore either. Windows 98 is an insecure piece of junk.
You're all basically arguing against a company improving their product, which is totally funny. A few years ago, you were probably bitching that Vista still wasn't out and that XP was getting old. Now I hear the same complaints about Vista that I heard about XP when it was released. I'm sure when Windows 7 comes out, we'll hear about how great Vista is and how much Windows 7 sucks in comparison. It's pretty much a neverending cycle.
I'm not trying to convince any of you to upgrade. That's your choice if you want to or not. But don't try to say that MS is forcing you to upgrade. You don't have to do it. Go use Linux or some other alternative. No one's making you upgrade anything.