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Post #337710

Author
Tiptup
Parent topic
Windows 7
Link to post in topic
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/337710/action/topic#337710
Date created
25-Nov-2008, 6:51 PM

Alright, well, since you got nicer in your last reply, lordjedi, I guess I'll continue the discussion:

lordjedi said:

Sorry, I guess I simplified it to much.  I didn't mean that DX10 wouldn't have any new effects that were unavailable in DX9, what I meant is that some of the effects in DX9 are just like the ones in DX10, but DX10 makes them easier to code.  So of course DX10 will have newer effects, just like DX9 had newer effects than DX8, and DX8 newer than 7, so on and so forth.

Just because they were still selling XP does not mean they were doing code for it (aside from patches and security updates).  Even XP SP3 just wrapped all the updates since SP2 and added a few networking enhancements from Vista into one package.  The point is that DX10 accesses display drivers in a completely different way which is incompatible with XPs driver model.  That is why DX10 is not available for XP.

Unless you're a gamer, DX10 isn't going to mean a whole lot to you.  Yes, it's faster and better than DX9, but I don't see that having a detrimental effect unless you're using your computer to play games.

I guess that makes sense that an effect not directly supported by DirectX 9 can still be coded to run under DirectX 9. However, that seems to support my argument if you ask me. If a game can still run "Geometry Shading" under DirectX 9 when it isn't directly and specifically supported by Direct X 9, then it seems to me that Microsoft could have thrown together a quick update of DirectX 9 that could have automatically done that job for game designers.

Otherwise, DirectX 10, with its faster, re-designed system sounds nice, and the fact that it is not being implemented into XP is not something I'm complaining about. If Microsoft wants to make money for their hard work, then that makes perfect sense to me (as I've said a number of times now). It just seems to me that a specific effect directly supported by DirectX 10 could have been implemented in DirectX 9 (albeit in a slower, crappier way) without much trouble for Microsoft's part.

If you're telling me that the coding of specific support for a specific effect like geometry shading is too difficult for Microsoft to do in DirectX 9, then I'll take your word on that (since you clearly know more about this issue than I do). However, if such a change would have been an easy and small thing for their part (which I was previously guessing), and you're simply arguing to me that Microsoft should in no way, whatsoever, feel obligated to their customers to implement such a small item of support, then that's something that I'll have to disagree with you about (which I'll argue about in a bit here).

Though, let me just say, again, before I move on, that I'm not talking about XP getting all (or even most) of DirectX 10's improvements (with all of its increased speed and whatever else), I'm just talking about some kind of direct support for a specific hardware-based effect being put into DirectX 9. If that's not an accurate view of something like "Geometry Shading" (since you'd need practically all of Direct X 10 to have it) or if it's simply not possible to implement direct support for that kind of effect in DirectX 9 easily (it would practically need a complete reworking of DirectX 9), then I'll simply take your word on that and move on. All I ask is that you stop wasting my time with arguments that I am not making. Thank you.

 

lordjedi said:

OK.  Then I'll put it this way.  MS did put a lot of work into DX10.  Just because it doesn't look like it to you and you don't know what's going on behind the scenes, doesn't mean they didn't put a lot of effort into it.

You're free to think XP is a superior OS.  You're wrong of course, but you're free to have that opinion.  Vista has improved support for multi-core CPUs, much better memory handling, and much better support for games.  And that's just the beginning of the improvements.  I've seen XP and Vista on the same modern hardware (Core 2 Duo, 2 GB RAM, built-in video) and Vista was noticeably faster.  That was even before SP1 for Vista came out so I have no doubt that Vista is even faster with SP1.  On the same hardware, I was able to leave all of Vista's flashy effects turned on and not feel like the system was crawling.  When I do the same on XP, I always want to turn the effects off because I feel like the system is slowing way down.

You see, lordjedi? What the fuck is that top paragraph about there? When did I say that it "doesn't look" to me like Microsoft "put a lot of work" into DX10? I've granted that possibility and virtually said the opposite quite a few times. Why are you making that argument with me? You're wasting my time with stupidity and I don't like stupidity. Please, start reading what I'm saying. Thank you.

Otherwise, if you want to argue that Vista is a superior OS (over XP) in terms of speed, support for multi-core cpus, memory handling, and whatever else, I'd probably agree with you on all of those points. I am not making an argument there. My problems with Vista touch on different issues.

I just got done helping a friend of mine wipe his whole Vista-run computer because the thing was buggy as hell. It was a Core2 Duo laptop with great hardware specs and yet he couldn't even get through an install of WoW on it. Even after I wiped the hard drive and reinstalled Vista clean (and updated it with SP1), it still ran like crap. The computer restarts at odd points, slows down sometimes, and occasionally gets stuck at blank screens. Other Vista machines (desktops mostly) I've played around with have been buggy in other nasty ways (restarts, freezes, and other crap like that). XP, however, was stable from the day I began using it and is generally stable on every other machine I've seen it installed or played with it on. That's a big difference and an important issue to me. Are you saying that stability shouldn't matter to me?

And, I'm sorry, but have you noticed those shitty little messages asking you to confirm every little simple action in Vista? Microsoft didn't even implement a "don't ever ask me about this again" option! It's an incredibly obnoxious feature! From that crappy, needless chore alone I will have to warn you not to argue that Vista is "superior" to XP in every last way. If you try to tell me that it's a good thing for an OS to have because it protects stupid people, I'll simply have to laugh at you. A horribly stunted interface is not a decent trade off for the protection of dumb people.

 

lordjedi said:

Microsoft's "support" for XP hasn't ended.  The only thing that ended is retail availability:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/lifecycle/default.mspx

Ahh, so are you trying to tell me that Microsoft is "supporting" XP in every way it can? :)

I'm sorry, but even brand new products don't get absolute support and you know that. The question in this debate is what level of support would be an ideal balance for Microsoft to make the most short-term profits while preserving the long-term profits they'd get from happy customers (who won't get angry enough to rework our nation's patent laws for example). Getting cute and saying that there is a non-zero level of support is not helpful to that discussion. You know what I mean by "support" and I'd like to get back to discussing that real issue now. :)

 

lordjedi said:

XP is outdated and has run its course.  Here's their support timeline:

http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?p1=3223

As you can see, Support is still available for XP.  Just because you can't buy XP from a store (retail availability) or from MS, doesn't mean it isn't supported anymore.

Retail availability is a kind of support. So, by definition, we cannot say that MS is "supporting" XP in at least that way, can we? There are other ways in which it is not being supported anymore too. This is a silly point of yours. ::yawn::

 

lordjedi said:

You're right, the free market does have many ideas of software support.  Which is why there are companies out there still support NT, even though Microsoft doesn't offer support.

To answer your question, without knowing what that patch fixed, I couldn't say if [Blizzard Entertainment is] stupid or not.  If that patch only took a few man hours to work on, then no, they probably aren't stupid.  But if it took several weeks to do, then yes, I'd wonder why they worked on it.  With the success of WoW, I wouldn't understand them putting any extended effort into any of their legacy products.

The funny thing is, you can't BUY Starcraft from them without getting it as a digital download.  So why don't you go try to buy a 10 year old game (aside from a digital download) and see how easy it is?  I'm sure you could get a used copy, just like you can get a used copy of XP, but I seriously doubt you can find a new unopened box anywhere.

Yes, you're finally talking about different ideas of support. Right. You're catching on to what I actually want to argue here. Good. Thank you.

Blizzard didn't devote a ton of time to getting StarCraft to work in XP (perfectly I might add). They didn't spend a lot of time on the small map updates that pleased StarCraft's large "professional" community (mostly in Korea). Their most recent patch to the game simply removed StarCraft's need for a CD-Key and I bet that didn't take them long either. Even just a few years ago they updated StarCraft to have some interface improvements and I'm willing to bet that wasn't even too much work for them. However, those improvements helped them sell more copies of the game, helped them to keep the "StarCraft" brand popular (in a competitive RTS environment), and generally kept their new and long-term customers happy. Those kinds of support have helped keep Blizzard to be the successful company it is today. They did little things to keep their customers happy.

In terms of buying StarCraft, Blizzard isn't selling it in stores anymore because they can't make money that way (people aren't buying it in stores enough for them to make a profit by selling physical copies). That doesn't bug me at all. That's the free market deciding that it doesn't want to buy new physical copies of the game anymore. However, if I and plenty of others still wanted to purchase new copies of the game in that way (for the appropriate amount of money), I'm sure Blizzard would still sell it like that (since they'd make money doing that), and if they didn't, that would make me as a fan and a customer displeased.

New copies of XP are being sold for a lot of money right now (nobody is doing that with copies of StarCraft). The reason for that is because it is still in high demand by people like me who want to purchase it. However, Microsoft has a high degree of control when it comes to helping force a free market to go against what it actually wants (for whatever reason) and, as a result, they don't really worry about any lost revenue from selling no new copies of XP or lost revenue from making unhappy customers. A company like Blizzard, on the other hand, isn't allowed to make that kind of a move if it wants to remain successful. A company like Blizzard has to work harder and be smarter than that because RTS games are a far less centralized product (and therefore the market is less controlled). In other words, Blizzard has to work harder to give people more and not give them less. Are you saying Microsoft's market behavior is more ideal?

 

lordjedi said:

The comment was made because most of the people that bitch about Vista were the same people bitching about XP when it was first released and now they're professing how great XP is in comparison.  I remember the comments quite well.  XP was trash and 2000 was the best OS ever released.

Well, I've never met any of those people and I hate it when people assume things about me. In the first place it wastes my time. Beyond that, it clearly shows you're being stupid when it comes to substantially reading what I'm saying in this thread. You're smarter than that, though, and you're clearly assuming such stupid things about me because you desire to use aggression to win your arguments (for whatever reason) and that makes me angry (since it doesn't care about fairness or accuracy).

XP was a fantastic operating system in my mind (from its beginning) and Vista has been a much more troublesome experience for me by comparison. Maybe that's not what most people have encountered and therefore my Vista experiences have just been a run of bad luck, but I would have a lot of trouble believing that. That's not a crime on my part and I think the impatience and belligerence you expressed in your earlier posts were uncalled for.

I'm not some anti-Microsoft kook and I am not an idiot. I don't believe I treated you that way in this thread. How would you like it if I had said stuff like this to you:

"You're probably one of those idiots that has always sucked Microsoft's cock in that you've absolutely loved every product and move they've ever made as a company."

Certain expressions are uncalled for and demeaning if you ask me. In fact, I'm not even all that apposed to Vista as a product. (I was planning on getting a copy before Windows 7 was announced.) I'm just expressing some slight resentment over my options being so limited. Overall, however, I appreciate the good company that Microsoft is and think they deserve their position in the market by doing a good job (I just would be happier if they could be even better and that's what I'd like to discuss with you). Talking with you about the absurd, extreme viewpoints of "most of the people" you talk to is not something I care at all to do.

 

lordjedi said:

Seriously, I don't care if you have a love affair with Vista. So, why, then, do you feel so keen on lecturing others for not liking Vista? What on earth is making your blood boil so much with this issue? (I have no fucking desire to have a heated debate about Windows for crying out loud.)

I haven't lectured anyone for not liking Vista.  I've asked people what programs they had trouble with.  I've explained that MS hasn't changed their support timeline or the retail availability timeline (aside from extending them) since they released XP.  What I don't like is people bitching about how MS is forcing them to get a newer version.  What I don't like is people saying how easy it would be to make newer graphics effects work in XP, when they clearly have no idea what's involved behind the scenes.

Okay, well, first, I am not being unappreciative of the remaining support that Microsoft still gives to Windows XP. I am not being unappreciative of the fact that each new OS has a realistic lifetime in our free market. I am not unappreciative of all the hard work Microsoft does when it creates a new OS like Vista that is admittedly better in some ways. I certainly don't have a problem with Microsoft trying to make profits with all of the good things they do. I have not argued otherwise and for you to argue with me as if I were is getting really, really old.

Second, to the degree that what I am complaining about is wrong and misinformed on my part, I'm willing to let you (or someone else) correct me. I'll admit that you probably know a hell of a lot more about these issues than I do. However, I will not change my opinions because someone tries to accuse me of being an ingrate.

And, seriously, you have been "lecturing" me for not liking Vista. You've gone out of your way to turn my arguments into absurd straw men before moving on to tell me how supposedly stupid or spoiled I must be for believing them. Nowhere have I made statements as extreme as those portrayals, however. I must conclude, therefore, that you want to attack me for simply having problems with Microsoft and that's weird to me. Do you have some personal stake in Microsoft to explain your sensitivity on this issue?

Are you trying to tell me, lordjedi, that you have absolutely no problems with Microsoft whatsoever or in any way? Are you telling me it's unfair for laypeople like me to have opinions based on my own experiences? I've built and set up many computers and worked with a lot of different hardware and different versions of Windows for many years and I don't think I'm an idiot. I could be honestly wrong in many ways (I'm no coding expert), and certainly idiotic in some small ways here, but you went way overboard in your previous posts. I really have trouble believing that you think Microsoft is so perfect and so justified in everything that it has done in the free market that you have absolutely no problems with them whatsoever. If that's not the case, however, and you actualkly do think Microsoft could be better in some ways yourself, then why are you being so extreme in reprimanding someone like me who happens to have some problems of my own (that are based upon my own point of view)?

If we could discuss the issues I want to discuss, that would make me happiest here. For now, though, I have run out of time and must be moving on. You actually touched on some more substantive points further down in your post and I'll want to discuss them later. For now, though, if you want to reply to the useful parts of our discussion, feel free and I'll try to address them later as well.