Originally posted by ShakyMo You guys saying win 8 boots faster. You are taking into account its a fresh install of windows right? All windows machines boot faster when they are clean. If you did a fresh win 7 install it would boot faster than a win 7 machine that's been accumulating crap in the registry and elsewhere for months.
Nope, not a fresh install in my case. I installed it as an upgrade over Windows 7 months ago. Still boots faster than it did under 7 itself.
Do you know why it boots so fast? I'm amazed myself but haven't gotten around to researching it...
It's loading what you need and allowing you to work while it finishes loading the other stuff. It's also shutting down better, so that when it loads back up, it has everything it needs right there instead of looking all over the hard drive for it.
I'm sure there's other stuff, but in a nutshell, booting really didn't have to be as slow as it's been for the last 10 years.
** edit ** You answered your own question. :-)
It's about time they did something about long bootup times...almost forgot about how annoying it was. This is definitely the way to go.
Edit: Not so sure about the changes needed for WIn7 to Win8 if there are much, but folder redirection seemed to work fine. Haven't noticed any issues in group policy. I understand infrastructure planning takes time and money, but it only takes on CEO to notice and demand a change.
This a a huge concern, Microsoft is going in the same direction as Apple.
It won't be long and things like Flash and PDF or Google maps won't run on the PC, just as Apple has done with it's product line.
It is hard to believe that companies like Apple survive and even prosper when they make it that you have to use THEIR stuff like itunes...etc. Microsoft is seeing the Apple profit margin like an iphone connecter that only works with iphone. Apple has scammed the money out of their cunsumer base for years and now Microsoft is going to do the same thing....tell us what can and cannot run on the OS.
Next thing you know mp3 won't run on the Microsoft platform.
Originally posted by ShakyMo Another thing, Google isn't doing the same thing.You can get other stores through android own app store like humble and soon steam, with rumours gog might get on it too.
Windows 8 for the desktop will allow you install desktop applications just like way back in Windows XP. It's only the "Metro" apps that are restricted to the MS store. I guess it all depends on how prevalent Metro apps become and whether Microsoft limits things like DirectX to Metro apps.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
People are going quite off topic. The foucs is upon Windows 8 and their desire to close the market and limit what we have access to, the direcion their current 'certification' deal is leaning at. It doesn't matter if Windows 8 is the best operating system in the world or if its completely terrible, its the certification and the concept they could eventually just limit what we have access to that is the large problem and the reason why developers have stepped up against it.
Originally posted by Purutzil Good news, if this goes in this trend we might see a new rise in Linux and we will be having to pay $100 less for our new computers with having free operating systems that are more efficient then Windows or Macs. If some of the Linux developers are able to smooth out the experience for less tech savy people, we might see windows slide from its throne if they keep going down a slippery slope.
Not as long as there are a dozen different distros. It's hard enough getting PC games to work on the bajillions of different hardware configus w/out having to account for which distro of linux a person is using.
Originally posted by PurutzilGood news, if this goes in this trend we might see a new rise in Linux and we will be having to pay $100 less for our new computers with having free operating systems that are more efficient then Windows or Macs. If some of the Linux developers are able to smooth out the experience for less tech savy people, we might see windows slide from its throne if they keep going down a slippery slope.
Not as long as there are a dozen different distros. It's hard enough getting PC games to work on the bajillions of different hardware configus w/out having to account for which distro of linux a person is using.
There is enough common ground that games will run across a variety of distributions. This has worked fine as far back as Hexen II. Especially with a front end like Steam to manage the dependencies.
I think such a transition would be rough, it would take a ton of work from game developers, and it would require a lot of buy in and coordination from major developers, but they could make the jump. Valve is starting now with their Steam front end for Linux. They could push Linux to a more unified content distribution system as well.
Doesn't mean it'll happen, but if the game developers pushed it, they could do it.
** edit **
Computers wouldn't be any cheaper. Computer manufacturers might make more money, but the computers won't be any cheaper.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
It's one thing to take a stance against microsoft like they have, and if people want to blindly applaud them for it, have a blast.
But until they put their money where their mouthes are and release Linux clients for 100% of their games, it's nothing but smoke and mirrors and people trying to say things to make themselves sound more important than they actually are.
Blizzard and Valve do not like the fact that Microsoft is moving to an app store like revenue stream, this is no surprise sice Valve has pretty much a monopoly on digital downloaded games in the PC market, and Blizzard is been setting its own internal market place for years now.
The certification only required for "Metro" apps, if you want to have a metro enabled application you have to go trought the certification proccess and sell it trough the metro store, honestly there is little what MS or any one can do to avoid this.
A broken Metro app will break the entire interface and affect other Metro apps you have running, most games will not actually require or benefit anything from the Metro interface but allot of casual games that you might be playing with other stuff in the backround will.
The fact is that the certification proccess is actually good for costumers, you're stuck with Windows any how(unless you want to use MACOS which is just as bad, or WINE on Linux which is both illegal(yes it is, it violates the license of the Lib you need to get from a Licensed Version of Microsoft Windows, and does not really provide the same exprience as you would when you run them nativly).
Lets read the actuall certification requirements which are great for consumers:
1.1 Your app must offer customers unique, creative value or utility in all the languages and markets that it supports
1.2 Your app must be fully functional when the customer gets it from the Windows Store
1.3 Your app’s trial functionality must reasonably resemble its full functionality
2.1 Your app must not display only ads
2.4 The primary experiences your app provides must take place within the app
2.5 Ads must not execute program code that didn't come from the ad provider
3.1 You must use only the Windows Runtime APIs to implement the features of your Windows Store app
3.2 Your app must not stop responding, end unexpectedly, or contain programming errors
3.4 Updates must not decrease your app’s functionality in a way that would be unexpected to a reasonable customer
3.5 Your app must fully support touch input, and fully support keyboard and mouse input
3.8 Your app must meet the basic performance criteria on a low-power computer
4.1.1 Your app must have a privacy statement if it collects personal information
If your app collects or transmits any user’s personal information, including an IP address, you must maintain a privacy policy that complies with applicable laws and regulations, informs users of the information collected by your app and how that information is used, stored, secured and disclosed, and describes the controls that users have over the use and sharing of their information, and how they may access their information.
You must also provide access to your privacy policy in the Description page of your app, as well as in the app’s settings as displayed in the Windows Settings charm.
4.1.2 Your app must obtain opt-in or equivalent consent to share personal information
Your app can publish a customer’s personal information to a service or other person only after obtaining opt-in consent.
Opt-in consent means the customer gives their express permission for the requested activity, after you have:
a) Described to the customer how the information will be used or shared; and
b) Provided the customer a mechanism through which they can later rescind this permission and opt-out.
4.5 Your app must protect customers from unintentional large data transfers over metered networks
4.7 If you use a transaction provider other than the Store's, you must identify the provider at the time of the transaction or when it collects any payment info from the customer
6.2 Your app must have a Windows age rating, and you must submit third-party ratings for your app if you have them
7.1 The purchase page link provided for your app must send users to a location where they can directly download the app, and must not lead users to another intermediary site or a site that spoofs the purchase page
Some horrific things indeed, honestly i whish Google half of those things so the Play Store won't be the mess it is still is today...
Originally posted by ShakyMo Lol good luck with 3.2
ALL SOFTWARE HAS ERRORS
Indeed by they are more reffering to somthing that will lockup the entire runtime, and again atleast its a good way of getting buggy apps out of the app store untill they are fixed. An app locking once every say 1000 runs it's ok, WoW crashed far less than that for me, but there are tons of games and other apps that frequently crash and annoy the hell out of me.
"3.1 You must use only the Windows Runtime APIs to implement the features of your Windows Store app"
That doesn't sound very consumer friendly. At least not to anyone using anything other than windows.
Aside from that. People have already described and linked the parts that were actually cause for concern Dogma. It wasn't the product qualifications (for the most part) that was the issues with why Steam, Blizz, and Notch don't want it.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
"3.1 You must use only the Windows Runtime APIs to implement the features of your Windows Store app"
That doesn't sound very consumer friendly. At least not to anyone using anything other than windows.
Aside from that. People have already described and linked the parts that were actually cause for concern Dogma. It wasn't the product qualifications (for the most part) that was the issues with why Steam, Blizz, and Notch don't want it.
1) it is, the reason why the want to restrict you to Windows Runtime API's only and not allow you to use older interfaces say Win32 or COM, is because they want to ensure that for example if the app uses Bluetooth, Geo-location, or SMS then you as a costumer will be aware of it and could control it.
2) Yeah it has nothing to do with certification it that they don't want to have to compete with Microsoft, if they decide to list their apps on the Metro Store they giving money to Microsoft, and have to compete with other products listed on the same store.
Microsoft Basically screwed Valve over, Steam may have tons of users, but Windows as a platform has a lot more And Blizzard is just being Blizzard they hate to give control over any thing the reason why there is still not a single Blizzard game on XBOX360 or PS3 is that because they cannot come to an agreement with either Microsoft or Sony regarding BattleNet.
What a sensationalist title. Only Notch has 'refused' to certify for WIndows 8 -- the other two have simply spoken on the demerits of the way Microsoft could take Windows 8 in being a closed system. Notch has always been an attention grabber; if anyone remembers the Minecon fiasco, this is the same knee-jerk mud flinging he swore he'd never do again.
I'm glad these companies are doing this windows 8 is a really horrible OS that almost made me go with mac and that says lots. However I do love me some windows 7. So as long as support stays with it I will keep it indefinatly.
Apple and Google have the same sort of requirements. You have to pay your developer fee, let apple/google/microsoft take their cut, and abide by their rules.
This only dramatically affects tablets and handhelds. You can still install what you want on the desktop.
I'm pretty stoked because I have 5 Windows8 Pro licenses with my baby MSDN subscription.
I'm more concerned by the conduct Microsoft will have about things installed outside of the app store on PCs going forward.
With a closed system emulating Apple or otherwise, they have an easy means to restrict the compatibility of unlicensed programs (ones they don't get paid for) if they feel the need to press publishers and developers to sell through their platforms.
That's the part that can threaten Steam the most. Microsoft making Steam, Origin, etc in some part incompatible with their OS not only breaks competition, it gives Microsoft a means to cut it entirely out.
And that's a threat.
You can make the argument that if they do that they would see an exodus of users. But honestly that's probably only a half truth at best. Most people have never used microsoft out of convenience. They have used it because it's familiarity.
Migrating to a different OS is an awkward thing. Even if the OS is from a technical standpoint 'intuitive', the familiarity of older systems somewhat sabotages their ability to adapt to the other or newer one. Part of the reason Apple's upgrades are always stepwise from eachother in terms of user interactivity even if there's large underlying changes.
Point with this though is that People won't be willing to walk away from microsoft if they pull a move like that, because they will be too alienated by other systems to be able to migrate at all.
Add to that the problem of overall game compatibility in the first place and they may still lack the reason t move if their games simply aren't available anywhaere else.
Pretty well willing to bet that's not the only impact either.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
Originally posted by Torvaldr Originally posted by ShakyMoIt's hard getting software to work on different versions of Windows, Microsoft keep messing about with the API
Yeah, not like Linux where you sometimes you can't even get different desktop platform apps to work properly on one version. Let's say I want to install some GTK apps on my KDE desktop. I have to install all the dependencies for GTK and in some cases that really screws with the stability of that KDE desktop. Some platforms (mono) rely heavily on GTK components that don't seem to play nice with KDE components.
Take that one step further and if you're on a debian based system with apt and want to access rpm based packaging you then must jump through a bunch of hoops or allow two different packaging systems (or the native packaging systems interface with the foreign one) to manage your apps. An uninstall can render the whole system unstable.
Picture how frustrated people get when Windows doesn't work right or has problems. Now picture those same people in the Linux world trying to deal with those sorts of problems. The outcry would be epic. This is why Linux is not even competitive and won't be until their standardize. I know there are movements to do so and certify but they've effectively failed for years now. On top of that the masses don't give a shit about Stallman, the FSF, and the GPL agenda to control code to their benefit and won't take their moralizing any more than they like it from Microsoft. At least with Microsoft they get something that works.
I've used Linux for around 10 years. When I first started playing WoW, I ran it under Linux and Wine. Of all the issues I've had with Linux, having it "just work" wasn't one of them. The only reason I'm not using Linux now is because most games don't run on Linux. If the games I wanted to play ran on Linux, I'd dump Windows in a heartbeat. I don't need the platform, I need the games. That's where game developers have the advantage. They could make installing games simple. That's why Valve is working on a Steam front end for Linux. That's what will install your games for you.
That doesn't mean it'll happen though. Really, all that's needed is for whatever platform exists needs to remain open enough to be consumer friendly. If games developers can run their games on Windows, and consumers can easily buy and install the games on Windows, Microsoft doesn't have anything to worry about. They might not have anything to worry about anyway...just because Linux is a possible alternative doesn't mean consumers will go there.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Originally posted by Yalexy Originally posted by ChromeBallz Hate ti dissappoint, but at the moment DirectX is actually better than OpenGL.The guys behind OpenGL pretty much didn't bother updating it properly and making it userfriendly for developers between 2000 and 2008 - Only recently did they start catching up again with DirectX.They were better than DirectX, but only before DirectX 8 which came out in 2002 or so. At that point, Microsoft's very strong marketing department finally won out over the OpenGL people as far as development was involved, simply because OpenGL was slacking off a LOT. Standards were not embraced, developing for it became far more difficult and support was nearly non-existent. Against this you had DirectX which finally became pretty damn fast in it's own right, easy to develop for and it had a LOT of support from Microsoft themselves. Nvidia and Ati also started dropping OpenGL more and more around this time, leading to the current situation where Ati (now owned by AMD) has pretty much no real OpenGL support and even Nvidia, the king of OpenGL at some point, only made it a secondary concern.Since OpenGL 4 they finally started making a comeback, but at this point DirectX 11 is simply a better API. It's easier to program for, has more support and is simply faster. OpenGL has a few years to go before it can compete at the same level again, imho (Even John Carmack, the guy who basically made OpenGL big in the 90's, said this at Quakecon this year).
There's tons of demos showing Unigine Heaven on Linux with OpenGL4 in comparison to Windows on DX11 and OpenGL is only missing the tesselation, which can aswell be done via CUDA for example.
There's really nothing about modern games that couldn't be done without DX without loosing anything.
Sure, OpenGL needs better support, but that's all.
OpenGL has almost caught up with the featureset, yes...
A 1969 VW Beetle has 4 seats, wheels, a steering wheel and a boot and is almost free to get, so to speak.
A 2003 Ford Mondeo has 4 seats, wheels, a steering wheel and a boot. It costs more, but wouldn't you say it's worth getting over the Beetle even though the Beetle offers exactly the same feature set and is cheaper?
Maybe not the best example, but DirectX isn't better because it has a larger featureset - As i already explained in my post, it's better because atm it's faster and much, much, MUCH easier to develop for.
Development for OpenGL can easily take twice as long as development for DirectX right now, and unlike DirectX you can't guarantee that OpenGL will work right on devices that support it.
Originally posted by ChromeBallz Hate ti dissappoint, but at the moment DirectX is actually better than OpenGL. The guys behind OpenGL pretty much didn't bother updating it properly and making it userfriendly for developers between 2000 and 2008 - Only recently did they start catching up again with DirectX.They were better than DirectX, but only before DirectX 8 which came out in 2002 or so. At that point, Microsoft's very strong marketing department finally won out over the OpenGL people as far as development was involved, simply because OpenGL was slacking off a LOT. Standards were not embraced, developing for it became far more difficult and support was nearly non-existent. Against this you had DirectX which finally became pretty damn fast in it's own right, easy to develop for and it had a LOT of support from Microsoft themselves. Nvidia and Ati also started dropping OpenGL more and more around this time, leading to the current situation where Ati (now owned by AMD) has pretty much no real OpenGL support and even Nvidia, the king of OpenGL at some point, only made it a secondary concern.Since OpenGL 4 they finally started making a comeback, but at this point DirectX 11 is simply a better API. It's easier to program for, has more support and is simply faster. OpenGL has a few years to go before it can compete at the same level again, imho (Even John Carmack, the guy who basically made OpenGL big in the 90's, said this at Quakecon this year).
There's tons of demos showing Unigine Heaven on Linux with OpenGL4 in comparison to Windows on DX11 and OpenGL is only missing the tesselation, which can aswell be done via CUDA for example.There's really nothing about modern games that couldn't be done without DX without loosing anything.Sure, OpenGL needs better support, but that's all.
OpenGL has almost caught up with the featureset, yes... A 1969 VW Beetle has 4 seats, wheels, a steering wheel and a boot and is almost free to get, so to speak.A 2003 Ford Mondeo has 4 seats, wheels, a steering wheel and a boot. It costs more, but wouldn't you say it's worth getting over the Beetle even though the Beetle offers exactly the same feature set and is cheaper?Maybe not the best example, but DirectX isn't better because it has a larger featureset - As i already explained in my post, it's better because atm it's faster and much, much, MUCH easier to develop for. Development for OpenGL can easily take twice as long as development for DirectX right now, and unlike DirectX you can't guarantee that OpenGL will work right on devices that support it.
I would not say that OpenGL is harder to develop for, most game engines support both API's since all of them usually built a middle layer to provide compatibility, this is not only done to provide OpenGL support but also to provide support for various versions on DX, and other API's.For example just about every engine does not store shaders in a native language(HLSL, or GLSL) most of them store it in their own intermediate language and compile them to the proper language and shader level when the game is loaded(if you see on some loading screens something that says compiling shaders they are doing just that).
Today many of those engines allow you to describe the shader you want in an XML based language and later on compile them to native languages based on the capabilities of the engine, the settings, and the the compatibility of the system.Here's a good example of that: http://docs.unity3d.com/Documentation/Manual/ShaderTut1.html
Heck even if you do work in "native" DirectX, you do not write your shaders in HLSL directly since its a very messy way of doing stuff, you use DirectX FX, or another "shaderlab"/"shaderstudio".I do agree that DirectX is much easier to code in, if you working Managed DirectX, but thats not because of the API, thats because of the IDE that comes with it, and every company that makes an engine either for commercial or internal use builds their own IDE and their own tools to allow ease of development.
Most developers today do not write machine(and i don not mean assembly) code, the script the game using the tools available to them in the engine SDK/Toolset, this is not the 1980's or even the 90's.Programming games in actual line by line would take too much time, and will require highly skilled programmers instead of highly skilled game designers and developers, there is no point of hiring 120 programmers if you can hire 20 which will write you the engine and the tool set and then hire 100 designers and developers that could work with a much easier to use abstract scripting language, there is no point to script every encounter in code when you can just program a single scripted AI module which will parse simple scripts that people with little to no programming skill could write.Now back to OpenGL what you said was true at some point for Windows, and somewhat still today for a very few selected Operating Systems.
When MS first desided to stop "supporting" OpenGL the graphic card manufacturers wrote their own OpenGL mini drivers that were the OpenGL wrapper that allowed you to run OpenGL apps on Windows trough DirectX, some software companies(like AutoDesk for example) wrote their own OpenGL mini drivers for specific graphic cards in order to ensure best performance and compatibility for their sofware.
Since Microsoft was not policing the OpenGL mini drivers ATI, Nvidia, Matrox, Via and just everone else at the time liked to cheat in order to look better in benchmarks that involved OpenGL sofware like CAD's and Quake 3 based games.
So they tweaked and messed with the standard OpenGL extensions and wrote their own and exposed them in quite an inconsistent way depending on the device you had and the driver version you were using which created a whole mess.
It got a bit worse when ATI took the chair of the ORB(the group that used to be in charge of the development of OpenGL) and pushed heavily to implement their own OpenGL extensions as the OpenGL standard which in the opinion of many people was pretty much what killed OpenGL completely.With XP, Vista, and 7 Microsoft have their own OpenGL wrapper the problem is that it only Support OpenGL 1.1 on the other side the khronos group started policing how OpenGL is implemented in the drivers of graphic card manufacturers quite well the past several years so what you get from NVIDIA, and AMD/ATI these days conforms rather well to the OpenGL standard.
And most importantly they are now required to provide 2 separate interfaces one for the common standard OpenGL extinctions alone, and one for what ever they want to throw in, so you dont really need to worry about issues with compatibility if you code only for the default extentensions and not for hardware specific ones.
Originally posted by ChromeBallz Hate ti dissappoint, but at the moment DirectX is actually better than OpenGL.
The guys behind OpenGL pretty much didn't bother updating it properly and making it userfriendly for developers between 2000 and 2008 - Only recently did they start catching up again with DirectX.
They were better than DirectX, but only before DirectX 8 which came out in 2002 or so. At that point, Microsoft's very strong marketing department finally won out over the OpenGL people as far as development was involved, simply because OpenGL was slacking off a LOT. Standards were not embraced, developing for it became far more difficult and support was nearly non-existent. Against this you had DirectX which finally became pretty damn fast in it's own right, easy to develop for and it had a LOT of support from Microsoft themselves. Nvidia and Ati also started dropping OpenGL more and more around this time, leading to the current situation where Ati (now owned by AMD) has pretty much no real OpenGL support and even Nvidia, the king of OpenGL at some point, only made it a secondary concern.
Since OpenGL 4 they finally started making a comeback, but at this point DirectX 11 is simply a better API. It's easier to program for, has more support and is simply faster. OpenGL has a few years to go before it can compete at the same level again, imho (Even John Carmack, the guy who basically made OpenGL big in the 90's, said this at Quakecon this year).
There's tons of demos showing Unigine Heaven on Linux with OpenGL4 in comparison to Windows on DX11 and OpenGL is only missing the tesselation, which can aswell be done via CUDA for example.
There's really nothing about modern games that couldn't be done without DX without loosing anything.
Sure, OpenGL needs better support, but that's all.
OpenGL has almost caught up with the featureset, yes...
A 1969 VW Beetle has 4 seats, wheels, a steering wheel and a boot and is almost free to get, so to speak.
A 2003 Ford Mondeo has 4 seats, wheels, a steering wheel and a boot. It costs more, but wouldn't you say it's worth getting over the Beetle even though the Beetle offers exactly the same feature set and is cheaper?
Maybe not the best example, but DirectX isn't better because it has a larger featureset - As i already explained in my post, it's better because atm it's faster and much, much, MUCH easier to develop for.
Development for OpenGL can easily take twice as long as development for DirectX right now, and unlike DirectX you can't guarantee that OpenGL will work right on devices that support it.
I would not say that OpenGL is harder to develop for, most game engines support both API's since all of them usually built a middle layer to provide compatibility, this is not only done to provide OpenGL support but also to provide support for various versions on DX, and other API's.For example just about every engine does not store shaders in a native language(HLSL, or GLSL) most of them store it in their own intermediate language and compile them to the proper language and shader level when the game is loaded(if you see on some loading screens something that says compiling shaders they are doing just that).
Today many of those engines allow you to describe the shader you want in an XML based language and later on compile them to native languages based on the capabilities of the engine, the settings, and the the compatibility of the system.Here's a good example of that: http://docs.unity3d.com/Documentation/Manual/ShaderTut1.html
Heck even if you do work in "native" DirectX, you do not write your shaders in HLSL directly since its a very messy way of doing stuff, you use DirectX FX, or another "shader lab"/"shader studio".
I do agree that DirectX is much easier to code in, if you working Managed DirectX(And no one outside of "zune" lol Games, and XBLA does that these days), but thats not because of the API, thats because of the IDE that comes with it, and every company that makes an engine either for commercial or internal use builds their own IDE and their own tools to allow ease of development.
Most developers today do not write machine(and i don not mean assembly) code, the script the game using the tools available to them in the engine SDK/Toolset, this is not the 1980's or even the 90's.Programming games in actual line by line would take too much time.
And will require highly skilled programmers instead of highly skilled game designers and developers, there is no point of hiring 120 programmers if you can hire 20 which will write you the engine and the tool set and then hire 100 designers and developers that could work with a much easier to use abstract scripting language.
There is no point to write every encounter in code when you can just program a single scripted AI module which will parse simple scripts that people with little to no programming skill could write.Now back to OpenGL what you said was true at some point for Windows, and somewhat still today for a very few selected Operating Systems.
When MS first decided to stop "supporting" OpenGL the graphic card manufacturers wrote their own OpenGL mini drivers that were the OpenGL wrapper that allowed you to run OpenGL apps on Windows trough DirectX, some software companies(like AutoDesk for example) wrote their own OpenGL mini drivers for specific graphic cards in order to ensure best performance and compatibility for their sofware.
Since Microsoft was not policing the OpenGL mini drivers ATI, Nvidia, Matrox, Via and just everyone else at the time liked to cheat in order to look better in benchmarks that involved OpenGL sofware like CAD's and Quake 3 based games.
So they tweaked and messed with the standard OpenGL extensions and wrote their own and exposed them in quite an inconsistent way depending on the device you had and the driver version you were using which created a whole mess.
It got a bit worse when ATI took the chair of the ORB(the group that used to be in charge of the development of OpenGL) and pushed heavily to implement their own OpenGL extensions as the OpenGL standard which in the opinion of many people was pretty much what killed OpenGL completely.With XP, Vista, and 7 Microsoft have their own OpenGL wrapper the problem is that it only Support OpenGL 1.1 on the other side the khronos group started policing how OpenGL is implemented in the drivers of graphic card manufacturers quite well the past several years so what you get from NVIDIA, and AMD/ATI these days conforms rather well to the OpenGL standard.
And most importantly they are now required to provide 2 separate interfaces one for the common standard OpenGL extinctions alone, and one for what ever they want to throw in, so you dont really need to worry about issues with compatibility if you code only for the default extensions and not for hardware specific ones.
You don't have to pay a developer fee to get your software on Android.
I've made all sorts of custom android apps, you can stick what you like on android. It's one of the main reasons its better for business use than iPhone, say you have a custom made app for a business, like oh I don't know something on a phone that let's a maintainance guy check the status of a production line, you don't have to send it off to Google to get approved.
You dont have to pay a fee to develop Metro apps either, you just need to register with Microsoft there is Visual Studio Express edition for Windows 8/Metro aswell.
The only "fee" is if you actually sell it on the store and not supply it as a freeapp, the Metro store will also support Open Source development trough CodePlex.
Microsoft is actually running allot of OpenSource and ShardSource projects(CodePlex is just one example) trough their InterOP / Microsoft Openess venture, including linux heavily promoting and developing linux trough the SUSE Alliance, and OpenSource cloud development on the Azure Platform, heck Eclipse is the most used IDE for Azure these days
People just assume that Microsoft is bad, evil, and will screw them over at any chance they got, compare Microsoft to Apple, or Even google and see who has more open platform
Comments
It's about time they did something about long bootup times...almost forgot about how annoying it was. This is definitely the way to go.
Edit: Not so sure about the changes needed for WIn7 to Win8 if there are much, but folder redirection seemed to work fine. Haven't noticed any issues in group policy. I understand infrastructure planning takes time and money, but it only takes on CEO to notice and demand a change.
reason for booting fast
http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/windows-8-boots-super-fast-says-microsoft-120795
EQ2 fan sites
This a a huge concern, Microsoft is going in the same direction as Apple.
It won't be long and things like Flash and PDF or Google maps won't run on the PC, just as Apple has done with it's product line.
It is hard to believe that companies like Apple survive and even prosper when they make it that you have to use THEIR stuff like itunes...etc. Microsoft is seeing the Apple profit margin like an iphone connecter that only works with iphone. Apple has scammed the money out of their cunsumer base for years and now Microsoft is going to do the same thing....tell us what can and cannot run on the OS.
Next thing you know mp3 won't run on the Microsoft platform.
You can get other stores through android own app store like humble and soon steam, with rumours gog might get on it too.
Windows 8 for the desktop will allow you install desktop applications just like way back in Windows XP. It's only the "Metro" apps that are restricted to the MS store. I guess it all depends on how prevalent Metro apps become and whether Microsoft limits things like DirectX to Metro apps.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Not as long as there are a dozen different distros. It's hard enough getting PC games to work on the bajillions of different hardware configus w/out having to account for which distro of linux a person is using.
There is enough common ground that games will run across a variety of distributions. This has worked fine as far back as Hexen II. Especially with a front end like Steam to manage the dependencies.
I think such a transition would be rough, it would take a ton of work from game developers, and it would require a lot of buy in and coordination from major developers, but they could make the jump. Valve is starting now with their Steam front end for Linux. They could push Linux to a more unified content distribution system as well.
Doesn't mean it'll happen, but if the game developers pushed it, they could do it.
** edit **
Computers wouldn't be any cheaper. Computer manufacturers might make more money, but the computers won't be any cheaper.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
It's one thing to take a stance against microsoft like they have, and if people want to blindly applaud them for it, have a blast.
But until they put their money where their mouthes are and release Linux clients for 100% of their games, it's nothing but smoke and mirrors and people trying to say things to make themselves sound more important than they actually are.
Blizzard and Valve do not like the fact that Microsoft is moving to an app store like revenue stream, this is no surprise sice Valve has pretty much a monopoly on digital downloaded games in the PC market, and Blizzard is been setting its own internal market place for years now.
The certification only required for "Metro" apps, if you want to have a metro enabled application you have to go trought the certification proccess and sell it trough the metro store, honestly there is little what MS or any one can do to avoid this.
A broken Metro app will break the entire interface and affect other Metro apps you have running, most games will not actually require or benefit anything from the Metro interface but allot of casual games that you might be playing with other stuff in the backround will.
The fact is that the certification proccess is actually good for costumers, you're stuck with Windows any how(unless you want to use MACOS which is just as bad, or WINE on Linux which is both illegal(yes it is, it violates the license of the Lib you need to get from a Licensed Version of Microsoft Windows, and does not really provide the same exprience as you would when you run them nativly).
Lets read the actuall certification requirements which are great for consumers:
1.1 Your app must offer customers unique, creative value or utility in all the languages and markets that it supports
1.2 Your app must be fully functional when the customer gets it from the Windows Store
1.3 Your app’s trial functionality must reasonably resemble its full functionality
2.1 Your app must not display only ads
2.4 The primary experiences your app provides must take place within the app
2.5 Ads must not execute program code that didn't come from the ad provider
3.1 You must use only the Windows Runtime APIs to implement the features of your Windows Store app
3.2 Your app must not stop responding, end unexpectedly, or contain programming errors
3.4 Updates must not decrease your app’s functionality in a way that would be unexpected to a reasonable customer
3.5 Your app must fully support touch input, and fully support keyboard and mouse input
3.8 Your app must meet the basic performance criteria on a low-power computer
4.1.1 Your app must have a privacy statement if it collects personal information
If your app collects or transmits any user’s personal information, including an IP address, you must maintain a privacy policy that complies with applicable laws and regulations, informs users of the information collected by your app and how that information is used, stored, secured and disclosed, and describes the controls that users have over the use and sharing of their information, and how they may access their information.
You must also provide access to your privacy policy in the Description page of your app, as well as in the app’s settings as displayed in the Windows Settings charm.
4.1.2 Your app must obtain opt-in or equivalent consent to share personal information
Your app can publish a customer’s personal information to a service or other person only after obtaining opt-in consent.
Opt-in consent means the customer gives their express permission for the requested activity, after you have:
a) Described to the customer how the information will be used or shared; and
b) Provided the customer a mechanism through which they can later rescind this permission and opt-out.
4.5 Your app must protect customers from unintentional large data transfers over metered networks
4.7 If you use a transaction provider other than the Store's, you must identify the provider at the time of the transaction or when it collects any payment info from the customer
6.2 Your app must have a Windows age rating, and you must submit third-party ratings for your app if you have them
7.1 The purchase page link provided for your app must send users to a location where they can directly download the app, and must not lead users to another intermediary site or a site that spoofs the purchase page
Some horrific things indeed, honestly i whish Google half of those things so the Play Store won't be the mess it is still is today...
ALL SOFTWARE HAS ERRORS
Indeed by they are more reffering to somthing that will lockup the entire runtime, and again atleast its a good way of getting buggy apps out of the app store untill they are fixed. An app locking once every say 1000 runs it's ok, WoW crashed far less than that for me, but there are tons of games and other apps that frequently crash and annoy the hell out of me.
"3.1 You must use only the Windows Runtime APIs to implement the features of your Windows Store app"
That doesn't sound very consumer friendly. At least not to anyone using anything other than windows.
Aside from that. People have already described and linked the parts that were actually cause for concern Dogma. It wasn't the product qualifications (for the most part) that was the issues with why Steam, Blizz, and Notch don't want it.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
1) it is, the reason why the want to restrict you to Windows Runtime API's only and not allow you to use older interfaces say Win32 or COM, is because they want to ensure that for example if the app uses Bluetooth, Geo-location, or SMS then you as a costumer will be aware of it and could control it.
2) Yeah it has nothing to do with certification it that they don't want to have to compete with Microsoft, if they decide to list their apps on the Metro Store they giving money to Microsoft, and have to compete with other products listed on the same store.
Microsoft Basically screwed Valve over, Steam may have tons of users, but Windows as a platform has a lot more
And Blizzard is just being Blizzard they hate to give control over any thing the reason why there is still not a single Blizzard game on XBOX360 or PS3 is that because they cannot come to an agreement with either Microsoft or Sony regarding BattleNet.
I'm more concerned by the conduct Microsoft will have about things installed outside of the app store on PCs going forward.
With a closed system emulating Apple or otherwise, they have an easy means to restrict the compatibility of unlicensed programs (ones they don't get paid for) if they feel the need to press publishers and developers to sell through their platforms.
That's the part that can threaten Steam the most. Microsoft making Steam, Origin, etc in some part incompatible with their OS not only breaks competition, it gives Microsoft a means to cut it entirely out.
And that's a threat.
You can make the argument that if they do that they would see an exodus of users. But honestly that's probably only a half truth at best. Most people have never used microsoft out of convenience. They have used it because it's familiarity.
Migrating to a different OS is an awkward thing. Even if the OS is from a technical standpoint 'intuitive', the familiarity of older systems somewhat sabotages their ability to adapt to the other or newer one. Part of the reason Apple's upgrades are always stepwise from eachother in terms of user interactivity even if there's large underlying changes.
Point with this though is that People won't be willing to walk away from microsoft if they pull a move like that, because they will be too alienated by other systems to be able to migrate at all.
Add to that the problem of overall game compatibility in the first place and they may still lack the reason t move if their games simply aren't available anywhaere else.
Pretty well willing to bet that's not the only impact either.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
Take that one step further and if you're on a debian based system with apt and want to access rpm based packaging you then must jump through a bunch of hoops or allow two different packaging systems (or the native packaging systems interface with the foreign one) to manage your apps. An uninstall can render the whole system unstable.
Picture how frustrated people get when Windows doesn't work right or has problems. Now picture those same people in the Linux world trying to deal with those sorts of problems. The outcry would be epic. This is why Linux is not even competitive and won't be until their standardize. I know there are movements to do so and certify but they've effectively failed for years now. On top of that the masses don't give a shit about Stallman, the FSF, and the GPL agenda to control code to their benefit and won't take their moralizing any more than they like it from Microsoft. At least with Microsoft they get something that works.
I've used Linux for around 10 years. When I first started playing WoW, I ran it under Linux and Wine. Of all the issues I've had with Linux, having it "just work" wasn't one of them. The only reason I'm not using Linux now is because most games don't run on Linux. If the games I wanted to play ran on Linux, I'd dump Windows in a heartbeat. I don't need the platform, I need the games. That's where game developers have the advantage. They could make installing games simple. That's why Valve is working on a Steam front end for Linux. That's what will install your games for you.
That doesn't mean it'll happen though. Really, all that's needed is for whatever platform exists needs to remain open enough to be consumer friendly. If games developers can run their games on Windows, and consumers can easily buy and install the games on Windows, Microsoft doesn't have anything to worry about. They might not have anything to worry about anyway...just because Linux is a possible alternative doesn't mean consumers will go there.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
There's tons of demos showing Unigine Heaven on Linux with OpenGL4 in comparison to Windows on DX11 and OpenGL is only missing the tesselation, which can aswell be done via CUDA for example.
There's really nothing about modern games that couldn't be done without DX without loosing anything.
Sure, OpenGL needs better support, but that's all.
OpenGL has almost caught up with the featureset, yes...
A 1969 VW Beetle has 4 seats, wheels, a steering wheel and a boot and is almost free to get, so to speak.
A 2003 Ford Mondeo has 4 seats, wheels, a steering wheel and a boot. It costs more, but wouldn't you say it's worth getting over the Beetle even though the Beetle offers exactly the same feature set and is cheaper?
Maybe not the best example, but DirectX isn't better because it has a larger featureset - As i already explained in my post, it's better because atm it's faster and much, much, MUCH easier to develop for.
Development for OpenGL can easily take twice as long as development for DirectX right now, and unlike DirectX you can't guarantee that OpenGL will work right on devices that support it.
Playing: WF
Played: WoW, GW2, L2, WAR, AoC, DnL (2005), GW, LotRO, EQ2, TOR, CoH (RIP), STO, TSW, TERA, EVE, ESO, BDO
Tried: EQ, UO, AO, EnB, TCoS, Fury, Ryzom, EU, DDO, TR, RF, CO, Aion, VG, DN, Vindictus, AA
Today many of those engines allow you to describe the shader you want in an XML based language and later on compile them to native languages based on the capabilities of the engine, the settings, and the the compatibility of the system.Here's a good example of that: http://docs.unity3d.com/Documentation/Manual/ShaderTut1.html
Heck even if you do work in "native" DirectX, you do not write your shaders in HLSL directly since its a very messy way of doing stuff, you use DirectX FX, or another "shaderlab"/"shaderstudio".I do agree that DirectX is much easier to code in, if you working Managed DirectX, but thats not because of the API, thats because of the IDE that comes with it, and every company that makes an engine either for commercial or internal use builds their own IDE and their own tools to allow ease of development.
Most developers today do not write machine(and i don not mean assembly) code, the script the game using the tools available to them in the engine SDK/Toolset, this is not the 1980's or even the 90's.Programming games in actual line by line would take too much time, and will require highly skilled programmers instead of highly skilled game designers and developers, there is no point of hiring 120 programmers if you can hire 20 which will write you the engine and the tool set and then hire 100 designers and developers that could work with a much easier to use abstract scripting language, there is no point to script every encounter in code when you can just program a single scripted AI module which will parse simple scripts that people with little to no programming skill could write.Now back to OpenGL what you said was true at some point for Windows, and somewhat still today for a very few selected Operating Systems.
When MS first desided to stop "supporting" OpenGL the graphic card manufacturers wrote their own OpenGL mini drivers that were the OpenGL wrapper that allowed you to run OpenGL apps on Windows trough DirectX, some software companies(like AutoDesk for example) wrote their own OpenGL mini drivers for specific graphic cards in order to ensure best performance and compatibility for their sofware.
Since Microsoft was not policing the OpenGL mini drivers ATI, Nvidia, Matrox, Via and just everone else at the time liked to cheat in order to look better in benchmarks that involved OpenGL sofware like CAD's and Quake 3 based games.
So they tweaked and messed with the standard OpenGL extensions and wrote their own and exposed them in quite an inconsistent way depending on the device you had and the driver version you were using which created a whole mess.
It got a bit worse when ATI took the chair of the ORB(the group that used to be in charge of the development of OpenGL) and pushed heavily to implement their own OpenGL extensions as the OpenGL standard which in the opinion of many people was pretty much what killed OpenGL completely.With XP, Vista, and 7 Microsoft have their own OpenGL wrapper the problem is that it only Support OpenGL 1.1 on the other side the khronos group started policing how OpenGL is implemented in the drivers of graphic card manufacturers quite well the past several years so what you get from NVIDIA, and AMD/ATI these days conforms rather well to the OpenGL standard.
And most importantly they are now required to provide 2 separate interfaces one for the common standard OpenGL extinctions alone, and one for what ever they want to throw in, so you dont really need to worry about issues with compatibility if you code only for the default extentensions and not for hardware specific ones.
I would not say that OpenGL is harder to develop for, most game engines support both API's since all of them usually built a middle layer to provide compatibility, this is not only done to provide OpenGL support but also to provide support for various versions on DX, and other API's.For example just about every engine does not store shaders in a native language(HLSL, or GLSL) most of them store it in their own intermediate language and compile them to the proper language and shader level when the game is loaded(if you see on some loading screens something that says compiling shaders they are doing just that).
Today many of those engines allow you to describe the shader you want in an XML based language and later on compile them to native languages based on the capabilities of the engine, the settings, and the the compatibility of the system.Here's a good example of that: http://docs.unity3d.com/Documentation/Manual/ShaderTut1.html
Heck even if you do work in "native" DirectX, you do not write your shaders in HLSL directly since its a very messy way of doing stuff, you use DirectX FX, or another "shader lab"/"shader studio".
I do agree that DirectX is much easier to code in, if you working Managed DirectX(And no one outside of "zune" lol Games, and XBLA does that these days), but thats not because of the API, thats because of the IDE that comes with it, and every company that makes an engine either for commercial or internal use builds their own IDE and their own tools to allow ease of development.
Most developers today do not write machine(and i don not mean assembly) code, the script the game using the tools available to them in the engine SDK/Toolset, this is not the 1980's or even the 90's.Programming games in actual line by line would take too much time.
And will require highly skilled programmers instead of highly skilled game designers and developers, there is no point of hiring 120 programmers if you can hire 20 which will write you the engine and the tool set and then hire 100 designers and developers that could work with a much easier to use abstract scripting language.
There is no point to write every encounter in code when you can just program a single scripted AI module which will parse simple scripts that people with little to no programming skill could write.Now back to OpenGL what you said was true at some point for Windows, and somewhat still today for a very few selected Operating Systems.
When MS first decided to stop "supporting" OpenGL the graphic card manufacturers wrote their own OpenGL mini drivers that were the OpenGL wrapper that allowed you to run OpenGL apps on Windows trough DirectX, some software companies(like AutoDesk for example) wrote their own OpenGL mini drivers for specific graphic cards in order to ensure best performance and compatibility for their sofware.
Since Microsoft was not policing the OpenGL mini drivers ATI, Nvidia, Matrox, Via and just everyone else at the time liked to cheat in order to look better in benchmarks that involved OpenGL sofware like CAD's and Quake 3 based games.
So they tweaked and messed with the standard OpenGL extensions and wrote their own and exposed them in quite an inconsistent way depending on the device you had and the driver version you were using which created a whole mess.
It got a bit worse when ATI took the chair of the ORB(the group that used to be in charge of the development of OpenGL) and pushed heavily to implement their own OpenGL extensions as the OpenGL standard which in the opinion of many people was pretty much what killed OpenGL completely.With XP, Vista, and 7 Microsoft have their own OpenGL wrapper the problem is that it only Support OpenGL 1.1 on the other side the khronos group started policing how OpenGL is implemented in the drivers of graphic card manufacturers quite well the past several years so what you get from NVIDIA, and AMD/ATI these days conforms rather well to the OpenGL standard.
And most importantly they are now required to provide 2 separate interfaces one for the common standard OpenGL extinctions alone, and one for what ever they want to throw in, so you dont really need to worry about issues with compatibility if you code only for the default extensions and not for hardware specific ones.
I've made all sorts of custom android apps, you can stick what you like on android. It's one of the main reasons its better for business use than iPhone, say you have a custom made app for a business, like oh I don't know something on a phone that let's a maintainance guy check the status of a production line, you don't have to send it off to Google to get approved.
You do with ios.
You do with some win 7 stuff, mostly drivers.
You dont have to pay a fee to develop Metro apps either, you just need to register with Microsoft there is Visual Studio Express edition for Windows 8/Metro aswell.
The only "fee" is if you actually sell it on the store and not supply it as a freeapp, the Metro store will also support Open Source development trough CodePlex.
Microsoft is actually running allot of OpenSource and ShardSource projects(CodePlex is just one example) trough their InterOP / Microsoft Openess venture, including linux heavily promoting and developing linux trough the SUSE Alliance, and OpenSource cloud development on the Azure Platform, heck Eclipse is the most used IDE for Azure these days
People just assume that Microsoft is bad, evil, and will screw them over at any chance they got, compare Microsoft to Apple, or Even google and see who has more open platform