Hi Josh, Well said. It is precisely for that reason that once I complete MOTA and Raceway all future games will specifically be designed using newer APIs with Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8 in mind. I fully realize that designing for XP may satisfy a lot of customers for the short term, but they won't be thanking me when they finally do have to upgrade because the technologies used don't work properly on Windows 8.
To give an example I think a lot of gamers here realize I am really into FPS type games. Therefore 3d audio is pretty much a given requirement for that genre of audio game, and it so happens DirectSound is broken big time on Vista, Win 7, and Win 8. The only way I can add decent 3d audio support to my future titles is by using XAudio2 or perhaps OpenAL. If I choose to use XAudio2, the new API for newer Windows platforms, sooner or later it will break compatibility with XP, but will resolve 3d audio problems for Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8 users there by making it easier for me to support newer Windows releases as they come out since I can reasonably assume XAudio2 will be the defacto audio API for games in any new Windows releases while DirectSound such as it is will only be shipped for legacy support and will not get any new updates or bug fixes. That is a pretty serious problem, because although XAudio2 has some bugs that need fixed we can pretty much bet that Microsoft will fix those bugs in newer releases of XAudio2 for Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, and beyond, but not for XP. Meaning users are not doing themselves any favors by hanging onto their older buggy software, and developers aren't doing them any favors by supporting it at the cost of excluding newer Windows releases. Cheers! On 12/24/13, Draconis <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Tom, Cara, and all, > > One funny thing about this conversation, and I don’t mean “ha ha” funny, is > that we see on this list on an ongoing basis, people struggling to find ways > to play older games on newer machines with newer operating systems. We hear > their frustrations, their hacks, and so on. In fact, this is one of the > chief reasons Dark and others give for refusing to upgrade. > > And then these same folks who don’t want to upgrade say that we should keep > making games for XP, pointing out that many of our customers are still > running it. They ignore the consequences that would negatively impact both > themselves and the developers if that course of action was taken. They are > exacerbating the problem, by demanding games be developed with obsolete > technologies that they will, sooner or later, be complaining won’t work > properly when they are forced to get a new system. Developers would be > adding to the number of games that need hacks and workarounds to run. They > are putting an incredibly short lifespan on new titles created with these > technologies, meaning that the developer’s work is unlikely to be fully > compensated. > > Pointing out that many users still run XP is a shortsighted view of the > problem, and it is not how good business is done in any industry. In fact, > it is that kind of shortsightedness that have put whole industries on the > brink of disaster, like we saw with the record industry in the early 2000’s. > They wanted to hang on to the old model, but the world was moving forward > with or without them. They had to adapt. > > The way I see it, expending lots of energy supporting XP at this point may > indeed reap short-term benefits for the developer where regards sales, but > it comes at the price of the long term health of their business. You can eat > out at fast-food restaurants everyday. It might be delicious at the moment > while you’re doing it. But sooner or later, the health ramifications will > catch up with you, and when they do, you will realize that that Big Mac > really wasn’t worth the ultimate cost. --- Gamers mailing list __ [email protected] If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [email protected]. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [email protected].
