Don't understand what you guy's talking about perfection! In reality, there isn't anything perfect and that includes every single piece of Software too! And how could it perfect if those who creating it are imperfect?! Just realize that nobody will ever get anything what is perfect. And what would the life and the world be if everything is perfect? Answer for your self!
Nope,there's no such thing as ugly women.. Just sober men XD Btw,something a bit on topic about Windows 8 - has someone else here noticed a decrease in stand-by times for K8/K10-based laptops. I noticed this 'issue' on an old Puma-based laptop and a somewhat newer Danube-based one (aka my old College-warrior and my first work comp )
The post earlier about battery power and Windows 8... The longer life of Windows 8 vs Windows 7 is a combination of many improvements, not due to the removal of Aero. Aero uses such little battery use it proably won't make a difference to battery life. When Vista first came out, it made a difference because the interface was not accelerated, and used quite slow code. Since then the code has been improved, plus the interface now has full acceleration. Aero is pointless on tablets simply because the size of the tablet screen doesn't show it properly. The removal of aero on Windows 8 is PURELY because they want people to use Metro instead, which doesn't have surfaces that can be aero'd. For most people the new interface is a deterrent, it simply looks ugly on desktops. Big bold block buttons, and once programs are installed a plethora of icons that you have to search through to find the program you want (because people don't sort their start menu), it's much worse than not sorting the start menu in desktop view. On top of that, people actually like having wallpaper, whether it's a family member, pet, or scenery. In terms of metro apps, there may be some use of them on desktop, but they really are space inefficient (view hidden folders, navigate to 'C:\Program Files' and check the size of the 'WindowsApps' folder). This is bad, due to the nature of apps people will clog their drives with useless crap that they'll install and forget, which will probably keep downloading stuff in the background anyway. On tablets and phones this is especially bad if downloading through phone or wireless internet services (due to quotas). Of course, people using iPhones etc have the same issue with downloads, to some extent, but it is a consideration. Anyone truly interested in knowing finance or news stuff won't resort to using the App previews,simply because they aren't detailed enough. In terms of business use, business won't like Aero because of the apps (and because it's crap). It's not a matter of simply 'getting use to it', it truly is a big backwards step. If you use a car analogy, you could say a high density urban environment is analogous to a phone or tablet, and more open, larger (larger screens etc) rural space are like desktops and laptops, where you are likely to do more things with the car (not just drive to work, but move stuff around, travel distances, analogous to using different programs, playing games). While a SUV/truck really isn't practical for a high density urban area, a small car really isn't practical for rural environments either, simply because it cannot tow heavy loads, carry lots of stuff on board etc. So, what Microsoft are trying to do is force rural users to use a small car like a Smart (Metro UI) car ideal for high density urban driving (using 'Apps', tablet and phone use) for multipurpose stuff (gaming, general computing), where it simply isn't practical for the purpose. I hope this makes sense! You could say it's a 'one size fits all' argument, where it's 'one size fits all, as long as' scenario. say if this is a sock which suits shoe sizes 6-10, and you have a size 12 foot, obviously the 'one size fits all' sock isn't going to fit. Metro UI is that size 6-10 sock, it's no good for the larger screens and non-touch interface use I like my wallpaper selection, I like my start menu (I organise mine), and I like most parts or Aero (so sucks not having it). I don't like the snorefest that is Metro, but I do concede that it's a practical interface for tablet/phones, but definitely not proper computing use. I am someone that embraces change, especially when the change is for something better, so my argument again Metro is an honest one, and not a stubborn one. If Microsoft sticks with their stubbornness over Windows 8, the next version of Windows may be an interesting scenario; whether they retain the current UI changes, go completely Metro (no desktop view), currently probable? or go to a mixed desktop/Metro UI for desktop/laptop use. What's also interesting is Microsoft move to making smaller Windows updates more often (in terms of new versions), and what this means to current OS support. The next iteration is due middle of next year (Windows 'Blue). Will they charge for it, like Apple does for their minor iterations, will it be a free upgrade, if they do bring a 'new version' that you pay for each year, what does that mean for support of older versions? Microsoft are going to an App store model at the point of time where the fad of 'apps' is past it's peak. I think after a while people will stop wanting to pay, even if it's a few dollars, for apps that don't really do much, and are largely crap that you wouldn't have given a second look if it were in a standard format and were free. This goes for Apple apps and Google apps. On a separate note, why do programs insist on installing TSR's or services for things like program updates (for instance, Java and Adobe), where they can be simply run by the task schedule (no memory use until it's called). Why have a program loaded that just runs a simply update check once a week? I think the programmers behind such ideas as making Windows 8 uniform, and this TSR update business, simply aren't lateral thinkers. I'm sure that there are a lot of Microsoft employees that don't like the new UI either, but have to try and convince people that it's the best and most exciting thing to come from Microsoft for a long time. Sure, it does encourage excitement, but like running through a group of pigeons, the excitement isn't that of a positive nature, more of a squawk of discontent. If Windows 8 fails, of course it won't be Microsoft's fault. It will be the user's fault for not liking the 'oh so great' new UI.
Big companies don't follow market requirements, they _create_ the market and incite the desired requirements. IMO Win8 is just a building block in an orchestrated endeavour between MS and Intel (see the Ultrabook storyline) to secure their future against Apple and Asian manufacturers. I bet that the other important building block is a strong patent portfolio to fend the competition off the turf. The Apple-Samsung patent war proved that this is possible. There is no big money or market share any more in desktop software (competition, Linux, patents expired). IMO this is the real reason why Win8 is so strangely crippled from a pure desktop user perspective.
Just by y the way Aero isnt removed in Windows 8 its just cut down some features. For example Aero Glass was removed from Aero but Aero Peek,Snap and Shake is still there
Finally a smart and true words man, i do agree and we can add why exactly, but is just matter of intelligence and "use your brain and do not follow fashion" People like Windows 8 not because is better, but because they get used fastly and think being superior.... Luckily the world is filled with people so much different from each other, so stupidly saying "one size fits all" means everyone wears same clothes, eats same food, follow the rules pushed down it's throat....... No,i have my opinion, Burfadel has his, and someone else will post with very different from ours, so "one opinion fits all" ????
That might be true just at the moment as it does take a little while for people to upgrade their hardware, but DX11.1 is the future and lots of new games support it. And an OS is used for more then just a couple of years.
I don't know of any DX11.1 games that have been made yet, but maybe some are planned with some game developers though. But at least DX11.1 will be backported to Win7, for those that are not willing to upgrade.
Have heard a rumor crysis 3 might (will support dx11, from day one ). But DX11 is still very new and dx11.1 is just a small update. Stereoscopic 3d and a few other bits (Not a huge market for that i would agree). DX11 does make many games look really good and run a bit smoother. Saying no to future tech is a bit like King Canute and the sea.
Just plain wrong This proves that you don't really know what you're talking about. Newer versions of DirectX don't require new hardware to take advantage of all their features. DirectX11.1 supports a number of new API-level features such built-in stereoscopic 3D support, improved interop with other APIs like Direct2D and DirectWrite, the ability to utilize DXGI 1.1 which contains a significant presentation model improvement for fullscreen window apps called DirectFlip, in addition to a large number of other additions: h**p://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/hh404562%28v=vs.85%29.aspx (can't post links due to post count). Since DX10.1, DirectX has also supported a feature known as hardware downleveling. This feature allows you to run the new APIs on lower class hardware by disabling certain feature sets at runtime. An engine built entirely on DX11.1 can run on DirectX 9 hardware, they just have to not use some of the newer hardware features like tesselation when lower end hardware is detected. DirectX11 also brought support for a lot of API-level features such as multithreaded contexts, on top of the already improved performance improvements in the API. Point being, please don't preach about something when you don't know what you're saying. It makes you look silly. There are dozens of reasons that using DX 11/11.1 is commercially advantageous, the primary reason it isn't has nothing to do with hardware or OS usage, simply a matter of how much money it costs to rewrite their engine when it already works.
I'm not sure if you have no idea what you're talking about and/or completely misread my entire post. I said nothing about trying to use features like tessellation on DX9 level hardware, in fact I explicitly stated that it was a feature you *couldn't* use. Not sure why you are twisting my words. Hardware downleveling also has nothing at all to do with WARP. WARP is a software rasterizer, and the hardware downleveling is a feature of the D3D API to support hardware that is not fully DX11 compliant by disabling the ability to use those features at runtime. These can be used completely separately from one another, and WARP is not required at all as long as your engine doesn't attempt to actually USE an unsupported API feature. Running a DX11 based engine with a DX9 video card will not allow tessellation to be used, but any half decent engine will automatically disable tessellation at runtime if that's the case. You will still be able to take advantage of the software API advantages of DX11 even with a DX9 card though.
Your own post has one good reason to use DX11.1 already. In addition, there are plenty of API level features that don't require hardware features to support. DX11 can make use of multithreaded contexts as well as compute shader support on DX10 class hardware (which wasn't actually present in the DX10 API), if you're targeting that class of hardware. In addition to all that, there are general perf improvements as well. As for the D3DX library, it's mediocre at best, and most engines have far better implementations for things like text rendering than what D3DX provides, and can offer better integration with their own engine.
Anyone skilled enough to write a decent game engine should be able to use a couple #if blocks to enable or disable new features of a DX11.1 engine to make it DX11 compatible for Vista/7, while retaining the ability to target Windows 8 and the number of improvements there.
No I do understand, I've done all this kind of stuff before. If your rendering is properly decoupled from the rest of your engine like it should be, there is little work outside of compiling a second DLL to hook into at runtime. Writing different device initializations is a trivial problem to solve, and shipping your engine with more than one binary is hardly a problem. A handful of functions within your engine can easily query whether features are supported as well. Code: bool IsStereoscopic3DSupported(ID3D11Device *pDevice) { #if (WIN_VER >= WIN8) IDXGIDevice2 *pDXGIDevice2 = NULL; if(FAILED(pDevice->QueryInterface(__uuidof(IDXGIDevice2), (void**)&pDXGIDevice2)) { return false; } IDXGIAdapter2 *pDXGIAdapter2 = NULL; if(FAILED(pDXGIDevice2->GetParent(__uuidof(IDXGIAdapter2), (void**)&pDXGIAdapter2)) { return false; } IDXGIFactory2 *pDXGIFactory2; if(FAILED(pDXGIAdapter2->GetParent(__uuidof(IDXGIFactory2), (void**)&pIDXGIFactory2)) { return false; } return pDXGIFactory2->IsWindowedStereoEnabled(); #else return false; #endif } if(IsStereoscopic3DSupported(pMyD3D11Device)) { PerformStereo3DRenderPass(); } For the sake of simplicity I haven't bothered with proper cleanup of the interfaces, it was more to provide a point of how easy it would be to support both versions of the API simultaneously. You could even go a step further and just put it all in a nice interface of your own which is then just loaded at runtime: Code: #if (WIN_VER >= WIN8) lib = LoadLibrary("Win8PlusD3D11_1.dll"); #else lib = LoadLibrary("Win7PlusD3D11.dll"); #endif pfnCreateMyInterface = GetProcAddress(lib, "CreateMyInterface"); IMyInterface *pInterface = pfnCreateMyInterface(pMyD3D11Device); if(pInterface->IsStereo3DSupported()) { PerformStereo3DRenderPass(); } Then you won't even need to worry about querying the interfaces all the time... Once you have a relatively tiny abstraction layer like this and you query support for various features, the higher level code remains identical. Pretty simple concept really... and there are a bunch of ways to do it, all relatively easily.