DirectX 10 en Windows XP
Lee
Microsoft backpedals for Nvidia, you lose
EVER WONDER WHY MS refuses to release DX10 for XP, forcing users to
Linux, and barring that, Vista - also known as Me II? It is easy,
there was a technical reason, but it shot that down when Nvidia
couldn't cut it. Now it is simply arm twisting.
The original reason was that DX10 required graphics memory to be
virtualisable, a laudable goal. You can see hints of it here and here
among other places. This was a good thing, perhaps a really good
thing, and Microsoft was clamping down on requirements with the usual
subtlety of a convicted monopolist.
This would not work with XP, and that was fine and dandy. It was an
honest technical reason why you could not backport DX10 to XP without
a major rip and replace operation. Microsoft wasn't going to bend on
this one at all.
Then something odd happened. Nvidia had about as much success
implementing this required feature as it did with it Me II drivers,
that is to say, none. It couldn't do it, but it was required for DX10.
What's an arm twisting Vole to do? Backpedal obviously.
So, MS threw NV a life preserver and made GPU memory virtualisation
completely optional. ATI, which had implemented a dandy memory
virtualisation scheme got screwed, or at least got what everyone who
partners with MS got. Oh wait, I said that.
In any case, in doing this, MS removed the only impediment to
backporting DX10 to XP, it is now, and has been for quite a while,
completely possible. MS is screwing its customers to force an upgrade
and you are a pawn in their revenue generation scheme.
Sadly, I will admit that I did upgrade. I went from XP to Ubuntu and
bought a Wii. Life could not be better now, gaming is fun again, and
spyware is a distant memory.