DX10 wasn't even a consideration when I purchased Vista. Vista was (at the time of purchase) a questionable upgrade for me in my mind, but I thought I'd give it a chance.

Now that I've been using Vista 64 for a while...

1. Going back to a 32 bit operating system is painful. Even Vista 32. When I get the time I'm going to see how well Vista 64 works on my tablet PC.
2. Using Windows XP is agonizing and I liken it to sticking needles in my eyes. I had a similar experience upgrading from Win2k to WinXP although that was a far more questionable upgrade than going from WinXP to Vista.

If I didn't use and rely on multiple displays for almost everything in daily computing, then going back to Vista probably wouldn't be "as" bad. Even still, doing simple things in Vista just takes so much longer in XP that it just isn't worth it for me from a time constrained standpoint.

OH, and DX10 still isn't really a concern. Just like DX9 wasn't really a big selling point for me for at least the first year it was around.

As to tying DX10 to Vista. Well, I much prefer that, than have MS spending 1-2 more years shoe-horning it and the underlying OS graphics handling changes into the XP kernel.

Although I'd have been much happier if they'd also found some way to try to force people into using the 64 bit version. 32 bit OS's need to die. The sooner they die, the sooner we can move on to even more graphically rich titles. Or maybe the few titles hitting the 2gb virtual addressing barrier are just an anomaly and not indicative of an upcoming limitation.

Regards,
SB

It's still an abstraction layer, but much thinner one.
And it depends on some new driver model functionality, like user-mode driver components.

Who cares? I'll upgrade my PC when Shader model 5.0 comes out with whatever cute named tech they put int.

Heh, I actually went back to XP because it just feels so very much lighter, more stable, and faster than Vista. I just don't care much at all for the "improvements" in Vista. I'll head back on over once there is a solid reason to use it (DX10), which will also probably be after they patch the hell out of the thing with SP1.Vista x64's ridiculous driver signing requirement was another serious reason for my move away from it. I need a few apps that are a pain to use under Vista x64 right now.Right now I dual boot but spend all of my time in XP.

Thats wierd, I like Vista for the exact opposite!

Agreed. The driver model in Vista being much different from the driver model in XP means, of course, that you cannot use your XP drivers in Vista, or vice_versa. But I think it's inaccurate to suggest that Vista's DX10 doesn't support DX9, because it does a very good job supporting my current DX9 x1950 Pro--a DX9-and-below-only gpu--and all of the DX9 games I ran under XP before I stopped using XP entirely a few months ago.

It was an elective decision on the part of Microsoft to let DX9 be XP's last hurrah--like it or not, it simply doesn't matter. It was also Microsoft's decision to supplant XP with an entirely new OS called Vista, like it or not. That's the way it is. I mean, it just doesn't matter at all what Microsoft "could have done" it seems to me. Looking at what Microsoft did is all that matters.

You can thank Intel's being late to the x86-64 party for that--entirely. Had Intel not wasted about a year or so trying to convince the world that it "didn't need 64-bits on the desktop" even as Intel was promoting Itanium for 64-bits, it's very possible that Vista would indeed have been 64-bits only.

Hmmm...so your point apparently is that since Vista *may* have backwards compatibility problems with a single-digit's percentage worth of the software people want to run, that Microsoft may as well have also tossed out backwards compatibility with the other 90+ percent of the software people were running under XP? I don't follow your logic...;)

Come on...Intel gets the lion's share of the blame for the slow adoption of x86-64, no doubt whatever about that. Core 1, if you'll recall, was exclusively 32-bits. Pre Core2 x86-64 support from Intel was a joke.

Secondly, there are lots and lots of reasons to bump up to Vista that have absolutely nothing whatever to do with DX10--reasons that have nothing to do with any version of the D3d API. If you don't know what any of those reasons might be, then you really aren't qualified to talk about Vista, imo.

Yea, like a 64-bit version of Vista is going to do Core 1 and earlier Intel cpu owners any good at all...;) I have to say, though, that my upgrade version of Vista Ultimate includes both the 64-bit and the 32-bit versions of Vista on separate DVDs. I have both installed at home in a dual-boot config. Since it is a *fact* which cannot be argued that tens of millions of people in the world, likely hundreds of millions, are still running and getting value from 32-bit only cpus, I cannot blame Microsoft for separating its 64 and 32-bit versions of Vista.

It gets a bit tiring to hear people constantly laying "the blame" for everything that happens in the industry that they personally find inconvenient at the feet of Microsoft, as though Microsoft sits alone in the industry and as though there are no hardware OEMs or competing software companies that Microsoft has to work with. Microsoft is neither omnipotent nor alone in the industry--it's surprising to encounter people who are blissfully unaware of that fact.

another reason to stick to 32bit might be.. 16bit compatibilty, I guess a number of companies still have to run ancient 16bit windows code or even DOS, not speaking of installers. afterall the MS monopoly dates back to MS-DOS and has always been preserved by backwards compatibility.64bit windows OS lacks support for 16bit. is that because of no VM86 mode while in x86-64 mode, or something similar?

they dropped NTVDM.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTVDMThere are other options for DOS apps in x64 OS's, however. DOSBOX is very capable, and there are others too. I've seen printer support for DOS apps thru DOSBOX and it has network layer emulation and modem/COM port support....

Sorry, but aside from the first sentence, I can't make any sense out of it, nor see how is this related to my text.
But.. why are you addressing this to me? You should have been telling this to other people - the people who feel compelled to justify MS by saying that the reasons for the DX10 situation are of technical nature. I've just attempted to refute one such claim. Then you sort of agreed. So what's the point? It sounds a bit hypocritical, to jump in now, and announce "it doesn't matter" etc.
Right, let's also blame nVidia and Ati for selling DX10 capable cards too early, when most people still have XP. nVidia and Ati are obviously too early to the DX10 party.


I guess you woudn't have missed my point, if had payed more attention to the context of my reply. Let me remind you it, there was given the argument about "clean start". As I understand it, we could imagine Microsoft sayed once to itself: "Ok, some people are gonna be screwed (read: cut off from access to the new stuff). Unfortunately, we're are going to put them in the unconvenient situation of having practical necessity of tying Vista upgrade to some HW upgrade. Tough, this is a price that need's to be payed for the progress."

This hypothethical stance is often raised as argument justifying the lack of DX10 on XP. Another often recurring theory is that the lack of DX10 on XP is somehow related to MSFT wanting to relieve IHVs of some of driver development work.

However, Microsoft approach to 64-bit in Vista is counterexample that contradicts both of these theories.
That's probably because you deformed meaning of my statement into bullshit. Obviously, that's not what I meant by "64-bit only".
I think you're exagerating importance of the Core 1 from the POV of such profound process as 64-bit adoption. AFAIK, Core 1 is used in low-end mobile PCs and in the 1st gen iMacs. Hardly a target for Vista upgrade. As for jokes in x86-64 implementation in the P4 generation, I've never heard of any. Anyway, that's not really an issue I'm going to arguing about, because, as I explained (I hope) above, it's unimportant for the point I was making. Microsoft has shown it is capable of cutting pre-existing systems off access to novelties, in the name of higher good or whatever.
In my post I was addressing 2 very specific things (the argument about driver model and the argument about clean start). You however, are trying to shift the weight of discussion to generic pro/anti-Vista frontline. Normally I'd just skip this bit, however the same theme recurs in the last paragraph of your post. Therefore, I suggest you either discipline yourself to stay strictly relevant, or go vent your generic, OS advocacy related frustrations elsewhere.
As for those hundreds of millions of 32-bit only CPUs, your fact is hardly unarguable. It's unknown how many of systems with these CPUs are even capable of running Vista. And for those which are, it's unknown how many of their owners would be interested in the Vista upgrade. What you really want, is statistical data showing what percentage of people who upgraded to Vista, have non-x86-64-ready CPUs.

As for the separation of 32/64bit versions, you are mixing 2 distinct things. One thing is the strategic choice for the OS infrastructure: 64-bit-only versus make-your-pick-at-install-time. Completely different thing is selling products which have one of those "picks" artificially removed. By a strange coincidence, those products are also the cheapest of multitude of Vista versions. It should be obvious for anyone, that MS deliberately treats this choice-of-bitness as a luxury. And this fact is nothing other than yet another unnecesary hoop-to-jump for 64-bit adoption. That's not a thing you could defend in any way. BTW, your own example of Vista Ultimate Upgrade actually supports my point, not yours.

about the need to run 16bit software, its not that many people need to run 16bit software per se but a lot of older 32bit stuff use 16bit installers

ps: what are the disadvantages of running 64bit vista compared to 32bit vista (i know about the driver problem)