News Future support for Win 32 and DX10

[Gully Foyle]

"Dropping these two would help us support high end effects with a better result – to make the game better."
Dave

Yes.
Not legacy support going on forever. Let the W32 exist but it won't get past the next season or something.
Dedicated W64 Dx12 would streamline the whole kaboozle.

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I just upgraded my graphics card to keep up with the game. That makes over $600 USD spent on Elite (Thrustmaster, card, software).

If the specs for Season 3 go up again, I will not be purchasing it.

You are playing the W64 version right Ralph?

It will scale to a DX12 card until there's a W128.

 

[JerryLove]

Not legacy support going on forever. Let the W32 exist but it won't get past the next season or something.
Dedicated W64 Dx12 would streamline the whole kaboozle.

It would be a great option if it were possible; but I doubt that it is.

The problem is that you can't stop updating the game. You *must* update the game or you can no longer play.

They could not update the core came to x64 or DX12; but that would remove most of the benefit of moving to x64 / dx12 in the first place (if I correctly understand their setup).

If this weren't "must be online", we could just stop updating W32 / Win7-8 entirely. You'd not get any other tweaks, but your game would still work.

But you must be online, and your client must sync with the server version; so (it looks like) you either support 32-bit and Win 7-8 for everyone or no-one.

 

[-Pv-]

Dropping 32 bit support will not affect me, but dropping DX10 will. The newer cards out now will not work with my MB.
-Pv-

 

[MickyG1982]

Dropping 32 bit support will not affect me, but dropping DX10 will. The newer cards out now will not work with my MB.
-Pv-

There is no reason why you shouldn't all current motherboards use PCI Express and should work with any card that uses that slot.

 

[-Pv-]

There is no reason why you shouldn't all current motherboards use PCI Express and should work with any card that uses that slot.

It's not a PCIe problem, but the board is old enough the MB manufacturer is no longer providing updated chipset firmware to support the throughput the PCIe 3 demands of my PCI I and the current vid drivers are not being tested or supported for my MB firmware combination. This is a tested and researched configuration problem. The cost and replacement of a large portion of my hardware and software is also prohibitive.

-Pv-

 

[EdzUp]

Agreed I have had a mobo that had PCIe socket that could fit any type of card but gave really bad performance with a high end card but with a low end card that the motherboard was set for it was perfectly flawless, sadly the motherboard has since passed onto silicon heaven.

Taking into consideration about it all if 32bit was dropped it would just push me onto me Mac or i5 PC (family pc that I dont get much time on these days) :/

 

[Kingston@#]

feel free to ditch. my setups been x64 for quite sometime! those on x32 TIME to upgrade! I know I'm selfish

 

[JerryLove]

Thread's a bit resurrected: but let me offer a similar scenerio on my earlier point.

What if FD ditched the console market in, say, a year. Everyone with a console loses access to the game. Is that OK?

Other than "percent of players". What's the difference?

 

[Insomnia]

Thread's a bit resurrected: but let me offer a similar scenerio on my earlier point.

What if FD ditched the console market in, say, a year. Everyone with a console loses access to the game. Is that OK?

Other than "percent of players". What's the difference?

I think there's a big difference. PC market has a lot of space faring games. Consoles has No Man's Sky. Frontier only gains with having console support, and I sincerely hope they will release ED on PS4 too to gain even a larger crowd.
Dropping console support is stupid, as was the decision to have 32bit support from the get go. The question isn't about abandoning 1 percent of the player base. The issue is about letting 1 percent of the player base limiting the quality of the product.

 

[JerryLove]

I think there's a big difference. PC market has a lot of space faring games. Consoles has No Man's Sky. Frontier only gains with having console support, and I sincerely hope they will release ED on PS4 too to gain even a larger crowd.
Dropping console support is stupid, as was the decision to have 32bit support from the get go. The question isn't about abandoning 1 percent of the player base. The issue is about letting 1 percent of the player base limiting the quality of the product.

Right. And consoles do, and in the future will even more, limit the quality of the product.

So: if 1% of players were on PS4, and they dropped PS4 support and all those players lost their game. That would be OK? You know: as long as they could keep playing if they purchased a PC.

If not: what's the difference?

PS. Are you hoping they make it support the PS4 or only the more powerful PS4pro? Should the game be limited by the lesser console?

 

[Insomnia]

Right. And consoles do, and in the future will even more, limit the quality of the product.

So: if 1% of players were on PS4, and they dropped PS4 support and all those players lost their game. That would be OK? You know: as long as they could keep playing if they purchased a PC.

If not: what's the difference?

PS. Are you hoping they make it support the PS4 or only the more powerful PS4pro? Should the game be limited by the lesser console?

I understand your point but this is about 64bit vs 32bit. Consoles uses their own APIs and doesn't have a trillion amount of hardware and software options, which makes developing a little easier in the end due to all players sitting on the same hardware. I think you're comparing apples and oranges.

The Pro does seem like a capable machine for use with supersampling techniques. And even if the Pro wouldn't handle ED at 4k it could still use the additional hardware to get some juicier graphics and also help with maintaining image quality in VR.
All in all though I hope FD releases for both PS4 and the Pro. But that would make the team struggle to support 4 platforms.

 

[Beaglehound]

Hello all. I have read the 1st 4 pages of this thread so thought I might as well throw in my penny's worth.

I am currently using Vista (32bit dual core by HP), 2GB RAM & DX10, (or 11 not sure). GPU was Nvidia 250 GTS until I got tired of lubing a sticky cooling fan & commandeered a retired GTX 470 from my son - wow, what an improvement that was!

But setup must be about to pop all its seams when Elite starts up. Things get a wee bit stuttery when in combat or on entering a space port, but the game is still playable - just. I hold my breath & cross all digits following an up-date.

Full credit to Frontier, the play-ability of ED has got better with time, even on my PC. A wonderful wonderful creation.

I would agree that dropping 32-bit support is an inevitable move for many of the reasons put forward thus far. It is just the kick-in-the-pants I need to start planning for a complete upgrade. Thanks Frontier, for the six months heads-up.

So in the interim - "Where did you say that old worthless 64-bit mother board & related items were son?"

 

[EdzUp]

I think there's a big difference. PC market has a lot of space faring games. Consoles has No Man's Sky. Frontier only gains with having console support, and I sincerely hope they will release ED on PS4 too to gain even a larger crowd.
Dropping console support is stupid, as was the decision to have 32bit support from the get go. The question isn't about abandoning 1 percent of the player base. The issue is about letting 1 percent of the player base limiting the quality of the product.

So what about Mac support?

Currently Mac and 32bit are at the same point, they are both stuck on Elite Dangerous Season 1. Will we see Mac support being dropped in the near future as they are stuck on 1.7?

We need clarification on what FDEV are going to do about the whole Mac debacle as sooner or not Season 3 is going to get started and this will mean they will be further and further behind the whole ED game. Already they do not have access to Engineers, Engineered weapons, planet landings so what will happen when season 3 hits?

By getting rid of 32bit it puts Mac players on the alert as they are just as stuck as 32bit players are and if FDEV can pack off 32bit and retire it from the game then what about Mac players?

 

[beneuto]

Things get a wee bit stuttery when in combat or on entering a space port, but the game is still playable - just.

Based on your specs its a testament to FD that it plays at all! Full credit to you that you recognise that performance issues are due to your configuration and not the fault of FD. Another problem with continuing to support low specs is that people complain they cant run the game on Ultra with the minimal setup.

My PC is 8 years old except for a R9 280X which I bought second hand more recently. It has W10 64 bit with DX12 and Elite does run well on Ultra settings so I am not sure how old a PC needs to be that it cant run 64 bit/DX11+.

 

[jxl98c]

Thread's a bit resurrected: but let me offer a similar scenerio on my earlier point.

What if FD ditched the console market in, say, a year. Everyone with a console loses access to the game. Is that OK?

Other than "percent of players". What's the difference?

The difference is that Elite: Dangerous is out on current generation console hardware. DirectX10 and Win32 are many generations old, designed for hardware that is many many generations old.

 

[JerryLove]

The difference is that Elite: Dangerous is out on current generation console hardware. DirectX10 and Win32 are many generations old, designed for hardware that is many many generations old.

Actually: it's a half-generation old. We can drop XBox One as long as we keep the One-S right?

 

[MickyG1982]

So what about Mac support?

Currently Mac and 32bit are at the same point, they are both stuck on Elite Dangerous Season 1. Will we see Mac support being dropped in the near future as they are stuck on 1.7?

We need clarification on what FDEV are going to do about the whole Mac debacle as sooner or not Season 3 is going to get started and this will mean they will be further and further behind the whole ED game. Already they do not have access to Engineers, Engineered weapons, planet landings so what will happen when season 3 hits?

By getting rid of 32bit it puts Mac players on the alert as they are just as stuck as 32bit players are and if FDEV can pack off 32bit and retire it from the game then what about Mac players?

Mac's aren't currently holding back the development of the game (as they can run the 64bit base version), Apple is holding their own platform back by going their own way with certain technologies (Hence why FD hasn't released anything past the base game) that is another story for another thread however.

 

[00prometheus]

How about giving 32bit/DX10 a final cleanup and then shelf it rather than discontinue? What I mean by that is that it doesn't get further bug-fixes, new features or support, but it stays available, and if your network API changes it gets merged to the 32bit/DX10-version. That way the 32bit/DX10 stays available and playable, though in a frozen development state.

Edit: Hmmm, it would be quirky if this had happened before something like ship launched fighters or engineers, but even after those kinds of updates, maybe leading to incomprehensible deaths when an invisible fighter kills you, if the game at least could stay playable it would be better than nothing, or maybe it simply gets a time-frozen solo play, and nothing more?

Actually, why not make it the long lost "off-line mode"??? So six months after the warning, the game simply becomes a stand-alone game with no multi-player aspects to it, and no server connection. That way you wouldn't even need to update the netcode any longer.

 

[Quantis Trap]

As far as I'm concerned if Frontier has done the math and think that dropping Win32, DX10 will not hurt the adoption of the game and profits, I'm all for it. It's not going to hurt me!

 

[Neutronium]

How about giving 32bit/DX10 a final cleanup and then shelf it rather than discontinue? What I mean by that is that it doesn't get further bug-fixes, new features or support, but it stays available, and if your network API changes it gets merged to the 32bit/DX10-version. That way the 32bit/DX10 stays available and playable, though in a frozen development state.

Edit: Hmmm, it would be quirky if this had happened before something like ship launched fighters or engineers, but even after those kinds of updates, maybe leading to incomprehensible deaths when an invisible fighter kills you, if the game at least could stay playable it would be better than nothing, or maybe it simply gets a time-frozen solo play, and nothing more?

Actually, why not make it the long lost "off-line mode??? So six months after the warning, the game simply becomes a stand-alone game with no multi-player aspects to it, and no server connection. That way you wouldn't even need to update the netcode any longer.

That is a really really great idea! Take a snapshot of galactic background sim and pack it with the the win32bit/dx10 ED without the net support and you Frontier will make maaanyy people happy!