News Future support for Win 32 and DX10

[Shadowdancer]

AFAICT from looking at forums, just about the only people who would be negatively affected by the move to 64bit/DX11 would be some poor sobs trying to run the game on intel graphics (which for some reason, drivers or actual hardware sometimes appear to be problematic with the 64bit versions of the game) or similar "X does not play games" hardware. The ≤0.5% on 32bit operating systems should be visiting whoever sold them their systems with that cruft and bring torches and pitchforks.

And while the ability to run on DX10 level hardware is testament to the awesome optimisation that went into the game, upgrading to DX11 these days is a matter of a dumpster dive; just don't grab the machine I discarded today, that had an awesome Matrox card that you really don't want.

So… kill it with fire.

 

[Jynessa Loraeyn]

I'm certain I'm adding nothing that hasn't been raked over by lots of people at Frontier in discussions about this, but my own opinion is that dropping support for 32 bit and DX10 is the correct thing to do. We should all be aware that as time moves on, technology moves on - and if Elite tries to force itself to fit into older obsolete tech, it's going to be left behind. This is contrary to what Elite has been since 1984 (at the forefront of videogame tech), and also contrary to the Elite that we bought - most of us know this is an on-going project with a ten year plan and I don't think anyone could reasonably assume that the final game should run on decade old OS's and drivers. Do we want development gimped by trying to design future plans like atmospheres, gas giants, weather, clouds, cities, etc, so that the game can run passably on obsolete systems?

I think most people would say no.

There are inevitably going to be complaints, but I think with enough warning and clear transparent information, there's nothing unreasonable about this.

I also hugely appreciate that you're taking the time to ask this so early on - I agree with some others that it's probably best to make sure the information goes to as many people as possible, by using perhaps email, the newsletter, warnings on the launcher, reddit, here... repeated over the next few months up to the point where the support is dropped. That gives everyone who may be affected lots of warning and the opportunity to upgrade.

Thank you!

 

[Cmdr Gazer__]

If the Devs want it for 'better performance and prettier effects', then so do I.

 

[Mack]

Well if it means this will get fixed https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...dated-to-Crimson-16-7-2?p=4521055#post4521055 then whoo hoo

 

[Iori]

Hello David and FD team, I am very pleased by the way you communicate such news. It is always good to take care about player base.

I am not concerned by technical limitations so I do appreciate any effort that can be done en enhance the game and visual effects.

I sincerely hope FD could take this courageous decision for the benefits of the majority of players. 64bits and DirectX12 is the future and the game need it.

I remain pretty confident that people with old hardware could upgrade it by the time !

Thx for reading and your good work FD team.

Why Dx12 and not Vulkan? Is there anything Dx12 can do that Vulcan can't, other than running in less platforms?

 

[amigacooke]

As expected, those who will benefit are in favour. I wonder when we'll hear from someone who this will affect adversely?

 

[DustyArne]

Thanks David!

Hello David and FD team, I am very pleased by the way you communicate such news. It is always good to take care about player base.

I am not concerned by technical limitations so I do appreciate any effort that can be done en enhance the game and visual effects.

I sincerely hope FD could take this courageous decision for the benefits of the majority of players. 64bits and DirectX12 is the future and the game need it.

I remain pretty confident that people with old hardware could upgrade it by the time !

Thx for reading and your good work FD team.

This will mean the XboxOne version of the game will also benefit form it.. Hope they will support DX12.

 

[iFred]

totally supporting it. We have the same "fights" going on here in the company, and it costs us a significant amount of development, support and fixing-time, which de facto means: It´s a) more expensive, b) slower. So lets go, as fast as you can

 

[cptdavep]

If this really is going to be a 10 year development I expect there will be lots of occurrences where stuff like this needs to happen, in fact it already has leaving the OSX behind until Apple sort the Compute Shaders. Also, what's happening in six months David? Let the season three speculation commence!

 

[Lowe0]

Why Dx12 and not Vulkan? Is there anything Dx12 can do that Vulcan can't, other than running in less platforms?

Explicit Multi Adapter. Vulkan doesn't (yet) have a mechanism for card-to-card memory copies; this is supposedly coming in an upcoming revision to the API.

 

[rote1]

As long as I don't need windows 10 to play it is all good.

 

[DaylightM]

good we might get to see some improvements in instancing

 

[Toumal]

I still have a notebook that's restricted to DX10 I think, but that's not a system I'd play Elite on anyway.
I also agree to drop 32 bit support. I'm actually a bit surprised you guys haven't done so already.

 

[DustyArne]

As long as I don't need windows 10 to play it is all good.

Windows 10 is actually very good for gaming... Some even say better.. (af course, i don't know what you are using now..)

 

[StuartGT]

Copy pasta of my comment on the Elite Reddit:

Makes perfect sense. Horizons is already 64bit & DX11 only, and OS' older than Windows 7 aren't supported by the basegame.

Furthermore, the Steam hardware survey stats (of its 125m+ users) shows:

• 90% of users have 64bit Windows 7/8/8.1/10
• 85% of users have DX11+ GPU
• 75%+ of users have DX11+ GPU & 64bit Windows 7/8/8.1/10

For those that need to upgrade but on a budget:

• Windows 7 around £20 on eBay
• GeForce GTX 470 (minimum for Horizons) around £30 on eBay (note: may need new PSU)

 

[Viajero]

*Mod hat off

Thanks David,

Now that we are on a similar topic, any news about Horizons on Mac? Any developments on that front?

 

[Rhaedas]

in fact it already has leaving the OSX behind until Apple sort the Compute Shaders.

From what little I understand, Apple already sorted things out, and decided (once again) to choose their own way of doing things vs. cross compatibility. That means that a Mac version of something would have to have its own team of developing for the specifics. I think the cited reasoning was better performance for them, which makes sense, but better performance by alienating programming for your users, who are already a small demographic that isn't catered to by the gaming industry, that doesn't make sense. If a major platform like MS had switched gears like that, then yes, developers would follow. Apple, probably not.

 

[SafteyBot]

Hi Everyone,

As you know we spend a good deal of time planning for the future, and one issue (and opportunity) we are considering is the effect of supporting Win32 and DX10, and the benefits we would get if we were to drop them. As you know, we support leading edge technology like 4K, 8K, VR, and with things like compute shaders in Horizons we really push the boundaries overall, but there are restrictions with Win32 – particularly the amount of memory we can address at one time – and with DX10 in terms of requiring an alternative rendering solution in our code. Dropping these two would help us support high end effects with a better result – to make the game better.

About 0.5% of players that have installed Elite Dangerous have used their game on Win32 at some time. Some of these machines are capable of running Win64 (ie the hardware would support it). With DX10 (fewer than 2% of players) it is more tricky as you may need to upgrade the graphics card on such machines.

We do appreciate that although those are small percentages, that is still a significant number of people affected. We want to give as much notice as we can. It will be at least six months before we would make the change, but we want to know your opinions first, and to give warning that the change will need to come at some point, so please let us know.

Thanks.

David Braben

I won't be able to play on my Raspberry Pi any more?!?

Serious reply: Six months notice should be more than enough. Perhaps provide some kind of system check program so people can be sure their system can handle the new version.

 

[rote1]

Windows 10 is actually very good for gaming... Some even say better.. (af course, i don't know what you are using now..)

Agreed, however I am a bit old school when it comes to my OS choice and I like to tell it exactly how to do things, forced updates, semi-forced app store and constant phoning home make windows 10 something I wont touch with a loooong pole.

Still on Win7 here.

 

[cherbert]

If this really is going to be a 10 year development I expect there will be lots of occurrences where stuff like this needs to happen

As you know we spend a good deal of time planning for the future, and one issue (and opportunity) we are considering is the effect of supporting monitors and 64bit OS's, and the benefits we would get if we were to drop them. As you know, we support leading edge technology like 16K, 32K, RI-VR, and with things like quantum shaders in the Gateway expansion series we really push the boundaries overall. Dropping these two would help us support RI-VR (Retinal Implant Virtual Reality) – to make the game better.