Machinus
07-30-2007, 12:46 PM
Microsoft attempted to compensate for their terrible release schedule by giving Vista an edge - exclusive use of DX10. They thought that by doing this, they would force users to adopt the new OS in order to take advantage of the new API.
But it turns out that DX10 isn't that great, and then the reasons to upgrade dwindle significantly. We all know that retailers continue to sell XP at high volume to mainstream users, and of course we all love our XP Pro (and we're the early adopters).
If they had let XP use DX10, things would have happened much differently:
1) Many many more people would have switched to DX10. This would have increased significantly the demand for DX10 games and hardware. This would make DX10 better sooner, which in turn would make Vista a much more attractive option, since it is fundamentally a more powerful OS that would likely have better performance with it.
2) Hardware companies would care more about DX10 performance. Right now they don't really, since they know everyone is using DX9, and since most users are still buying DX9/XP it would be stupid to start obsoleting common systems with new games.
3) Developers would push DX10 in future projects, again making Vista more attractive. Right now almost all new games are announced on DX9 because they actually want people to buy the damn games.
Given these trends, it seems like Vista would actually be more successful if DX10 had been available from the beginning. As it is now, the rest of the computing world is content to ignore DX10 and keep doing the things the same way.
Has Microsoft doomed their own operating system by locking DX10 on it?
But it turns out that DX10 isn't that great, and then the reasons to upgrade dwindle significantly. We all know that retailers continue to sell XP at high volume to mainstream users, and of course we all love our XP Pro (and we're the early adopters).
If they had let XP use DX10, things would have happened much differently:
1) Many many more people would have switched to DX10. This would have increased significantly the demand for DX10 games and hardware. This would make DX10 better sooner, which in turn would make Vista a much more attractive option, since it is fundamentally a more powerful OS that would likely have better performance with it.
2) Hardware companies would care more about DX10 performance. Right now they don't really, since they know everyone is using DX9, and since most users are still buying DX9/XP it would be stupid to start obsoleting common systems with new games.
3) Developers would push DX10 in future projects, again making Vista more attractive. Right now almost all new games are announced on DX9 because they actually want people to buy the damn games.
Given these trends, it seems like Vista would actually be more successful if DX10 had been available from the beginning. As it is now, the rest of the computing world is content to ignore DX10 and keep doing the things the same way.
Has Microsoft doomed their own operating system by locking DX10 on it?