NVIDIA: "We Underestimated Necessary Resources for Vista Driver Development"

"FoolsGold" wrote in message

joey wrote:

[...]

There are important operating system changes that facilitate DX10. I
don't know how much the audience here knows about operating system
design, but it is fair to say it is substantial. To make it brief, I
do not think DX10 is possible on XP without a HUGE service pack that
would effectively replace the operating system kernel (making it a
completely new OS version). Such an effort is extremely costly for
MS, and its unlikely in my opinion that they will ever make such a
dramatic "patch" for XP, because a patch implies they are providing a
huge amount of development dollars (millions) to the general public
for free. Not a smart move for any company -- best to make it a
feature of the next version of the OS which includes some other
things users might be willing to pay for -- and, if they aren't
willing to pay for an upgrade to their current PC, they are sure to
get it installed for them on their next new PC purchase.

It's still a "lock-in" feature no matter which way you cut it. MS
could get DX10 to work in XP if they wanted to (****, they MADE
DirectX, they can get it to work wherever they want), but of course
their business model requires people to get forced onto another OS
just for one little feature, otherwise they won't move willingly.

DX10 is closely tied to Vista's new driver model which is radically
different to XP's. As joey correctly noted, retrofitting DX10 would require
a massive rewrite of XP, which MS are obviously unwilling to do since
they've made it clear it has no future. Separating the driver model into
admin and user components is an important step forward, with consequences
for stability and security that go way beyond just being able to run DX10
games. In five years time anyone silly enough to be reading these archives
will be wondering what the fuss was about.