Hi, everybody!



Tell please why Lee stopped supporting DirectX9 and Windows XP?

What it for the developer who refuses to a half of users even during beta testing?

It is well-known that in XP and DirectX9 amazing quality of graphics at many games which came out till 2012 was reached.



Explain, please, from where such attitude towards users of a product?



Even Unity still works with DirectX9, not to mention others more and less known game-engines.

They haven't stopped supporting Win XP or DirectX9

Nope....Works great with XP ?



Minimum Specs

•Windows XP

•1GB Video Card (Minimum Shader Model 2.0)

•2GB System Memory

•4GB of Hard Drive Space Available

•Internet Connection



What gave you the idea it didn't ?

People really need to look at the main pages before jumping to conclusions

I'm having trouble with this error on XP

"The procedure entry point direct3Dcreate9Ex could not be located in the dynamic link library d3d9.dll"

Lee posted a fix but I'm not really sure how to implement it.
FIx about half way down this post http://fpscrforum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&b=1&t=210304&p=3

I have my standalone running on my Windows 7 & 8 PC's no problems

I don't run Reloaded on my XP machine, so I'm not familiar with this error, but it looks like you just drop that .dll in your Reloaded directory. Or if that is exclusively for standalones, then into the standalone's directory. Hope that helps, maybe tomorrow I'll fire up the old beast and see what happens. Good luck!

Yes, Reloaded works on XP and we've no plans to drop support for it in the short term, if ever.

If it is related to this error: "The procedure entry point direct3Dcreate9Ex could not be located in the dynamic link library d3d9.dll" please follow the instructions linked below.

If you are having other problems, please post a few more details and I'll assist you.

SC

Well, many people say TGC should drop XP support. They seem to think that if TGC only supports Vista and upwards we will see great leaps in speed. Personally I disagree. Microsoft completely muddied the market when they started introducing direct x along with newer versions of Windows. In an attempt to force people to upgrade. It didn't work, only the most hard core will have upgraded just for Direct X, and that is a small percentage of users.

TGC for me have it right, for now. We do need better support for high end devices though at some point.

I think it is fine to continue XP support, so long as TGC isn't spending excessive resources to retain said compatibility and as long as legacy support doesn't hinder operation on modern OSes. To see benefits in modern operating systems, Reloaded would obviously have to change substantially under-the-hood; it wouldn't happen magically just by discontinuing XP support. For the record, XP is now used by less than 5% of the population (in the US at least) and steadily declining as a 13-year-old OS.

For what it's worth, I still often play with the X10 tech demo (available for download here - After the long intro you can freely play with the effects and move around the scene) and remain in awe at how great X10 appears with the lighting, texture effects and special rendering features like volumetric particles. In my view it still looks and performs better than what is achievable in Reloaded and perhaps shows some merit of embracing select DirectX 10+ features in the future at least as an option.

I think it is obvious the advance in quality from x10 even x10 creator is what seems tenfold better than 9 and reload at the moment. Classic even after shaders was dull in comparison. But I think they are holding back more than advancing. I am not against x9. Just that it holds back forward tech and better options and I am no wizard but surely we can advance and give a minimal version for x9. The focus has been on low end for what seems an age. Maybe I am not seeing the major advances in top end of the engine but I think it would be better if they went forward and instead of conkits a new 64bit version as well as a 32 bit. So arguments stop and also future proofing reloaded at the same time. I personally am ok with x9 but I am not going to hang around x9 forever. I hope they seriously consider the advancing so mid to high or if using new methods will surely help low end specs. Plus more memory to use for your levels. This ain't a dig but a view to do not miss the boat and fail as I will dail if you do.

My personal opinion, not necessarily what the rest of the team think, is that anyone still using XP needs to realize they are using an unsupported OS that is now very outdated. You are not taking advantage of any of the latest hardware improvements to almost all areas of computers.



There is no reason at all to still be using XP, Windows 7 is a very stable OS and is still supported with stability and security patches for many years to come. It supports larger hard drives, more memory, is better for gaming with Direct X11 and has better optimizations all around.



Those sticking with XP are just doing it because they are stubborn and refuse to accept there is a better OS out there. I mean come on you really want to stick with a Microsoft OS that doesn't get security patches? You must be insane



It stifles development in all areas when you have people that insist on being stuck in the past.



Major publishers are dropping support for DirectX 9 all over the place now, there are many games coming out with Direct X11 as a min spec.



As a side note there is no point in going to DirectX10 just skip it and go to DirectX11, much better and has the same OS support.

Microsoft seem to work to a pattern when it comes to their OS's



Win 95 ... it was ok.

Win98 SE ..Brilliant

Windows ME.. Terrible ( ME stood for Microsoft Error I think )

Windows XP.. Brilliant

Windows Vista ..Terrible

Windows 7 .. Brilliant

Windows 8 .. Terrible ( although 8.1 improved it greatly )

Windows 10 .. Brilliant ( so far )



I saw Windows 7 as a high end XP when I first used it .....Any XP user would love W7 at the end of one day if they really got stuck into it.... Its closer to XP than Vista ever was ..

Just my thoughts

i really cant understand how anyone who wants to hobby or even want to make state of the art games or close to, with a dated system that has many restrictions to hinder them. is it nostalgia or stubborn or you cant afford a new os yet reloaded was no problem. (same price or near) i wonder why?

anyway if England had stuck with spitfires which did rule the sky in the 40s, imagine if we thought they were so awesome and kept with them while the rest of the world advanced, imagine biggles or ginger flying in formation against the american migs or even the latest aircraft. it is a lamb to slaughter so uk moved with the times built the euro fighter and rested the spitfire. hence keeping up with tech to make sure we could stand our ground.

2. imagine if pc graphics had procastinated when we invented the c64, no special efx
and then imagine how avatar would of looked in plasticine or ( clash of the titans 80s version) this is a thought that could make you shudder, imagine lord of the rings minus state of the art graphics etc. be a very dull cinematic experience.

these maybe random extreme and odd. but it is examples of what could of happened if we kept with certain things and not advanced. why do you stay with a very dated system. which most have moved on from?

Perhaps the goal is not which platform give support, but both 32/64, so everybody will be happy.
I'm XP fan, but ago time I ask myself, if world is moving why me not.

3com

@The Next I agree with you 100%. do people even care about security? I have updated so many pc to win7 and everyone love it.

@synchromesh yes that is the right pattern I'm seeing to. I don't even want to touch win8. I will skip to 10 when Microsoft de

Yep, syncromesh's chronology of the Windows platform is spot-on in my experience. I have thought about this a lot over the years and I think after each success, Microsoft, for whatever reason, decides to go off on a different trajectory (I think Win Me: dead-end, and Vista: dead-end). I haven't seen Windows 10, and I have been grudgingly getting along with Win 8.1 for a little over a year now. I'm thinking, and hoping, that as far as Win 8.x is concerned, it's another dead-end, however, there are some redeeming qualities about it that I hope they retain. First and foremost is backward compatibility. It seldom worked for me in XP with certain software, worked a little better in 7, and works fantastic in Win 8. Of course, there are some that won't run, and that's to be expected, but by far Win 8.1 runs more of my older software than any of the previous 3 (I'm leaving Vista out of this, My Vista machine is connected to my piano and that's all I use it for, but it sucked completely as far as that goes!.) Another thing I hope they keep is the fast boot ability. Enough said about that topic. There are others, but when I look back even further, DOS 6 was my last favorite before Win 95, but Win 95 was a treat compared to any Windows before it. I think Win 3.x was actually my first experience with "Windows", and at the time it seemed to me that someone had simply put a video game interface on the OS (the "GUI"). It turned out I was more or less correct. I saw the potential for it, though, it was simply rough in my opinion and memory of course wasn't cheap at that time. XP, though, was, is, and will always be my favorite OS. It brought one thing to Windows that hadn't been done before: STABILITY! (relatively speaking, of course!) They all (post-XP) recover from crashes pretty well, now, but that was the first I'd seen of it. XP will be my favorite at least until I see and work with 10. Perhaps (and I hope) the pattern of win/lose/win/lose is simply a learning process for MS.





EDIT: One OS that wasn't mentioned was Win 2k: also an excellent OS, and I've four very old tablets that run it, but 2k was found more (in my experience) on enterprise machines than elsewhere.

I updated to Windows 8/8.1 this past year and really it is not bad at all from Windows 7. I still use 'Classic Start Menu' application with 8.1 as it brings back a more usable start menu in my opinion and then it is essentially Windows 7 but with many nice improvements especially with dual screens and file operations. As far as performance and app functionality I've had no trouble.

Here's the problem: Reloaded is a game engine to make games for people to play. You should really consider who those people are that are playing your game and what specs they will be using. It's always best to use what your audience will be using to play your games, to get the best understanding of what their experience will be. I'm not sure why anyone would want to develop using XP when their target would be using a higher-end OS. You should technically only be using the same as what your audience has or higher... not lower o_O

Agreed. If anything, have a deploy/build option for XP/DX9c compatibility which strips stuff out rather than boat anchoring the core software with lowest common denominator compromises.

yep totally, they are hindering reloaded rather than setting it free to soak up new tech,

Im guessing Eventually some function will not be available to XP users which may result in a ghosted out button or something Lee wants to implement that just wont work on XP.. Its bound to happen..

With the imminent release of Reloaded on steam XP customers could be in their thousands so right now I can kind of see a good reason to keep the XP support.
From a business point of view I would to... but I don't think it can last to long before the engine wants more

Yes, there are thousands of XP users but there are millions of other users who have upgraded.



Only 3.8% of the Steam population (as of last month's survey) are still using XP. That number is falling.



Less than 3% of users are limited to DX9. That number is also falling.



See more at the survey link.



There's nothing good about being hindered by a small percentage of outdated PCs when your pitchline is:

"Create high quality First Person Shooter Games on your PC. Easy to use with amazing end game results."





Struggling businesses think about what makes them money today. Successful businesses think about what will make them money today, tomorrow and the days after. The projections simply aren't in favor of XP and aging hardware unless Reloaded is meant to become so niche that it sacrifices its core audience for XP hipster status.



Side note: Before anyone gets too excited about the HD4000 integrated being listed as the most "popular", that's clearly because it's a common denominator in consumer-class laptops and boxed PCs whereas discrete GPU market share is fragmented among a very wide array of choices.

At this moment in time......Reloaded Supports XP and other engines don't....
I would exploit the fact I can grab the 3.8% right now .... Next 6 months it could all change.... Good business sense today is grab it whist no one else is

Not all of that 3% of xp users are going to want to buy Reloaded and make games the figures are going to be FAR lower than you think, in fact those users are unlikely to be even buying many games. The problem in aiming at such a market at all is that 99.9% of potential customers are going to buy something more suited to their needs while you waste time on working to meet the needs of a few, I think you will find that it's those who play games that will want to create them and these folks will not be using such outdated hardware and OS's. I am sure there are probably a couple around here but not many, TGC are probably still leary after the failure of x10 and Vista. where it was required to upgrade to use it, this is not the same thing as most are already running an OS that is required, the performance is not up to scratch even now and maybe it isn't the OS or hardware but the core of the software that is the problem and that is where effort should be concentrated.

Perhaps some day microsoft release XP code like they did with MS DOS and Word 1.0, then Reloaded could be 100% compatible with.
But meanwile I am filling we re missing something here, and the "update" players too.
I had living this situation with MS DOS and DivGame Studio(Hammer tech), when Microsoft decide drop MS DOS support.

3com

That's the first time I have seen that demo..... It looks amazing on Win8 and have to agree some things look better than Reloaded .... I still wonder why TGC stopped it..... would it really of taken that much to stabilise it for the OS's of today ?

Pretty certain is because it did not sell. Microsoft was convinced everyone would jump to Windows Vista for DX10. Let's face it, Vista changed the ball park for Direct X. Up till then it was a completely separate package and could be installed on different versions of windows, as it still can. Vista was not good and even though I could have upgraded from XP I didn't. I saw no point, even after I got a DX10 card. I upgraded later to Win 7, as that was far better. I was also vastly disappointed in DX10 specific titles, they didn't seem any better really. I still think the new O/S direct X lock system is stupid and a means to force the people with money to upgrade with each O/S.

I think TGC got their hands burnt with X10 and decided to support X9 as it is supported across the board. All newer versions are very specific to their O/S and you have to get the appropriate O/S to run them. If Microsoft had kept the same model as X9, simply making it hardware specific, I am sure X9 stuff would have dropped off a lot faster.

So, I blame Microsoft ;p

Essentially X10 in today's terms would be like if Reloaded required win10/dx12 to run. Risky and limited target market.

On the other hand dx11 is essentially risk free as it has already become well established and is for the most part backwards compatible with dx10 so it covers the vast majority of gaming PCs.



FPSC X10 was also unpopular with the community because it was much more limited than Classic in the sense that most things were hard coded and there was only so much people could do with scripting. (and this was at the height of the x9 mod revolution where there was an astounding amount of flexibility and utility being added by source mods)

dx9 or dx11..
it would be better to just replace it with OpenGL, that would path the way to SteamOS/Linux and MobilePlatforms and it would run smooth on Windows as well.
Thats my 2cents, not a popular opinion but its the future.
OpenGL is the right way to support multiple platforms!

Way back before Reloaded development began I wondered why it wasn't going to be developed using AGK, which is OpenGL-based and what Lee was developing prior to starting Reloaded. AGK already had basic 3D functionality and even demos of FPSC maps running in it. My mindset was that if Lee, Paul etc. were to combine forces to really churn out functionality within AGK they could in turn use it to bring about Reloaded in a cross-platform manner so two killer products would emerge at the end.

As I recall, it was argued by TGC at the time that starting Reloaded development from the ground up would be far too cumbersome and the backers would become restless waiting for updates. This was when the intent was to have Reloaded out within a 4-6 month development window, circa 2013. Now knowing that Reloaded is essentially a total rewrite anyway and more than a little time of Lee's has been spent sifting through the old code and quirks of DBP, I still wonder if AGK would have been a more viable option especially in thinking of cross-platform even just with PC/Mac/Linux as AGK now supports (a huge plus for apps on Steam and game creators in general). Too late in the game now obviously, but I'm not sure where that leaves Reloaded when it comes to other platforms since it is entirely dependent on Windows libraries.

To be honest people are already gettin restless,
for me personaly it was a big surprise that TGC started to state that Reloaded wouldnt be a FPS only engine, after all the backers that backed FPSCR
in first place, did this because it was supposed to be a FPS Engine.. point comma out
and i dont want to start with what stuff we still miss in the engine, evryone knows it but still its atm only about steam and multiplayer and am even fine with that as the sooner we get multiplayer/steam, the sooner the developement can proceed and new milestones can be reached and that is a good thing.
Truth is that developing FPSCR is not only taking manpower, it takes money and for that it needs backers.


Now to AGK fused with Reloaded, am sure that there is some kind of plan when it comes to Reloaded hitting crossplatform but it would have been wiser
to go this step earlier and to ditch directx totally, the future is OpenGL and no matter what ppl say it wont change that fact.

@Lee/TGC when you visit the upcoming GDC
go take a look at Valves Stand, there they are going to talk about OpenGL Next, the Next Gen Version of OpenGL and that is the future for Games and not DirectX.

Cross platform aside, wouldn't there still essentially be the same frustration because Reloaded would be capped at OpenGL 3.2 in order to support XP hardware?

Since FPSCR is a module based engine, no it would just mean that the renderer could/should be selectable by dev/user
(no this is not taken out of a dream its the way other engines are doing it and it seems that many people have forgotten that
reloaded was built to be modular).

It should start at OpenGL 3.3 and that would mean OpenGL ES 3.0 on mobile platforms, because
its downgradecompatible up to version 2.0 and it supports 3D Textures and Arrays but its missing
Geometry Shaders.
(Now Geometry Shaders are a nice thing but most people dont even know what that is but anyways for the ones that care to read https://www.opengl.org/wiki/Geometry_Shader)