DX9 / XP discussion

[Insuber]

Originally Posted by 41Sqn_Stormcrow

Personally I think it is not doable for a small team like MG. Also it should pose no big problem for the software as such (other games manage to have both at the same time).

I do not mind either that they finally go to implement some sort of DX9 compatibility. What I mind is that they keep the majority of the users unnecessarily waiting by insisting to publish this in one big package.

I think what they need to do is:

1. Release the final patch for DX10/11 users as soon as it is ready and later release a patch that adds DX9 compatibility.

2. Focus on the stability of the code for DX9 users only. Doesn't need to have the greatest performance or eye candy as DX9 is only mentioned as minimum requirement for running the game, not for enjoying the game to its full potential.

Agreed. A DX10 only patch would satisfy most of the customers, the DX9 could follow later.

[Insuber]

Originally Posted by MD_Marx

However, I wonder if these purchasers of the game - albeit justified in bitching from time to time - consider the legal ramifications to 1C if they simply stopped any DX9 development? Right or wrong, the game was sold as being compatible with DX9 - and that's a legal, binding contract - as far as I understand it - so there really isn't much choice in the matter - DX9 support has to be provided.

Marx - Microsoft stopped support for older versions of Windows, and issued new Office file formats not compatible with older Office versions. MG could call the patch "CloD 2012" or whatever and they're done with the legal aspects. Not a problem really for software houses.


In reality, as B6 explained, there is still a base of users with Windows XP out there, especially in Russia.

Cheers!

[MD_Marx]

Originally Posted by 41Sqn_Stormcrow

Personally I think it is not doable for a small team like MG. Also it should pose no big problem for the software as such (other games manage to have both at the same time).

I do not mind either that they finally go to implement some sort of DX9 compatibility. What I mind is that they keep the majority of the users unnecessarily waiting by insisting to publish this in one big package.

I think what they need to do is:

1. Release the final patch for DX10/11 users as soon as it is ready and later release a patch that adds DX9 compatibility.

2. Focuse on the stability of the code for DX9 users only. Doesn't need to have the greatest performance or eye candy as DX9 is only mentioned as minimum requirement for running the game, not for enjoying the game to its full potential.

Look, I don't want to get into a bitching match about this, I just wanted to suggest a possible way forward - which by the way, is basically what you seem to be agreeing with!



Marx

[MD_Marx]

Originally Posted by Insuber

Marx - Microsoft stopped support for older versions of Windows, and issued new Office file formats not compatible with older Office versions. MG could call the patch "CloD 2012" or whatever and they're done with the legal aspects. Not a problem really for software houses.


In reality, as B6 explained, there is still a base of users with Windows XP out there, especially in Russia.

Cheers!

Hi - thanks for your thoughts on my suggestion. Yes, I realise MS have made some serious detours with various releases of Op Systems & Office, but that's a different kettle of fish. MG are involved in satisfying an initial contract of sale; MS merely were changing their product appearance in future releases after (to be fair) resolving all (as far as I can see) major issues with their supported products.

'Not really a problem for software houses'. Hmmm.......... I presume you
don't work in one?

Not wishing to preach, but as a software developer myself, I was trying to put in my 2p's worth from a point of knowledge. This software is highly complex and is made much more so by having to satisfy a bag load of requirements that might (and I emphasise 'might') be best handled in a separate version. It's just a thought - I'm sure in reality, the issues are more complex than any of us realise.

Marx

[philip.ed]

All this bitching about DX9 is irrelevant as far as a BETA patch is concerned. It's just the fan-boys looking to slam the whiners, yet these fan boys are happily using a BETA patch which, currently, can't be used by DX9 users!

All 1C need do is release the patch for everyone not on DX9, and then release the combined BETA when DX9 is read for testing.

The ambiguity would highlight problems that the development team aren't letting on about. And whilst I usually think it's pretty low to accuse the team of withholding information, the amount of time they have failed to make their targets due to 'minor issues' would highlight they are incapable of spotting their brief spurts of rain from their tsunamis.

[Catseye]

Originally Posted by addman

Also, people in the eastern European countries and Russia are in general not able to shell out roughly 4 months worth of salary for the latest high-end or even mid-end rig. They are the biggest market for the IL-2 series even though a lot of people on this board seems to think otherwise. Please, try to use your minds sometimes, it might help you to better understand things. Also, there is the "DX9 on the box" issue.

Take a few minutes to read the Russian forums on the DX9 issue. You will find that they are expressing exactly the same sentiments regarding the inclusion of DX9 in which this forum is venting. No difference!

Without empirical data on the Eastern Block usage of computers and operating systems - and the percentage of those that fly CLOD - your comment is just opinion not fact.

The DX9 on the box is however, a legal issue that needs to be dealt with. How it is being dealt with does not appear deemed to be acceptable to either the Western or Eastern countries CLOD forums.

In my opinion, I think that the devs. have reasoned this out and have to select the process that they, with all the information and planning that they have (and we do NOT) are driving the process the best that they can from their perspective.

Just using my mind as you put it.

[Skoshi Tiger]

Put off releasing the DX9 patch????? The way I see it last patch significantly improved the game for us DX10 users. DX9er's have been waiting a long time for their promised improvements. Guys this is their time, and from what B6 says, DX10 users should see significant improvements as well.

Get a grip peeps!

[Feathered_IV]

Originally Posted by Skoshi Tiger

Put off releasing the DX9 patch????? The way I see it last patch significantly improved the game for us DX10 users. DX9er's have been waiting a long time for their promised improvements. Guys this is their time, and from what B6 says, DX10 users should see significant improvements as well.

Get a grip peeps!

I agree.

[Blackdog_kt]

Originally Posted by Baron

I was only referring to the debate about "they MUST support DX9 cuz the box says so", if its a beta release they don't. They can hold of the DX9 support as long as they care to as long as its not an official/steam patch release. There is absolutely nothing that indicates that this patch is going to be a official release right of the bat.

I might have missed something though.

It seems like you are half-right, half-wrong:

1) Yes, a test, non-mandatory patch can skip a feature or two and focus on what it wants to test.
2) The final patch however cannot and must work towards the inclusion of all features stated/advertised.
3) These feature too have to be tested before release, with a test patch of their own.

That's what the next patch is probably going to be: finalize and test DX10 optimizations, test DX9 optimizations, test FM changes.

It's still going to be a test patch before it goes final.

I think the misunderstanding comes from the fact that many people treat alpha/beta patches as final ones and expect them to be gameplay changers like the final patch is supposed to be, when in fact they are meant to test the final patches. That means possibly doing things in a couple of different ways on each patch and watching for feedback to decide which is eventually best.

In that sense, saying DX9 users are holding us back is totally untrue. It's not them who are doing it. It's the choice of initial user requirements advertised and published that do so, because these requirements have to be satisfied:implemented, tested, finalised and released.

Originally Posted by MD_Marx

Thanks for the update B6.

I also understand the frustration about the DX9 support, and largely agree with all the commentators. However, I wonder if these purchasers of the game - albeit justified in bitching from time to time - consider the legal ramifications to 1C if they simply stopped any DX9 development? Right or wrong, the game was sold as being compatible with DX9 - and that's a legal, binding contract - as far as I understand it - so there really isn't much choice in the matter - DX9 support has to be provided. But we die-hard flight - sim customers do have a valid bone of contention with DX9 support, in that we all know that DX9 is long dead, and it is unreasonable that the justified satisfaction of the majority should be deferred for not just the minority, but for pseudo economic reasons as well.

So can I make suggestion? Accepting that DX9 development should continue, is it not possible for 2 versions of the game to be developed; the first being the one for DX10/11+ (the main development), the second (of lower priority) for DX9 ?

The advantage would be that this would remove the requirement for a single piece of software to satisfy 2 disparate operating systems. You could even limit the amount of DX9 support on the latter version, having as a simple objective, crash-free, reliable operation, based on an earlier version of the FM/DM etc., and simply let it die a death. After all, even XP systems will eventually become truly obsolete in the East, and as a business model, it seems fairly odd why 1C would want to waste funds in developing complex software for an outdated OS - that the vast majority of the customer-base has already moved away from. These guys' gripes are valid; we are still waiting for the promised land but are expected to wait further because of a mistaken promise that 1C made i.e. DX9 support.

It is all very well arguing that 2 versions will not work because of the complexity in maintaining the 2 versions, but you need to balance against that, the additional software complexity required to support DX9, 10 & 11 AND NOT UNDERMINE either! Since you have taken the decision to consider the DX9 question further, can I ask that you consider this approach as well?

Cheers,

Marx

One would need to effectively create a second game more or less, because you can't have separate versions going final: the game is on Steam, so the same final patch is applied to every installation. I think the approach you describe would end up being more time consuming overall.

Originally Posted by 41Sqn_Stormcrow

Personally I think it is not doable for a small team like MG. Also it should pose no big problem for the software as such (other games manage to have both at the same time).

I do not mind either that they finally go to implement some sort of DX9 compatibility. What I mind is that they keep the majority of the users unnecessarily waiting by insisting to publish this in one big package.

I think what they need to do is:

1. Release the final patch for DX10/11 users as soon as it is ready and later release a patch that adds DX9 compatibility.

2. Focuse on the stability of the code for DX9 users only. Doesn't need to have the greatest performance or eye candy as DX9 is only mentioned as minimum requirement for running the game, not for enjoying the game to its full potential.

I agree with the sequence you describe: optimize for the majority first, then optimize for the minimum requirements. Releasing the updates separately however is not possible because of Steam. If you release a final patch that doesn't support DX9, these people simply can't fly online. If they are among the people who make the mistake of letting Steam auto-update everything without asking, then they can't fly offline either because their game will be updated to a DX10 only patch.

That's what i guess is forcing them to release everything in one package. I'm not usually the "i told you so" guy, but the truth is that when some of us were questioning the inclusion of Steam in the whole deal (back in the day, before release) there were people calling us "crankly old luddites"
Well, what we have right now is an exact case of what i had in mind as a limitation that could be brought about by the steam platform.

With every bit of automation, you lose a bit of flexibility and direct control. That's how it is with all things. This community decided to go with automation, so now we don't have the flexibility for separate DX9 and DX10 final patches. It's as simple as that.

Finally, this:

Originally Posted by Skoshi Tiger

Put off releasing the DX9 patch????? The way I see it last patch significantly improved the game for us DX10 users. DX9er's have been waiting a long time for their promised improvements. Guys this is their time, and from what B6 says, DX10 users should see significant improvements as well.

Get a grip peeps!

The game has been semi-playable for me even from the beginning and very playable the last few months and i don't even run top of the line hardware (i7 920 @ 2.6Ghz, Ati 4890 1GB, just 3GB of RAM and win7 64 bit).

There are people who BOUGHT the game (like everyone else here) based on the posted system requirements and haven't been able to fly a quarter of the time i have. These are customers too and they are entitled their frame rates just as much as a guy with a quad SLI setup. Spending one's money on hardware upgrades doesn't entitle one to preferential treatment. Spending it on the game however entitles one to using it. It's as simple as that.

And finally, since they say performance will improve for all, what is the problem with it?



This whole thing is reminding me of the discussion i had in the previous update thread. I was talking about a proposed feature for bombers and someone told me to report in on the bug tracker to get results faster. In other words, report a bug when there is none, just to get my way faster.
I told him that a bug is a mistake in implementing something, when the feature is just a proposition in my head there is no bug.

Otherwise i could go around posting things like "bug 1255643: I want the option of taking the squadron's dog mascot in the plane with me when i fly but i can't. We know for a fact that many squads had a mascot, so what gives? Please implement it ASAP".

Can you all see the difference? Dressing up a request for a new feature as a bug, just because the word "bug" carries more urgency?

Well, that's exactly the problem in this community. Whenever something is about to get fixed, impatience takes over and we end up with band-aid fixes because of community pressure. But the problem with those is that all too often in programming, you will have to go back and re-do them (or have problems in the future) because you didn't account for the big picture when designing your solution.

I say let them properly finish everything so that it finally WORKS. You know, instead of getting a whiff of something we like around the corner and going amok, like "i don't care about other customers who are legitimate users of this software and deserve equal treatment to me, just GIMME NAOOOOOOO"

Originally Posted by Damixu

If I could give a word of advice to developer team in order to meet the frustration and demand of restless customers: Please consider to provide smaller and more frequent patches and upgrades to the game. This would give us a concrete feeling that we are progressing instead of what whe have now, long stagnant periods of uncertainity and speculation and frustration waiting for next patch to come.

BlackSix I would appreciate if you would pass this message to Luthier. I thank you in advance.

This i can agree with, for things that are relatively simple to fix.

"Dear community, this week we fix all the bombsight, but only the bombsights".

After a few days "A mini-patch will be up on Steam soon, correcting the reversed prop-pitch controls in the 109 and 110".

Things like that which are easy to isolate and test, of course we could have more frequent updates of.

I think the reason we don't see this is that they've been focused on effectively redoing a big chunk of the game itself (graphics engine) instead of smaller fixes on individual modules.

[Volksieg]

Originally Posted by Fergal69

It's not a matter of not wanting to update, it's a matter of priotites as to what my salary is spent on!

I get where you are coming from.... but... and it's a big but (Insert Sir Mix-a-lot joke here. )....

Let's say I was stinking rich and I chose, for whatever reason, to own a family runabout instead of a sports car. I can say, over and over again, how annoyed I am that all my friends are zipping around at 150mph and yet I can, just about, manage 60mph before I start to hear bits of my engine fall off..... but that was my choice, wasn't it? It would be best if I just either a) accepted responsibility for my choice or b) bit the bullet and bought a Ferrari. What I certainly wouldn't do is expect all my sports car owning mates to drive around at 50mph to make me happy.

As a father I have to make all kinds of difficult budgeting decisions (Well.. not difficult per se as, of course, my son comes first every time.).... I can take him to Legoland or I can take him down the local park and, therefore, actually be able to afford food and nappies for the little chap. I wouldn't expect every other parent on the planet, regardless of their income, to never go to Legoland out of some strange sense of totally unearned loyalty to me.

I've only got an HD 6770 and 4gb of ram so I'd just like to state just how disgusted I am with all the people on this forum who are playing with high/very high graphics settings! Shame on you, people! Shame on you!