Microsoft sets stage for massive Windows 10 upgrade strategy

It took Epic nearly 2 years to implement DX12 into it's engine. It just got most of it in officially with 4.10 -- which came out like 3 weeks ago. Unity, which is owned by Microsoft now, won't even get it till March 2016.

So I wouldn't expect many DX12 titles until at least mid 2016. Which honestly should have been expected. Plenty of threads on here about how big of a departure it was from DX11 and how it would take a longer time for adoption as it requires developers to dive way deeper than they have been. It essentially requires them to do the job of Nvidia/AMD's driver team, along with their regular development process.

 

lol I had to google that

 

Sure you are right, it's a lot of work and adaption required. It still doesn't explain why they couldn't have done it a year earlier... they knew it was coming, especially m$. And now they want people to switch, whereas their selling point for many, many people isn't actually around. In my opinion, it would have been m$'s job to make sure dx12 sees a great launch, so people -want- to switch just for dx12.

 

All that guff they spouted last year about being loads of Dx12 games out this Christmas

 

They were doing it? Epic had UE 4.3 DX12 build in October last year, nearly a year before Windows 10 was released. So obviously Epic was working with Microsoft on making it happen. But I mean developers didn't get a finished build of Windows 10 till like July this year. I doubt major development studios are going to develop entire games on the beta of an engine with a insider preview of Windows 10 on a untested, unproven API.

And honestly, there really is no reason to rush it. You say "many many people" but it's really not that many. Only 50% of the steam community has DX12 class hardware (60M people). And out of that 50% 20% of them own 80% of all games. So your core demographic is only 10-12M people that's going to actively buy multiple DX12 titles. That's really not many, especially when those people are most likely going to buy the game regardless to whether its DX12 or 11 anyway and also probably upgrade to Windows 10.

Then there is also the fact that it's really not going to do much. People are expecting DX12 to usher in a new level of graphics quickly -- it won't. The low level overhead stuff is nice, yeah -- but Ashes of Singularity is a game where they literally attempted to render as many units on screen as possible all with GPU calculated lighting. Yeah DX12 makes a difference there -- but how many titles are going to do that? It's going to take a few years and shifts in development before they start actually utilizing the API for what it's worth. And by that point you won't even have any basis to compare it to as the games will naturally look better anyway as art tools/GPUs and stuff advance. I guess the multi-adapter stuff will be good, but again I doubt many devs are going to support that right out of gate.

 

Exactly. They're not going to do a dx12 exclusive game for a while yet.

The situation is a bit dire even compared to dx10 launch with win7. As for performance benefit of dx12...yet to be proven outside of synthetic benchmarks.

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=203865

I recall upgrading to win7 for dx10 Crysis. Killer app at the time. Where's dx12 killer app?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_games_with_DirectX_12_support

zero killer apps, sorry guys.

 

I know... it's just I would have thought m$ to try and make the devs adopt it quicker, that's what I meant. But maybe they haven't got as much influence as I thought.

 

Yup lol, and we got a screen full of never-ending squares in a benchmark instead

 

Windows Vista supported DX10 and Crysis came out 11 months after Vista launched.

The Division is a pretty killer title and comes out in a quicker time frame. Not to mention that Fable Legends not only looks great, but the beta is available now, also DX12 and the game will supposedly launch by the end of this year.

It took a year for DX11 to hit 20+ titles. We are only 5 months in with DX12 and DX12 is a significantly larger development cost than DX11 and 10 and there are already 13 titles in development all scheduled to be released by the end of next year. I don't see the issue here.

 

I see nothing about Win10 on my system anymore. If MS is that determined to force Win10 on me, they can send one of their flunkies here to install and fix it's issues. Until then, my desktop and laptop will continue running Win8.1. There is nothing in Win10 that I need for what little I use my PC for. Hell, you guys can track my PC usage..... If I posted on the forum, I was at my computer. If I didn't make a post that day, I didn't touch my computer. My computer spends most of it's time functioning strictly as a plex server. If MS pisses me off with Win10, I can easily migrate every system I have at home to Kodibuntu and be done with Windows.

 

Last night's pile of Windows Updates de-authorized my copy of Windows 7... I had to waste time re-authorizing it.. got a stupid message on my wallpaper saying "This copy of windows is not genuine". Made me wonder why I even have updates on.

 

Sounds like someone downloaded the KB971033 update.

 

They've tried to force me to install W10 several times... just decline the ToS or whatever pops up, cancels the update

 

I just "upgraded" windows 10 to 8.1....

 

I haven't gotten the updates on my Win 7 laptop yet because I haven't even turned it on. I'll have to do so and see what comes through. Who knows, I may even take the plunge and try an upgrade to 10. If I do do the upgrade, I'll plug it in to a wired internet connection instead of using the wireless to avoid possible problems. I'd do a full system backup with AOMEI first though so I can easily go back. It might be nice to have all my windows devices, desktop, laptop, and phone, using the latest Windows versions.

My biggest concern with upgrading is whether the burning software I use to burn Lightscribe labels ( the free version of Ashampoo Burning Studio 12) will work in Windows 10. Since that is one of the main things I now use the laptop for it will have to work. The later versions of the burning program do not even include the label creation module at all so the one I have will have to work with 10. The Lightscribe software itself is compatible.

 

lol.

 

I got the Windows updates on my Win 7 laptop and so far there is nothing related to Windows 10. I was thinking and maybe there is a reason why I never will.

A while back, I read a forum post detailing how to clean install Win 10 without doing the upgrade first. This was of course before Threshold. It involved getting an ISO and using a file from it to create another file called a genuine ticket. Then you could clean install 10 and paste that ticket file in afterwards and the computer would activate. I wanted to try 10 on the laptop but didn't want to overwrite 7 so I had the idea to try installing 10 in a dual boot setup. It actually worked and activated that way. Some people jumped on me and said I was pirating Windows 10 which I didn't see since I was legally entitled to a free copy. I went as far as to ask MS if what I had done was wrong and all they said was that it was not the intended procedure. They made no threats of deactivation or anything. I had already deleted the Win 10 partition because performance was not as good as with 7 on that particular machine. MS promised me there would be no problems with the Win 7 license.

What I am now thinking is that since they now tie Windows to the hardware instead of a specific key, maybe my laptop is still registered in the Windows 10 activation servers and that therefore, I will never receive any suggestions or prods to upgrade it even though I continue to use Windows 7. I'm also thinking that I might be able to switch to 10 without cost even after the one year period expires. Does that make sense?

 

On my Laptop after getting rid of the Application that likes to store itself on the task bar it has never appeared since. Also From time to time it tried to redownload the setup files in that stupid Windows hidden folder again from time to time after I delete the files that I could delete. That was before installing the GWX control panel app and thanks to that app I was able to delete the rest of that hidden Windows folder needed for Windows 10 and regain that valuable hard drive space. Since I only have a 500gb drive in my laptop. Soon I will be upgrading to a 1tb SSD. This is under Windows 7 Pro mind you.

For some strange reason MS has not tried to create that Hidden Windows10 folder nor try to download those pesky setup files under Windows 8.1.

Very interesting way of trying out Windows 10. Also If you are planning on using Windows 10 any time in the future it makes sense. If not then no it does not. Also it would be cool to see if that works. Being able to upgrade to Windows 10 for free after the one year period has expired.