It's looking as though the next release of DirectQ is going to be the last one that can fully guarantee support for Windows XP.
Bottom line is that I'm soon going to be in a position where I just no longer have access to a Windows XP machine for testing on. In those circumstances I'm not really going to be able to fire up XP, run tests, debug, etc. I can't stand over DirectQ on XP as a result of that.
What I do still have is an XP VM that I can use, but obviously - because it's a VM - it won't be in any way representative of a real physical machine. It does mean that I can and will continue to ensure that it will at least work on XP for as long as is reasonably possible, but matters such as performance will be something that I won't be able to guarantee.
Farewell, Old Shep.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Bye Bye XP?
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7 comments:
Windows 7 + Visual Studio 2010. My development environment has never been as good as it is now.
RIP XP, you served us well.
- Magnus
MH,
Although I can't afford a new machine that can run Win 7 on, I see where you are coming from and really want to upgrade. I have an Nforce 2 chip set that passes Microsoft's Win 7 compatibility check, but on extensive searching earlier this summer, that appears, to not be true. Maybe if put in my old PCI Linksys network card and use the built in Micrsoft IDE drivers instead of the Nforce one it MAY work. To many ifs there, if you know what I mean. Still, I agree with your decision.
No beef with that here. I'm on Windows 8 already.
The decision is largely out of my hands. It's getting harder and harder for me to find a working XP machine, harder and harder to find XP drivers, and older hardware is starting to fail.
Eventually XP support is going to have to completely go. I'm going to do my damndest to keep it for as long as possible via a VM, but that's never going to be the same as using a real machine. There are certain performance characteristics of running in a VM that are completely different on a real machine, and I just can't predict how well something tested in a VM is going to run on a real machine.
The last physical XP machine I have access to is just about to die. It's been on life support for a good while now, and it's time is close.
So it's not a decision. It's something inevitable that was always going to happen.
This isn't a push to get people to upgrade.
This isn't a push to drop XP support from DirectQ.
This is a consequence of old hardware dying and XP just not being an option for the new hardware that is going to replace it.
It's 10 years old, so it has to die sometime. There's plenty of other ports that can be used in XP.
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Marty, Win7 will probably work as long as you don't install NVidia's drivers. I have an NForce 4 which has gone down in history as one of the worst chipsets ever made - if I install the NVidia drivers, I get hundreds of SMART errors, the ethernet screws up, etc. It works fine with the MS drivers.
David, I was aware, (even under XP), that I didn't need to install the Nforce 2 IDE drivers, But base on some searching, I thought that Win 7 doesn't include the SMbus driver or the [NF1-2 10/100 PreNRM Ethernet] driver. I have a separate SoundBlaster Value card, so I don't use the Nforce sound,(Realtek. I do have a linksys lne100tx, and I know network cards are cheap.
I was under the impression that the SMbus driver was absolutely necessary. A lot of the search results I found was base on the Windows 7 beta releases. It was revealed in a search, that these modified Nforce drivers may work in Win 7.
http://sites.google.com/site/nf2stuff/
Finally, it is my understanding that when on moves from XP to Win 7 that one must format the drive. My 500Gb backup drive is almost full, but I have a lot of game files, movies, etc that I could probably delete. I am a file pack rat, it seems. for example, I had almost every version of DirectQ on my backup drive until I went in and deleted all but the most recent few. The Same goes for DarkPlaces and Eduke32 Etc. I may just hold out until I can afford a new system.
I'm Like MH, in that this box may be failing soon. My C drive is 5-6 years old, and new IDE drives are much more expensive that new SATA drives. This MSI 6570 K7N2 Delta
Ultra 400, doesn't have the SATA controller like some of the other Nforce 2 boards do. I don't want to nickel and dime it.
Thanks for your input and if you know if what I've said is not the case, I would like to know. The search for info was very contradictory, at times
Thanks
be aware that cd audio via mci does not work on vista/win7 anymore and therefore the audio tracks dont loop (mci never notifys sucessfull)
and as of this day there is NO quake port that has working cd audio on win7 (i currently use a workaround tool to hook mci calls by patching the exe which passes and translates the mci stuff into winamp control for cd audio playing)
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