Opinions on games dropping Windows XP support.

[lacktheknack]

When did they stop supporting Windows 98? The last game I can find is Myst IV.

Released in 2004. Six years later.

XP, on the other hand, is 9-10 years old. Time to move on, folks.

 

[lacktheknack]

Supporting XP means games have to operate on the assumption that the player can't use more than 3GB of RAM. With games getting bigger, eventually they're gonna have to move to being full 64-bit applications just because the system requirements have begun to outgrow what the old OS can do.

Yeah, it's a shame to lose out on those old legacy apps (although nothing's stopping someone from writing an XP version of a program like DOSBox as computers get more powerful), but c'mon. XP is a limiting factor on game design progress right now.

32bit versions of vista/win7 still can't address more than ~3gb ram

32bit versions of Win7 are rare for obvious reasons.

 

[superbatranger]

Well, it's to be expected. Technology is updated, and whatever is obsolete is abandoned as the years go by. Unfortunately, I only have XP due to budget limits.

 

[Weaver]

Here's the thing:

Modern PC gamers generally target higher-end machines. If your machine can run modern PC games then it can run Windows 7. If it can't run windows 7 then there is no reason to need to upgrade to it for gaming purposes as you won't be able to run modern games anyhow.

Windows XP is will be 9 years old in a few weeks, that's a very long time for any OS.

 

[Mcface]

I finally bought windows 7 64 bit. Games can be optimized better using it, and get FAR better performance. My own personal experience of course.

Going from XP to win 7 x64 was like night and day for my game performance.

 

[Yureina]

It does not really affect me now because I am on Vista and the games I play (mostly) all still work out. As long as my computer itself can run old games, I don't see a problem. It's when I won't be able to play my old favorites that I start feeling sad.

 

[Aurora219]

I think it's idiotic from a financial standpoint. We'll all upgrade one day, but while it's still massively in the majority as most popular OS, it makes no sense to remove support.

Hell, it's basically a few more hours coding (no idea how many; I'm not a coder) for a 75% increase in your sales market.

Ethically, they can do what they want. If you don't care when it has no mac support, why should we complain about no XP support?

 

[Mcface]

Wouldn't be so bad if Windows Vista/7 didn't have such terrible legacy support when it came games (amongst other applications, but that's another argument for another thread). Lack of legacy support just turns the PC into another console.

edit: Sorry let me recant that last statement. The Wii, with its virtual console, has better legacy support than a Windows 7 PC.

Terrible legacy Support? I've run every game I've ever wanted to on Win7, with the exception of Worms World Party, but it only failed to run on my laptop and not my desktop. Both are running 7, so I don't know why one wouldn't run and the other wouldn't. What games have you had problems with?

This.
The only games I haven't been able to play on Win7 is police quest and Rainbowsix 1.

 

[Xan Krieger]

Since I'm sticking to XP for the forseeable future this is only gonna make things harder on me. I'll just have to get the games for the xbox 360 if they come out for it. If not then the game company loses a sale (and yes my computer can run modern games, 2.66Ghz quad core, 4gb RAM, 1GB graphics card).

 

[Belbe]

I think it sucks. XP was great and still perfectly fine to use in years to come, not everyone has hundreds of dollars to upgrade something that still works perfectly fine.

 

[Signa]

Wouldn't be so bad if Windows Vista/7 didn't have such terrible legacy support when it came games (amongst other applications, but that's another argument for another thread). Lack of legacy support just turns the PC into another console.

edit: Sorry let me recant that last statement. The Wii, with its virtual console, has better legacy support than a Windows 7 PC.

Terrible legacy Support? I've run every game I've ever wanted to on Win7, with the exception of Worms World Party, but it only failed to run on my laptop and not my desktop. Both are running 7, so I don't know why one wouldn't run and the other wouldn't. What games have you had problems with?

This.
The only games I haven't been able to play on Win7 is police quest and Rainbowsix 1.

Shame about RS1. I wasn't awesome at that series, but I really respected it. Just for clarification on my last post, when I said I ran every game I wanted, I should have said "legacy game."

I've managed to run Thief, Dark Forces, Doom, and an old kids game called Museum Madness. DF and MM needed Dosbox to work, and I played Doom in Skulltag (Dosbox was still an option though), so I'm not only sticking with games made in the last 5 years. Granted, a few games needed some work to get running (Max Payne 1 required all the sound files to be rebuilt using a different Codec), but officially, I'm still undefeated.

 

[Seydaman]

I don't really have a problem with it. If you are unable to upgrade because of a lack of money then you probably won't be in any position to have a computer that is capable of playing the games that will be coming out without the support for XP.

Pretty much

Don't really mind, you can't play current gen games if you can't upgrade your comp, way it's always been.

 

[Tethalaki]

Or alternatively, developers could turn away from DirectX and start using open source APIs (OpenGL springs to mind). Games such as Amnesia: Dark Descent, and a fair amount of other indie titles, already do this.

But we all know that won't happen. I can hope though.

 

[Snotnarok]

Windows XP is a relic, it's time to move on.

And for those who say that 7 doesn't support older games, there's tricks to everything. I've got Tie Fighter running on it and that's from what? 1994?

 

[JeanLuc761]

I think it sucks. XP was great and still perfectly fine to use in years to come, not everyone has hundreds of dollars to upgrade something that still works perfectly fine.

The ULTIMATE version of Windows 7 64-bit is a mere $120. That's NOTHING. The Home version is $70.

This isn't an expensive OS, folks.

 

[WrongSprite]

Well I'm massively against dropping XP support, seeing as I run XP.

 

[Korten12]

I think it sucks. XP was great and still perfectly fine to use in years to come, not everyone has hundreds of dollars to upgrade something that still works perfectly fine.

The ULTIMATE version of Windows 7 64-bit is a mere $120. That's NOTHING. The Home version is $70.

This isn't an expensive OS, folks.

Yeah, really isn't my family got windows 7 for 3 comps for a cheap price.

 

[likalaruku]

I still use XP because i prefer the interface over Vista and 7, so i'd be rather irritated if games dropped XP support.

What this guy said.