XCOM: Not compatible with Win XP.

[Fractral]

Gaming on a PC nowadays using windows XP is like still using VHS'es in computer terms. Nostalgic yes, but in no way practical at all. Like trying to run Crysis using a Pentium 4, with 512 MB of Ram or something.

I actually tried that on my windows xp computer that I game on, and which I am using right now. It didn't work, unsurprisingly, but when I upgraded it to 2GB it worked (this was with a 128mb 7 year old GPU). It did, however, get large FPS drops at the alien ship section and afterwards. When I upgraded to a 512mb GPU it played fine on lower reolutions at about 20-30fps. (this is acceptable for me, yes, I get about 30 fps on Oblivion).
I also managed to just about play through DXHR on this computer as well, although it has to be the first thing I play, otherwise it won't work for some odd reason. But my point is that for the moment, an XP computer can still play most new releases, and even better than mine with a better GPU and processor.

 

[chozo_hybrid]

Snip

Thank you for taking the time to explain that to me, makes a lot of sense now.

 

[Jimmy T. Malice]

Well, I'm definitely not getting that game now. XP is still a fine operating system.

...not that I was going to get XCOM anyway.

 

[Xan Krieger]

snip

[HEADING=1]NEWSFLASH[/HEADING]

There's apparently a way to get the game running on XP with some elbowgrease if you really want to.

Found a post on the Steam forums that might interest you if you're in this boat.

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showpost.php?p=33049516&postcount=1

Suddenly I have an interest in getting X-com.

 

[Mark B]

Wait a month and get Windows 8. will put the next version of this post back about 3 more years.

(Dons flame suit)

 

[Callate]

It's frustrating, I understand, but given the decreasing incentive for support from the major hardware manufacturers (not to mention the big M$ itself), not particularly surprising.

I'm just hoping Windows 8 gets Microsoft's stupider impulses and issues about control out of their system.

 

[aguspal]

GO windowns XP!


Its old, yeah, but it has served me well. And probably most of you too.


It kind of makes me sad that most people respond with "LMAO get windowns 7" Instead of trying to help...



As for the game itself... no idead whats up with it... I have heard its good, but I dont even know its genere. LOL.

 

[Rad Party God]

It's a bit of an understatement to say that Win XP is quite old. Shit happens. Time for an upgrade.

Don't get me wrong, I used XP until a few months ago and it definitely served me well for almost a decade, but ever since I upgraded to Win 7, I have absolutely no reasons to ever go back to Win XP, not even old games or programs. I'm not missing XP one bit.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Hell, throw out the XP issue and could a five year old computer even run XCOM?

My 7 year old computer ran Crysis, so I'm going to go with yes. Easily.

snipped the rest

Seriously? That's pretty impressive. Now again, I'm not a PC gamer so excuse my ignorance here:

From what I heard from the interweb, Crysis was supposedly the benchmark of PC gaming when it came out (was your computer 7 years old at the time or is it seven now? If it's seven now, that's not as impressive since Crysis is 5 years old).

Anyway, my question is: How much does it cost for you to keep that thing updated enough to run modern games? It just seems like at some point, it would be much cheaper for you to just buy a new rig (which would come with the new Windows) than it would be to sink money into the old system.

Actually, 7 years old starting from today is still pretty impressive, assuming they're getting a decent framerate on decent settings. Crysis is actually pretty scalable if you're willing to lower the settings -- my laptop with a crappy integrated card can run the demo at about 40 FPS if I turn the settings all the way down -- but the highest settings were targeting hardware that didn't even exist at the time of the game's release. If you can get the thing to run at high or ultra on seven year old hardware, mad props. That thing must have been an absolute beast in its day.

As for the issue at hand, it happens. And I'll tell you, game developers supported XP a lot longer after Vista's release than they did 9X after XP's release. It's time to move on.

 

[votemarvel]

I'm still running XP on my main desktop but even so this doesn't surprise me. Games aren't going to make the next big jump if they are being tied to DirectX 9 by Windows XP users like me.

Way back when the only reason I upgraded from 98SE was because "The Battle for Middle-Earth" wouldn't run on it, other than that 98SE was doing everything I needed and doing it well.

Perhaps at some point I'll find the game that makes me want to upgrade to Windows 7 but I know I am going to hate having to get the third party programs to restore simple functionality lost by the removal of the File Types tab and the Explorer UI.

 

[DasDestroyer]

I loved Windows XP greatly, but I completely switched over to Windows 7 two years ago, when it was already obvious that XP was simply no longer cutting it, and not because games wouldn't support it altogether, but because of technical limitations such as 4 GB RAM limit.

 

[lacktheknack]

...Dude, games have been doing this four over two years now.

Just Cause 2 was incompatible with XP because they wanted to support features that XP can't support (for instance, DirectX10 to its fullest potential).

Screw consoles, I bet that XP is the real monkey on gaming's back at the moment.

 

[lacktheknack]

Fuckin' finally. PC ports that are not compatible with Xp are better optimized for PC because of the native Dx10 and Dx11 support. Something to do with the way shadows are done which makes the game run a lot faster. I forgot.

It's a lot more than that. GPU assisted physics, for one thing, are part of DX10. As is better fur, more-complex-yet-smooth lighting, significantly better water, etc. And DX11 brings things like Tesselation to the table.

DX9 is nearly ten years old. DirectX 10 is five years old, DirectX 11 is one year old. They can't be used to their fullest efficiency because so much time is dedicated to making games backwards-compatible with XP. DirectX 10 never even got its chance to shine outside of Crysis and Far Cry 2. Cut out XP, let things move forwards.

 

[likalaruku]

When I got Window 7, I had a few games that wouldn't run on it, even in compatibility mode, so I got an XP Emulator.

 

[Easton Dark]

Now this might be my dirty-console thinking (since I don't really play PC gaming) but that seems to make sense.

Vista came out in 2007: Five years ago for those of you who are bad at math. Hell, throw out the XP issue and could a five year old computer even run XCOM? I know you can upgrade the components to your system but at some point you've gotta let it go.

My laptop is from 2007 and it still plays games on high. Pretty sure I have a few more years with this thing to come.

I use vista, btw.

 

[Mihai Demeny]

I will upgrade today to WIN7 because of this issue.

But I still consider this as a dick move since the game works just fine in DirectX 9.0

 

[UrieHusky]

People still use XP?
I mean come on.. I adored that OS but 7 worked out so many kinks from vista to the point that it's XP 2.0 in my eyes. This is just petty to be honest, come on XP is what, 11 years old now or something? it's way beyond time to let go, in fact I'm surprised /any/ games still work with XP.

 

[jeproject]

To the people saying they have better things computer wise to spend their money on than the OS such as more games. You should not be PC gamers then. That's what xbox's were created for. The OS isn't just a game launcher.

I know people that have bought the xbox version rather than upgrade to Windows 7 and that speaks volumes to me.

 

[Mycroft Holmes]

My Advice: Embrace Windows 7, it's just as good if not better than XP, especially since it has been fully patched up now, and the compatibilty has been pretty much sorted.

I finally made the switch to win 7 like six months ago. It's not as good as xp. I still miss XP, but I understand that support is getting dropped and I might as well move on.

Everything feels so dumbed down, It reminds me of the Hank Scorpio Simpsons episode where Bart gets put into a remedial class with round pieces of paper because they feel he might put his eye out if the paper has sharp corners. I can't open GIF's in the default image viewer anymore. There are these weird, awful permission settings; where I have to repeatedly give the computer permission to do administrative things, rather than just saying I'm on an administrative account so do what I say without a billion 'are you sure?' popups. And there's not even an option to just say 'this program is ok, give it any administrative access it asks for.' I'm not retarded, I don't need my computer to aggressively try and hold my hand, I'm not going to download and run spyware. And if I was that stupid an 'are you sure?' prompt isn't going to save me.

To the people saying they have better things computer wise to spend their money on than the OS such as more games. You should not be PC gamers then. That's what xbox's were created for. The OS isn't just a game launcher.

Just because the XBOX OS is bundled already installed on the system, does not mean that you aren't paying for it. Companies don't make anything for free, and the people who designed the XBOX OS don't work for free.

 

[jeproject]

That wasn't the point I was trying to make. What I meant was the Xbox is a single non upgradable unit designed to stay as is for the entirety of it's life.

A PC is obviously upgradeable which is one of the best (although expensive) things about PC gaming, and the OS is no different from the CPU, GPU, RAM or any other part of the machine in that it needs upgrading every one and a while.

I don't see anyone moaning about paying £1000 on hardware but for the software which drives the whole system £100 is too much. As a nerd first and gamer second I appreciate what goes into making my PC what it is, which is among other thing a damn good gaming system.