Vista

[Hickeroar]

Wow... Hickeroar, you are an idiot. Making a Vista patch is not as easy as you think, they are converting a whole opengl game over to DirectX.

(Note: D3D works on Vista, Doom 3 is a mix of opengl and D3D which is why it runs so good, and Half Life 2 runs on DirectX. Get you facts straight.)

First of all, in case you've been asleep for weeks, the entire game is already running on Vista perfectly...but they're charging $19.95 to get ahold of that ability for people who already own the game. In this very thread, we already covered how easy it would be to come out with a patch to update the game to the Vista version. Try scrolling up and reading before blabbering about something you know nothing about.

Doom3: Mix of OpenGL and D3D? That's a joke befitting a low-end comedy club. It's laughable to consider that such a thing is even possible. The windows version uses DIRECTX for things like sound and input (directsound and directinput), but all the in-game RENDERING is completely done using OpenGL... If the game used D3D for rendering it would be completely unable to run natively on Linux as it doesn't have D3D support at all. Well, there's a linux version... Try using google once in a while.

Time for YOU to get YOUR facts straight.

[Hickeroar]

Right. I'll just run off to start up any one of these programs, shall I? Not to mention countless 3.x programs that haven't worked since 98. If your argument is that all Windows programs should be compatible with all versions of Windows, then surely that makes it Microsoft's responsibility to maintain compatibility?

Yes, it's irritating that it doesn't work on Vista. But no, you can't assume that it will work on Vista a month after the release of the OS, and no, you can't assume that IV is withholding updates to screw you over.

ARE YOU THIS DENSE?! RE-READ THE CONVERSATIONS WE ALREADY HAD IN THIS THREAD!

First off: Newsflash: Windows 98 is 9 years old. Support ended for it AGES ago. It's also running on a COMPLETELY different kernel than XP and Vista are.

Next: The game ALREADY has a Vista version. I don't have to "assume" that it will work on Vista because it already DOES. The problem is that the current owners of the game are completely denied access to it without shelling out for a whole new copy of the game. The upgrade path options for current owners are PLENTIFUL but NONE Of them are being provided by introversion.

- I already mentioned the possible "binary patcher" via comparison option for people who have vista.
- They could also release the current version on MSN with a CD check based on the retail version that shipped in many stores. If you insert the retail CD, it "un-trials" the MSN version.
- They could have Steam determine which version of windows is running on the client machine and download the new version currently selling on MSN for those people using Vista.

EVERYTHING about this delay says that it is purely intentional. Likely a deal through MS so MSN games makes a few extra dimes and gets of bit of free marketing on gaming news sites. MS has done this sort of thing many times before. It's not a stretch at all to believe they can do it again.

[KingAl]

A few things that might help you to solve, or at least gauge, the problem:

• Doom 3 uses DirectX for all aspects other than graphics. Darwinia (non-Vista) does not use it at all to my knowledge.
• The only technical change in the Vista version (aside from resolving various long-standing bugs and adding fancy-schmancy effects) is DirectX support. Thus, the only issue with Vista compatibility is the compatibility of the APIs it uses.
• Vista has poor OpenGL support. It seems likely that Nvidia and ATI provided support for the functions used by popular OpenGL based games such as Doom 3, while neglecting lesser used functions. Thus, the mere fact that Doom 3 works is not sufficient empirical evidence to prove that, graphically, all OpenGL-based games ought to work flawlessly.
• Thus, in the short term the best move is to ensure all drivers are as up-to-date as possible.
• I also have Vista. I dual boot it with XP because I'm well aware that programs I often use cannot be assumed to be compatible. While I'm not meaning to be patronising, if you pick on OS up early, you learn to expect compatibility issues, and to save yourself a lot of stress, dual booting is a good option.

To elaborate on the last point, you simply cannot expect an XP game to work on a Vista system out of the box. While I appreciate the possibility for a binary patch, there are multiple possible explanations for the delay, without even taking into account Hanlon's razor.
Finally, as I don't think I made this clear enough earlier*, a patch is in beta testing and there've been very few bug reports lately so, if all else fails, it seems likely that it will be released very soon.

*That isn't sarcasm - my use of 'perhaps' may have given you the impression that I was guessing.

[The GoldFish]

Some people *can* run the original game on Vista without issue, others can't. The original game not working is entirely tied to the change of driver and OS (obviously) - things just don't work the same way under Vista. This happens whenever MS makes a new OS and call it windows. Also, Darwinia uses Directsound under windows.

However, there already IS a Vista version of the game. Which is for sale.

There's absolutely no reason/excuse to not release at least the vista build's binary, not necesserily as a 'LOOK A NEW PATCH' but as a 'Please use this while you're using Vista until we complete the Beta'. Not doing so is a slap in the face for those people who currently use vista and own the win/lin version and can't play it - OK betas are still going on, but, one version WAS released ONLY to new customers for Vista, which "works", and that just isn't fair.

Coincidently, I feel the same way about how the Mac version of the game works. At least Defcon and Multiwinia (assuming it uses the same infrastructure as Defcon...) should be truley multiplatform - paying for the key rather than the binary. Oh, and, just because there's a "vista version", doesn't mean it works perfectly. Did you try the trial? Cause I mean, that's a pretty important test - you might go through all this and find it still doesn't work.

If people were demanding a patch and the majority of the necessery work was not already done and available, then yes, they should and would have to wait. Since it IS already done and available, it should be available to all people who've already purchased the game. More work is being done, yes, but that doesn't mean that people who bought the game on day X should be denied something so fundamentally low level that people who bought the game on day Y get. The glitter around the edges (like extra mods) doesn't matter so much.

[Hickeroar]

............................

[Dr_Barnowl]

you can't assume that IV is withholding updates to screw you over.

It's rather more likely that Microsoft is withholding the update. They are making a big deal of Darwinia Vista as "Exclusive to Vista" on the MSN Games for Vista page. The minute that the Direct3D engine gets released as a patch, that exclusivity ends.

MS need as many reasons for people to shift to Vista as possible. Corporate users are not keen, and are exercising their right to downgrade to XP on new boxes supplied with Vista installed. Dell are starting to offer XP preinstalled again. XP was close enough to Win2k that it wasn't really resisted. Vista breaks lots of hardware configurations and lots of software, and even precludes the use of hardware features that people have previously enjoyed (like windowed quad-buffered-stereo 3D rendering for CAD applications).

Gamers are a strong crowd of early adopters as they upgrade their machine a lot more often than most. But a lot of gamers are being bitten by their decision to purchase Vista (I know I have been - I've now got a Win2k partition again, and I'm contemplating popping out to buy myself an XP license).

It has already been demonstrated (as if it wasn't already very obvious), that Vista is not required for DirectX 10 support. DX10 is after all, just a spec for a bunch of functions in the hardware. How are you going to prevent software from calling them, short of requiring a Trusted driver? Or prevent their emulation in software?

If the Darwinia Vista engine addresses a DX version lower than 10, there is likewise no technical reason it wouldn't work on older operating systems. A few swift calls to Vista-only APIs will render it incompatible though.

Introversion have likely found that

i) Coding spangly effects is easier and more compatible with a wide range of hardware in DirectX than it is in OpenGL.
ii) Selling their game on MSN is opening it up to a much wider audience and making them some much-deserved cash.

And Microsoft have likely insisted that for their part of the bargain, Introversion delay or forget about a patch for previous versions.

[wwarnick]

The patch for Darwinia has been released through Steam. I glanced at the Darwinia homepage and didn't see it listed there, in which case it should be showing up at any time. Unfortunately, I didn't know it would come this soon, so I bought the Vista version last week. Oh well.

wwarnick

[KingAl]

Don't worry. Steam players = guinea pigs.