14 DAY TRIAL // PC games have had for a long time a benchmark in terms of operating systems, as Microsoft's Windows XP environment was running on almost all PCs. Its architecture and programs used were common to all developers and studios knew for what they were programming.
But ever since Windows Vista appeared, with its DirectX 10 runtime environment for multimedia applications, including games, developers had a daunting task ahead of them. Because the old DirectX 9 from XP was somewhat limited for quite some time, a lot of studios began to implement two versions in the games they made, a lower-quality one, and one with the full effects that the new software allowed.
Now, it seems that Sega will change the rules, as the upcoming Stormrise real-time strategy game, made by its Creative Assembly studio, will only support DirectX 10. That's right, because of some problems encountered with the engine of the game, which ran perfectly on consoles and DirectX 10 but encountered problems on the older version, strategy fans will have to switch to a new operating system in order to be able to play the game.
“DX10 has offered a lot of advantages over DX9,” said lead designer Artem Kulakov. “First of all, DirectX 10 allowed us to simplify the rendering engine. It matches capabilities of next generation consoles better than DX9, which is important for us considering that Stormrise is a multi-platform title. We had fewer driver-specific compatibility issues with Stormrise compared to our previous games released with DX9.”
A lot of gamers still use Windows XP because it doesn't consume a lot of resources and is more efficient than Vista. While Microsoft is hoping that the slimmer Windows 7 will attract gamers when it will come out, people are still hesitant to upgrade.
Will the fact that Stormrise only supports DirectX 10 make you upgrade to Vista? Let us know in the comment section below.