[Paratech]

There is already a NES emulator that uses Direct X 10, and computers are being sold with 64 bit CPUs, so do you think emulators will evolve into 64 bit software that requires an OS beyond XP?

I'm curious as at the moment I'm happy with XP. I haven't seen anything that Vista offered over Win XP SP3, and I'm not going to pick up Win7 for a while.

So when do you think the transition will start?

oO

 

[Squall-Leonhart]

No.

Reasoning - most emulators work fine under 32bit with Dx8.

 

[masta.g.86]

I wonder about that though.

DX8 games such as Beyond Good and Evil and MGS2 have graphical problems in Vista/Win7. They run fine in XP.

I wonder if future iterations of Windows will have more deprecated DX8 support if not completely removing it.

 

[Squall-Leonhart]

Those are game engine faults, not the api.

Dx8 and 7 are emulated via Dx9 on SM2+ hardware anyway.

 

[cottonvibes]

Well the transition of new emus to the latest platforms largely depends on the userbase i think.

When the majority of people are on 64bit systems, and running vista (or higher), then the majority of new emu's will most-likely be developed for those platforms.

A reason for the change is m$ refusing to support Windows XP with the latest dx versions; so that means an emu supporting DX10/11 will require windows vista or higher.
On pcsx2, Gabest (gsdx's author) has mentioned dx9's hardware limitations are one of the reasons for compatibility problems. DX10 offers him a bit more support to do what he needs. I'm unsure of the details however.

When it comes to 64bit systems, if you want to for example write a recompiler for it, its not going to be compatible with 32bit systems, and the recompiler will have to be rewritten to support 32bit systems as well. This means double the work, and would be a pain if most-people are already on 64bit systems.

Anyways the majority of people aren't going to be on 64bit vista+ for at least 3+ years probably, so we still got time before xp becomes outdated.

i'm also a big fan of xp, and refuse to upgrade to vista. (tried it and didn't like it)