Total War Dev’s Stormrise to Require DirectX 10, Vista
Total War Dev’s Stormrise to Require DirectX 10, Vista
Posted 03/05/2009 at 12:49am
| by Nathan Grayson
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Developer Creative Assembly’s new-er RTS, Stormrise, isn’t a simple, no-strings-attached type of girl like its sister franchise-in-arms, Total War. No sir – while Total War only aims to please (and succeeds, by the look of things), Stormrise won’t relinquish the key to its post-apocalyptic chastity belt without a little wining and dining first. However, whereas Windows XP’s reliable charms might’ve brought the princess back to your castle back in middle school, Stormrise wants – nay, needs – more.
And that’s where Vista comes in.
"Stormrise has been designed for DirectX 10 and Vista only right from the start," said Stormrise lead designer Artem Kulakov."Vista only. DX10 only. No fallback option. We have never suggested this or hinted at it, so it shouldn't be a surprise."
But why bet the success of a new franchise on a pie-in-the-sky setup that only 25% of PC gamers can even access? Short answer: consoles.
"DX10 has offered a lot of advantages over DX9," Kulakov added. "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 compare to our previous games released with DX9."
Person-with-bad-idea-during-a-recession-says-what? Consoles and RTSes (especially those of the obscure, generically titled variety) are notorious for their inability to play nice together. Really, it's like putting all of your eggs in one basket with a gaping hole in the bottom; the expected outcome is as clear as day, so why even do it?
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johnny3144
March 07, 2009 at 5:19pm
"Most of the problems that plagued Vista's launch have been fixed for
over a year. I used XP from its launch and have had way less problems
with Vista. Some people just never get over first impressions or, in
most cases, word of mouth."i personally perfer vista over XP, and i really don't understand why everybody hate vista so much. if you actually try and judge vista fairly, you will discover it's actually better than XP.
digital demon
March 08, 2009 at 9:28pm
There hasn't been a single time in my 2 years of using Vista that I have wanted XP back. Growing pains are to be expectced (XP had just as many or more, but the amount of people witnessing the transition to Vista is so much more than to XP)...so you either deal with them until they get fixed or go back to what you had before. I stuck it out and now think Vista surpasses XP in every way.
So many people have heard about all the flaws Vista had, "had" being the opeative word, and have damned it to being a punchline forever. Whatever...their loss. I use Vista every day and love it.
neo1piv14
March 06, 2009 at 6:28am
Why is anyone surprised that some game devs would be dropping support for Win XP? That would be like Nintendo still making N64 games. Sure, there's a lot of people that'd like that, but eventually Microsoft is going to close the lid on XP, and the diehards will be left out in the cold anyways. In my experience, most of the people that still complain about vista are harking back to faults it had upon release, not now. Sure, it's got some issues, but there's features in there that I miss when I boot into Win XP to play some older games.
And as for you DX10 haters, have you looked at how cheap it is to get a DX10 graphics card these days? Just spend the 200 bucks and get the new graphics card. Even the cheap little 9600 GT I got is enough to push the pixels on your average monitor.
digital demon
March 06, 2009 at 12:53pm
"most of the people that still complain about vista are harking back to faults it had upon release, not now"
Most of the problems that plagued Vista's launch have been fixed for over a year. I used XP from its launch and have had way less problems with Vista. Some people just never get over first impressions or, in most cases, word of mouth.
ghot
March 05, 2009 at 10:15pm
.....yet another game I won't buy no matter how good or bad it is. When I spend money on a game I get to decide what OS I want to use........NOT the game Devs.
Take efficiency, and edit out all the intelligence and what you have left is a post-XP Microsoft operating system :)
Taz0
March 06, 2009 at 10:38am
There isn't a single game on the planet that allows the user to choose what operating system they want to run the game on. Which, according to your statement, means you don't buy games. At all.
digital demon
March 05, 2009 at 1:48pm
Just like every previous version of DirectX eventually got phased out. Like someone else said, it's called "progress". If the, now unwarranted, stigma against Vista didn't exist this wouldn't even be an issue.
johnny3144
March 05, 2009 at 12:57pm
i wonder why is everybody so negative about it?
While it is true they are sacrificing 75% of possible customers, it doesn't necessarily means it gonna fail. If their primary objective is the less pirated and popular platform (console), then which every (XP + Vista vs Vista only) gives maximum profit wins. Which apparently targeting Vista and DX10 only is most cost effective and give maximum profit
Furthermore, vista is great. I personally prefer vista over XP, so I actually prefer them to have a game that’s design from the start to suit the OS (meaning it’s going to have less glitches in vista).
As for the part about console and RTS… the consoles have significantly more player than PC…. Even if only 5% of the gamer buy this game, they will make more than targeting solely PC.
jcollins
March 05, 2009 at 12:12pm
I guess the real question is what the control scheme on the PC is going to be. If they just duplicate the console scheme, it's gonna suck.
brainwins
March 05, 2009 at 11:39am
Will it run in Windows 7 beta? If not, this needy princess may go to the grave a virgin.
Kaasiim
March 05, 2009 at 11:28am
Didn't microsoft do the same exact thing with Halo 2 for the pc?
I havn't kept up with that game at all so i have no idea how well that turned out.
But if I remember things right, I think it required vista in order to install it,
so if you had xp or anything else for that matter, you were out of luck.
jcollins
March 05, 2009 at 12:10pm
Yep. I think it is still Vista only. Never did play it. I had Halo for the Xbox and PC, and liked it better on the PC. That's why I held off for Halo 2 on the PC. Since it never came out for XP, I didn't continue with the franchise.
chaos.13037
March 05, 2009 at 6:06am
That giant thing in the pic reminds of the Big Daddy's from Bioschock.
rayatwork05
March 05, 2009 at 5:16am
coulda, shoulda, woulda, but didnt?
i woulda, coulda, but they didnt so....i wont be buying it.
almax
March 05, 2009 at 11:19am
Any move that weeds out you poser geeks is pure Darwinism.
If you're in the "it sucks because I can't make it work (lack of money and/or talent)" group.
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