BattleField 3 will not support XP

Kenai · 3 Jan 2011 at 22:37

XP is an ever shrinking portion though, it's down to 24% on Steam's hardware survey already.

Kmodo · 3 Jan 2011 at 22:38

dirtydog said:
If I was an EA shareholder I'd be questioning the wisdom of this move, and I bet the next CoD game from Activision supports DX9 as they seek to maximise revenue.

DD most gamers that loved 1942, Vietnam, BF2, 2142 would happily upgrade their actual hardware to run it in all its glory.

Upgrading to Windows 7 for the remaining few gamers that want BF3 is hardly going to be a issue. I don't know any PC gamers in real life that have XP any more.

dirtydog · 3 Jan 2011 at 22:41

Kenai said:
XP is an ever shrinking portion though, it's down to 24% on Steam's hardware survey already.

24% is a huge share of the market to ignore IMO

Kenai · 3 Jan 2011 at 22:44

Yeah but considering it was something like 35% at the end of summer, that is quite a substantial decline in not a lot of time, I suspect they've weighed up where they expect it to be by the time they release and don't reckon it'll make a huge impact to the number of prospective customers.

I suspect they know full well the breakdown of OS on their own specific games too and it may be an even smaller percentage than Steam would suggest.

edit - apparantly it's not even expected for release until late 2011 / early 2012 - by then XPs share will be nowhere near 24%, i'd expect it to be closer to 10% by then.

Kmodo · 3 Jan 2011 at 22:46

Kenai said:
Yeah but considering it was something like 35% at the end of summer, that is quite a substantial decline in not a lot of time, I suspect they've weighed up where they expect it to be by the time they release and don't reckon it'll make a huge impact to the number of prospective customers.

I suspect they know full well the breakdown of OS on their own specific games too and it may be an even smaller percentage than Steam would suggest.

Blatantly. Know lots of people with steam on XP laptops for old/indie games.

Kmodo · 3 Jan 2011 at 22:49

IIRC BF2 needed shader model 3 to run... 2gb ram was not required but it was much better to have it.

I doubt these two factors had that much impact on sales over the life of the game.

dirtydog · 3 Jan 2011 at 22:49

Kenai said:
Yeah but considering it was something like 35% at the end of summer, that is quite a substantial decline in not a lot of time, I suspect they've weighed up where they expect it to be by the time they release and don't reckon it'll make a huge impact to the number of prospective customers.

I suspect they know full well the breakdown of OS on their own specific games too and it may be an even smaller percentage than Steam would suggest.

edit - apparantly it's not even expected for release until late 2011 / early 2012 - by then XPs share will be nowhere near 24%, i'd expect it to be closer to 10% by then.

Oh I assumed it was coming out soon

I haven't followed the news on it though.

LeJosh · 3 Jan 2011 at 22:49

dirtydog said:
Seems foolish from a commercial perspective when so many people still use Windows XP and they are in business to make money after all. It hasn't been a wise decision for other games but I'm sure they think they know what they're doing.

It doesn't personally affect me as I'm not into the BF games. If and when BC3 comes out and uses the same engine however, that will affect me but I presume that won't be for over a year. (It will affect EA and Dice more though, because I won't be buying BC3 if it is Vista/W7 only.)

I knew you would come into this proclaiming it a bad idea.

BC3? This is BF3. Unless you meant the iterration after BF3, which I doubt.

Yes it is a large market share but not a dominant one. These developers are working with tools on W7 and they can't afford to make it run on XP for a 24% market share. That 24% isn't also 24% of gamers, I reckon most gamers havn't stuck with XP in all honesty.

Other than your reasoning for not liking W7/Vista, do you have problems with change at all?

Retroman09 · 3 Jan 2011 at 22:50

I know someone else asked but I didn't see an answer, when is it being released? I've only just picked up BFBC2 and Vietnam in the sale is this something else which is gonna make my wallet lighter?

LeJosh · 3 Jan 2011 at 22:51

My bet is on Q4 of 2011.

dirtydog · 3 Jan 2011 at 22:51

deadkomodo said:
IIRC BF2 needed shader model 3 to run... 2gb ram was not required but it was much better to have it.

I doubt these two factors had that much impact on sales over the life of the game.

Not according to its wiki page. It says it came out in 2005 and needs a minimum of a Radeon 8500

Kmodo · 3 Jan 2011 at 22:52

LeJosh said:
My bet is on Q4 of 2011.

So if it was to take on a COD it wouldn't be BLOPS lol

dirtydog · 3 Jan 2011 at 22:53

LeJosh said:
I knew you would come into this proclaiming it a bad idea.

BC3? This is BF3. Unless you meant the iterration after BF3, which I doubt.

I meant what I said. I assume BC3 will use the same engine (or a newer one which would also not support DX9 if the BF3 one doesn't), it seems a reasonable assumption to make as BC3 will (again, presumably) come out after BF3 does, just as BC2 came out after BF2.

Yes it is a large market share but not a dominant one. These developers are working with tools on W7 and they can't afford to make it run on XP for a 24% market share. That 24% isn't also 24% of gamers, I reckon most gamers havn't stuck with XP in all honesty.

Other than your reasoning for not liking W7/Vista, do you have problems with change at all?

Per se? No, not at all. I won't change to what I consider a worse OS though, when there is a superior one which I already use, that would be silly.

Note, this thread isn't going to become about me justifying my choice of OS, you can find my views on that with a search.

LeJosh · 3 Jan 2011 at 22:59

dirtydog said:
I meant what I said. I assume BC3 will use the same engine (or a newer one which would also not support DX9 if the BF3 one doesn't), it seems a reasonable assumption to make as BC3 will (again, presumably) come out after BF3 does, just as BC2 came out after BF2.

Per se? No, not at all. I won't change to what I consider a worse OS though, when there is a superior one which I already use, that would be silly.

It's a reasonable assumption to think it was a typo. But you mean BC3, I understand that now.

The engine for BF3 is actually a modified BC2 engine as far as I'm aware, frostbite 2.0 if you will.

Well this will be the first in a long line of DX10/11 only games, perhaps, windows 8 can finally get you onto DX10+ OSs.

-

Deadkomodo, it will still be tackling BO, BO seems to be activisions love child just now and they'll fire out as much DLC so they can reap the rewards from the mindless drones willing to buy it. (sorry rather personal) But Q4 is still my bet, unless they rush it for profit.

Kmodo · 3 Jan 2011 at 22:59

dirtydog said:
Not according to its wiki page. It says it came out in 2005 and needs a minimum of a Radeon 8500

haha I can't remember which (was never an issue for me) but it definitely meant people I knew had to upgrade due to a shader model requirement.

skullman · 3 Jan 2011 at 23:00

Kenai said:
Yeah but considering it was something like 35% at the end of summer, that is quite a substantial decline in not a lot of time, I suspect they've weighed up where they expect it to be by the time they release and don't reckon it'll make a huge impact to the number of prospective customers.

...and those still on XP that really want to play it will switch to W7 anyway.

Gerard · 3 Jan 2011 at 23:03

dirtydog said:
Not according to its wiki page. It says it came out in 2005 and needs a minimum of a Radeon 8500

There was something that was in the game that older cards couldn't do, i remember people complaining about it when the demo came out.

Actualy here it is:

http://www.velocityreviews.com/forums/t8-battlefield-2-does-not-support-geforce4.html

Pixelshader 1.4

dirtydog · 3 Jan 2011 at 23:03

LeJosh said:
Well this will be the first in a long line of DX10/11 only games, perhaps, windows 8 can finally get you onto DX10+ OSs.

Not the first, more the latest in a thin line of them

Beginning with Halo 2 which was artificially restricted to Vista of course. Lately there has been Just Cause 2 among others. Yes BF3 may perhaps be the biggest name game yet and you are right that as time goes on, more games will move that way and within a few years XP will be a legacy OS.

Kmodo · 3 Jan 2011 at 23:04

LeJosh said:
Deadkomodo, it will still be tackling BO, BO seems to be activisions love child just now and they'll fire out as much DLC so they can reap the rewards from the mindless drones willing to buy it. (sorry rather personal) But Q4 is still my bet, unless they rush it for profit.

Honestly I would say the majority of drones play what's popular.

I really can not see the drones (console influenced ones) playing BLOPS in a year when there is a new COD out... neither can I see the PC gaming influenced drones playing BLOPS when all their mates are banging on about BF3!!!

dirtydog · 3 Jan 2011 at 23:05

Gerard said:
There was something that was in the game that older cards couldn't do, i remember people complaining about it when the demo came out.

Yeah but the game evidently still ran on older cards, it didn't flat out refuse to even run. Much as many games today have certain extra DX10/11 effects yet still run in DX9 mode.

(Radeon 8500 isn't even DX9 by the way, it's DX 8.1)