Windows Store Games won't have VSync, SLI/CrossFire, Fullscreen or Modding

[tommybhoy]

Windows Store Games won't have VSync, SLI/CrossFire, Fullscreen or Modding


Microsoft is looking to cut itself a lion's share of the game digital downloads pie, by making Microsoft Store (which comes included with Windows 10), sell contemporary AAA games, such as "Rise of the Tomb Raider." Unlike other cross-DRM transactions (eg: purchasing a Steam DLC game through UPlay store), Microsoft Store will serve both sales and DRM roles. You must be thinking "it's a free world, always room for more competition," right? Think again. There are several pitfallls to buying "Rise of the Tomb Raider" or any other AAA game through Microsoft Store, as users on Reddit found out.

To begin with, games purchased through Windows Store are built on Microsoft's Universal Apps Platform, and not the conventional desktop-based executable. The game is essentially a "modern UI" app, and not a conventional Windows application. This has great limitations - no NVIDIA SLI or AMD CrossFire support; no real fullscreen mode (just borderless windowed mode or pseudo-fullscreen); and V-sync being always-on. Other major downsides of UAP apps include no support for modding, and mouse macros. What's more, since UAP apps don't have *.exe extensions, you can't add them to Steam, and so no Steam Controller support. The Store in itself doesn't have a good refund policy along the lines of Steam and Origin limited full-refund policies; and you'll never be able to play your games on Windows versions older than Windows 10.

http://www.techpowerup.com/220368/w...sync-sli-crossfire-fullscreen-or-modding.html

If FreeSync doesn't work in windowed mode, you can add that to the list too.

MS just can't help themselves reminding us PC gaming is under XBone as far as they are concerned, too much coin in console.

 

[Aretak]

Yeah, this has been known for a while now. Typical Microsoft really. They can't just release their games on Steam, because they want to control PC gaming within their own little ecosystem. It failed miserably with Games for Windows Live, and hopefully it'll fail again here.

Of course, they're also holding their games to ransom via the Windows Store to try and get people to upgrade to Windows 10. I honestly doubt we'd be seeing PC versions at all were they not so desperate to get people onto Windows 10.

 

[Midlife Crisis]

Well they can keep it then, talk about putting customers off it will fail big time, any exclusives games they get will just not sell

 

[LambChop]

Can you uninstall the store ?

 

[Rroff]

MS seems to have gone full stupid of late - I'm surprised so many people put up with the design direction of many things in Windows 10 and/or can't see the problems coming down the road. I really don't get it because ultimately they are going to force people to reluctantly move to either Apple or Linux (depending which is closest to peoples requirements) if they aren't careful.

EDIT: To be fair I'm not ignorant of the fact that they are having to do a mammoth task of unifying a lot of OS elements behind the scenes for a new age of Windows and that will take time and involve some short term pain until it is done but that is only one aspect of it.

 

[Ayahuasca]

This is absolutely retarded of them.

 

[Dygaza]

This shouldn't have any effect on multiadapter support under DX12 tittles, as it doesn't care if game is fullscreen or not, and is completely controller by the game engine itself.

 

[Minstadave]

Surprise as MS doesn't understand PC gaming.

 

[Gregster]

I can't even think of anything to defend this move by Microsoft. Stupid move.

 

[FoxEye]

Surprise as MS doesn't understand PC gaming.

They really, really want to be a phone and tablet company.

They are not winning any friends with the direction their desktop OS is heading in.

My Windows phone is quite good tho

 

[Rroff]

Funny thing is using a Windows 10 phone (my mum recently got one) I can now understand the design direction for certain aspects... that doesn't change that they make absolutely no sense on desktop - but they are trying to force a one model for the OS.

If you are on a tablet but don't use tablet mode (and in some cases even with) Windows 10 is pretty bad on a tablet though - how badly desktop Windows Update works with a mobile (tablet/laptop) environment and the horrid work arounds (i.e. the appearance of an "Update and shut down" option now if an update is pending rather than force it on shutdown) they've put in place rather than admit they are wrong and change the underlying direction is hilarious.

 

[drunkenmaster]

MS seems to have gone full stupid of late - I'm surprised so many people put up with the design direction of many things in Windows 10 and/or can't see the problems coming down the road. I really don't get it because ultimately they are going to force people to reluctantly move to either Apple or Linux (depending which is closest to peoples requirements) if they aren't careful.

EDIT: To be fair I'm not ignorant of the fact that they are having to do a mammoth task of unifying a lot of OS elements behind the scenes for a new age of Windows and that will take time and involve some short term pain until it is done but that is only one aspect of it.

Meh, tbh it makes exactly zero difference to them to use Windows store as a selling medium and just install a bog standard version of the game. It couldn't possibly make any difference and these games won't work on any other platform so making it exclusive to windows store rather than windows 10 itself and just selling it via the store exclusively is a ridiculous decision. These games being locked to the store in no way make the games playable on other MS platforms so the lock in remains entirely pointless.

If they spent literally 5 minutes on any gaming forum asking users for basic features they expect they would see everything they don't support as pretty much basic requirements by gaming.

Got screwed with ROTTR because before that no one anywhere bought games on the Windows store... will not buy another one unless they entirely reverse the decisions in how games are able to run.

 

[BluD]

Crazy, everyone i know who owns an xbox also owns a PC, so why they wanna try and make a PC into an xbox beyond me.

 

[FoxEye]

Funny thing is using a Windows 10 phone (my mum recently got one) I can now understand the design direction for certain aspects... that doesn't change that they make absolutely no sense on desktop - but they are trying to force a one model for the OS.

Which I'm sure will go down as one of the most unnecessarily decisions in history They have enough people to make a desktop OS for desktop, and a phone OS for phone, without having to shoehorn one into the other.

Crazy, everyone i know who owns an xbox also owns a PC, so why they wanna try and make a PC into an xbox beyond me.

Well it didn't stop them trying to turn a PC into a tablet

They must just really, really hate the idea of the desktop PC as its own distinct entity.

 

[Rroff]

Got screwed with ROTTR because before that no one anywhere bought games on the Windows store... will not buy another one unless they entirely reverse the decisions in how games are able to run.

Can't see them changing direction - they seem intent on holding onto their vision no matter how much they have to special case or put silly klutzy work arounds in place when encountering issues where it doesn't fit with the reality of things - there has to be a point where you (the developer) realise it isn't making sense any more :|

Which I'm sure will go down as one of the most unnecessarily decisions in history They have enough people to make a desktop OS for desktop, and a phone OS for phone, without having to shoehorn one into the other.

Same with the UI - I find it incredibly ugly on the desktop for the most part - but when you see it on a recent Windows phone it can look quite good.

 

[drunkenmaster]

They aren't they are just delusional. They want to get people into buying games from Windows store instead of Steam... it's just they are too stupid to make the store the gateway rather than the delivery system. Buy the game, play it normally, jesus just make a Win 10 gaming button in the start menu, make all the game group together in another app like steam, but make the games themselves run normally.

They are pushing this buy an Xbox game, get a free Windows 10 copy of the game. Xbox isn't doing great, they are hiding sales figures, it's being eaten alive by PS4 which has sold dramatically more and as usually happens, after a tipping point you get even more people going for the more popular console. It has more raw power, always will do, and kinect is basically worthless for gaming, though it could actually be used in combination to a VR headset quite well... but the console lacks the power to run VR at all well.

Anyway, this is MS basically, not throwing in the towel on Xbox, but trying to get a slice of Steams revenue. I've said before, I'm entirely fine with that, I'm not pro steam at all, it's an app and I find the "I like to have my games in one place" argument nuts. I click the mouse here... or over there... zomg.

It's just that they are creating an awful Steam competitor which removes basic PC gaming features. It's ineptitude not the want to make PC's more like an Xbox. they want to match Android, and Steam, and consoles, and Apple, and they want to do it in such a forced and ridiculous way that nothing works quite right.

The issue is the games they have exclusives on, games I want to play on PC but will refuse to as long as they remain exclusive to a store that prevents me gaming how I want to.

hopefully a mass boycott of games with enough communication with MS that they don't blame it on PC gaming being dead but directly on their implementation being unacceptable, and they'll separate games from the store.

 

[Aretak]

It couldn't possibly make any difference and these games won't work on any other platform

I don't know about that. People very quickly figured out how to get Halo 2 running on Windows XP last time Microsoft used games to prop up an OS that nobody wanted to switch to. Quantum Break is supposedly going to be DirectX 12 only, but Killer Instinct and Fable Legends aren't. There's no reason they couldn't work on older versions of Windows, other than Microsoft not wanting them to and going out of their way to make sure they never will.

 

[FoxEye]

Well the one thing I'd always say in MS defense - prior to Win 10 - was that their OS were largely hassle free, and worked well out of the box for non-technical users.

With Win 10, the amount of problems/ bugs/ annoyances is mounting up. Usability is down, frustration is up. Crazy design decisions are the order of the day.

If any tech company went bust in the next few years, I'd think MS would have the least detrimental impact. They used to make decent OS products, but 8 and 10 have shown (me at least) how much they are losing the plot.

Hopefully Linux can make more usability progress, and we can all get off this train before it finally derails.

 

[Mauller]

In terms of DX12 games, none of the above in that article matters. mGPU works within the game engine, also freesync/gsync needs to be activated in the game i believe since Ashes has a freesync option you need to tick.

And DX12 on Ashes already uses DWN to composite the screen, so it doesn't use native full screen yet has mGPU support because it is built into the engine.

 

[Rroff]

In terms of DX12 games, none of the above in that article matters. mGPU works within the game engine, also freesync/gsync needs to be activated in the game i believe since Ashes has a freesync option you need to tick.

And DX12 on Ashes already uses DWN to composite the screen, so it doesn't use native full screen yet has mGPU support because it is built into the engine.

Though it was something AMD was working on last time I checked FreeSync doesn't support non-exclusive fullscreen modes and G-SYNC's implementation isn't entirely trouble free thought it does mostly work (it can still sometimes get a bit confused if you have several applications running that make use of GPU acceleration/compositing features).