Support NeoGAF

[Zedox]

So all in the end, You expect me to trust them with no real reason to. Telling me what Microsoft hope to do, is not a reason for me to have any patience with them.

And you tell me to ignore what Microsoft is doing when they are directly sticking their head back into the pool and demanding we listen to them? When Microsoft still have their controls over PC Gaming with DirectX and how their Windows updates affect games?

I'm not telling you to do anything. You are assuming a lot. When a company is doing something, if you are interested, what choice do you have in getting more info other than waiting? Demanding it? Then when they say (which they usually do) we having nothing to share at this time, what will you do? Demand the same thing you did before? You either wait or ignore.

MS is directly sticking their head back into the pool and demanded what? Making games for their own platform, not forcing others to, cuz ya know, they still have a lot of money in keeping Win32 around for a long time. You know what, keep going on about what MS is apparently demanding...sheesh you just said that I expect you do something with no reason when I said nothing of the sort. You really need to read things better.

 

[amdb00mer]

Not surprised and not bothered by it either. It is tied directly in to Microsoft's UWP/UWA system. Besides there are free apps out there to stop/freeze or free up system resources for games or other apps in general. Seems like people want to jump on the Window's 10 hate train just because it's so easy. They also think because they previously bought a ticket for the GFWL train that wrecked it entitles them to hate on everything else.

 

[Elsolar]

This strikes me as yet another tone-deaf product out of Microsoft targeted at the mythical "windows developer" who only cares about making software for MS platforms. If your only platforms are Windows 10 and Xbox 1 then yeah, this might be helpful. If you are trying to make a game that's actually cross-platform, on the other hand, then there have been alternatives to Win32 for a while now that are a lot better than UWP. SDL/OpenGL, for example, is a combo that supports Windows (all the way back to XP!), Linux, OSX, iOS, and Android. Or you could just use Monogame, which supports Windows, Linux, OSX, iOS, Android, Xbox 1, and Playstation 4. Like seriously, who is this for? No one makes games for just one platform anymore.

 

[amdb00mer]

I'm not telling you to do anything. You are assuming a lot. When a company is doing something, if you are interested, what choice do you have in getting more info other than waiting? Demanding it? Then when they say (which they usually do) we having nothing to share at this time, what will you do? Demand the same thing you did before? You either wait or ignore.

MS is directly sticking their head back into the pool and demanded what? Making games for their own platform, not forcing others to, cuz ya know, they still have a lot of money in keeping Win32 around for a long time. You know what, keep going on about what MS is apparently demanding...sheesh you just said that I expect you do something with no reason when I said nothing of the sort. You really need to read things better.

Stop making sense Zedox.

 

[Hari Seldon]

This strikes me as yet another tone-deaf product out of Microsoft targeted at the mythical "windows developer" who only cares about making software for MS platforms. If your only platforms are Windows 10 and Xbox 1 then yeah, this might be helpful. If you are trying to make a game that's actually cross-platform, on the other hand, then there have been alternatives to Win32 for a while now that are a lot better than UWP. SDL/OpenGL, for example, is a combo that supports Windows (all the way back to XP!), Linux, OSX, iOS, and Android. Or you could just use Monogame, which supports Windows, Linux, OSX, iOS, Android, Xbox 1, and Playstation 4. Like seriously, who is this for? No one makes games for just one platform anymore.

It is probably for the hordes of mobile developers making games for windows phone.

 

[Flui111]

Steam is doing exactly what Windows Store is doing or the other way around? I'm definitely under the impression that they have hugely different goals in mind, but w/e.

Please just stop, you never grasp the point that PC gamers are trying to make and keep on deflecting and wrapping around answers. Why would you ever compare MS second try at an online store on the PC platform to what Steam was doing 10+ years ago. It's a blessing that Microsoft is failing at what they do especially since you guys are comparing a 2017 MS to a 2003 Steam.

Idk why y'all still even defend MS so hard when you guys a primarily Xbox gamers and never seem to get why PC players play on PC. All you guys ever do is say wait, wait for what. The current store is and has been a dumpster fire and they show no sign of improving that. Coupled with the closed platform and the stupid mod ability, only if the dev allows tools cause lol, it looks like it will never succeed

 

[LordRaptor]

Or you could just use Monogame

The lifecycle of Monogame pretty much encapsulates how little the Xbox division "gets it" when it comes to PC gaming.
- MS create XNA, a lightweight and useful platform for making DirectX games and add support for the 360 to encourage grass roots development
- 360 nears end of life and Xbox division don't want 'hobbyist' developers any more, they only want full devkit purchasing developers
- XNA is cancelled and end-of-lifed
- People who quite like XNA reverse engineer the shit out of it, and remove all of the restrictions MS put in to make it "MS ecosystem only" so its now a viable cross platform framework
- MS pays a lot of money to buy a clone product of a project they originally initiated and then shitcanned for entirely political short-term reasons

 

[Osiris]

Or you could just use Monogame, which supports Windows, Linux, OSX, iOS, Android, Xbox 1, and Playstation 4. Like seriously, who is this for? No one makes games for just one platform anymore.

Who owns Xamarin & MonoGame again, remind me?

 

[sugarhigh4242]

Who owns Xamarin & MonoGame again, remind me?

I thought Monogame was falling away in favor of FNA:

https://fna-xna.github.io/

 

[afternoon delight]

I give this ultra exclusive Game Mode preset a solid three years before it's never mentioned ever again in any PR messaging and the entire preset concept evaporates back into the Cloud.

 

[singhr1]

I give this ultra exclusive Game Mode preset a solid three years before it's never mentioned ever again in any PR messaging and the entire preset concept evaporates back into the Cloud.

1. It hasn't been publicly described by MS so we still don't know exactly what it is
2. "preset concept"??????
3. nice metaphor bro

 

[Osiris]

I thought Monogame was falling away in favor of FNA:

https://fna-xna.github.io/

Nearly all of the old XNA devs I know have moved either to Unity, MonoGame, SharpDX or just to iOS / Android in general.

I moved to SlimDX, then SharpDX, and now SharpDX for 3D and Win2D for 2D.

 

[LordRaptor]

I thought Monogame was falling away in favor of FNA:

https://fna-xna.github.io/

He's doing good work, because - to bring up EULAs and MSs redistribution policies again - without people doing that work, every single XNA title has a shelflife at which it stops working completely, because at some point the XNA installer and required libraries will either not run on a future version of Windows, or will no longer be accessible, and legally nobody can include those required files with their executables.

 

[Elsolar]

Who owns Xamarin & MonoGame again, remind me?

Everything's owned by someone. My point is that Monogame is permissively licensed, so it's a really strong option for developers who want to make their games cross-platform, but don't want to use an off-the-shelf engine like Unity or Unreal Engine to do it. C# is turning into an incredibly powerful language for game development, with strong community support, great performance relative to its ease of use, and a runtime with strong cross-platform support going into the future. The fact that these technologies originated with Microsoft is just the ironic icing on the cake. We could have had this stuff years ago if MS hadn't jealously guarded their .NET technologies as Windows-only.

 

[Zedox]

Please just stop, you never grasp the point that PC gamers are trying to make and keep on deflecting and wrapping around answers. Why would you ever compare MS second try at an online store on the PC platform to what Steam was doing 10+ years ago. It's a blessing that Microsoft is failing at what they do especially since you guys are comparing a 2017 MS to a 2003 Steam.

Idk why y'all still even defend MS so hard when you guys a primarily Xbox gamers and never seem to get why PC players play on PC. All you guys ever do is say wait, wait for what. The current store is and has been a dumpster fire and they show no sign of improving that. Coupled with the closed platform and the stupid mod ability, only if the dev allows tools cause lol, it looks like it will never succeed

Jesus. I compared what MS is doing now and what Steam is now and I also stated why it is different scenarios. You really need to read things.

I'm not telling you to wait, I say if you are interested, you have no choice but wait, otherwise ignore. Ain't nothing they are doing is hurting anything. Nothing has changed in PC gaming since MS started releasing their games on their store. Nothing.

You say the current store is and has been a dumpster fire and show no sign of improving (the improving part is a lie as it has improved) and that it looks like it won't "succeed"...well sir, if that's the case, why do you even care about anything that has to do with it. If there are people who are interested in it and want it to improve, why do you care for why they care about it? There's nothing that MS is doing that is effecting you and what they are doing isn't interesting to you...so what are you here to say exactly?

 

[Pathfinder]

Jesus. I compared what MS is doing now and what Steam is now and I also stated why it is different scenarios. You really need to read things.

I'm not telling you to wait, I say if you are interested, you have no choice but wait, otherwise ignore. Ain't nothing they are doing is hurting anything. Nothing has changed in PC gaming since MS started releasing their games on their store. Nothing.

You say the current store is and has been a dumpster fire and show no sign of improving (the improving part is a lie as it has improved) and that it looks like it won't "succeed"...well sir, if that's the case, why do you even care about anything that has to do with it. If there are people who are interested in it and want it to improve, why do you care for why they care about it? There's nothing that MS is doing that is effecting you and what they are doing isn't interesting to you...so what are you here to say exactly?

"Stop liking what I don't like" comes to mind.

 

[Dinky Dino]

The current store is and has been a dumpster fire and they show no sign of improving that. Coupled with the closed platform and the stupid mod ability, only if the dev allows tools cause lol, it looks like it will never succeed

They've made a few fixes/improvements since patches seem to not require the full install/copies the the game twice anymore. Have not had install issues for a while. Also nice that you can play games offline now and set a main account. Still I do agree with the fact that I can't hook stuff like Msi afterburner so I'd obviously get everything on steam/win32 over UWP when I can. But as a whole the store is pretty functional. Well I mostly just use it for Xbox games anyways.

 

[sugarhigh4242]

He's doing good work, because - to bring up EULAs and MSs redistribution policies again - without people doing that work, every single XNA title has a shelflife at which it stops working completely, because at some point the XNA installer and required libraries will either not run on a future version of Windows, or will no longer be accessible, and legally nobody can include those required files with their executables.

Funny how MS's decades of legacy support is probably the #1 thing keeping them in their position, yet they play super loose with their own longevity.

 

[LordRaptor]

Funny how MS's decades of legacy support is probably the #1 thing keeping them in their position, yet they play super loose with their own longevity.

Many of MS projects are rife with in-fighting and internal one-upmanship from differing viewpoints. There is very much an "old guard" at MS who understand that Windows is a continuum and that that is a huge part of its success, and there is an "we should be Apple" contingent who don't give a fuck about existing customers because they expect everyone to just blind buy every year regardless.

I can't source it, but I read a fascinating anecdote once about one of the engineers on... I want to say Win98 who when they discovered that Sim City didn't run on it because it had used very specific Win95 hacks went and implemented specific "If app is Sim City do this..." code purely because of the popularity of Sim City and the expectation that it should work on the next version of Windows.
I literally cannot imagine that anecdote being told about modern Microsoft.

 

[Qassim]

That is a weird argument because you are no suggesting that windows 10 won't allow you to install ANY software onto it unless it's via the Windows store...

No I'm not, it's an analogy. I'm saying that the argument that 'Steam wasn't as good when it launched' is silly, you compete with the market you launched into, not the market your competitors launched into over a decade prior.

 

[AxeMan]

I'll never purchase anything from the MS store or that is built on UWA. My PC is not a console and I don't buy SaS thanks

 

[mike4001_]

I understand the hate of UWP if you like to mod your games or use some special features.

But if you play your games in "standard mode" as probably 95% of all gamers do I really don´t see a downside of UWP games.

OK there were the download problems from the Windows store, but these were bugs and will probably be fixed (if they not already are)

 

[Panajev2001a]

I used to think that, but to be honest, with a lot of the OSS moves Microsoft has made (.Net Core, VS Code on Linux), the cultural changes and shift Satya Nadella has moved Microsoft in I truly think it's more "Microsoft want to offer a curated, safe computing environment" as an alternative.


Except, you know, the stuff that won't end up back-ported to Win32, and will require, sooner or later, UWP as a minimum target for implementation., Win32's time may not be done for several years, but there was a time they said the same about Win16 stuff, that's gone, the same will happen with Win32 one day, that's progress.

The problem is that curated environment is not what the strength of the PC platform is about. Opennes, upgradeability, transparency, and modding are... all stuff that goes against the iOS Apple Store like experience everyone like MS and Google ultimately dreams of.

 

[Panajev2001a]

Except that some do have to be, at least until they decide to give more resources to port to win32. This feature for instance was developed on uwp by the xbox guys and it's being brought to pc on uwp. A platform that was created precisely to enable those scenarios.

So they do not have to be given that it is their choice not to dedicate resources to make it happen .

 

[Panajev2001a]

If that was the goal, then why can't I sign my own UWA's with a user able to easily add me as a trusted source? Why can't I personally give specific applications the ability to hook into others? Why can't I look at and manipulate the data files residing on my own computer?

Microsoft doesn't appear to be wanting to make computing safer for me.
They appear to want to make my own computer "safe" from me. That is utterly unacceptable.

Dude, it is your own fault... you show off improving programs, you besmirch anything not UE4 (including the next UE5... I know you will ), and now you want to be in the MS family circle of trust?

/s

 

[Kamina]

I cant imagine it to be hard for Windows Pros to find the exact algorithms for this Game Mode and force it on manually for other applications.
Or am I misunderstanding something?

 

[Osiris]

The problem is that curated environment is not what the strength of the PC platform is about. Opennes, upgradeability, transparency, and modding are... all stuff that goes against the iOS Apple Store like experience everyone like MS and Google ultimately dreams of.

As I said in the other Windows Store thread:

Enterprise customers are very much requesting a safer execution environment for applications, and doing so loudly and strongly.

You can thank the rise of botnets and ransomware for that, keeping a 100 to 1,000 PC network malware free has become close to impossble under Win32's execution environment. even with anti-malware it's why UWP apps are as sandboxed as they are, it's one of the reasons why Intel is having to move forward with IME, and it's why enterprise can now start to see not just distribution, but administration and deployment and ecosystem control from things like the Microsoft Store for Business.

The 'strength' is a weakness from another perspective, and that persective has many, louder, more demanding requirements. Instead of starting with a completely open platform and trying to close the holes reactively, they are being pushed to start with a more controllable execution environment, and open it up as it can be done safely. The whack-a-mole fight against malware does not work, it is reactive, not proactive and for a lot of malware now, especially since the rash of ransomware issues, reactive protection is seen as "too little, too late" and ineffectual and so another option is being actively developed and encouraged.

For the individual power-user or developer this shift can be seens as abhorant, however the general enterprise user does not care, and there are vastly more of those being serviced by IT departments across the world.

They are not killing Win32, because of the power users requirements and the need to service legacy systems and software, at least not yet, but you can be sure that a large amount of the average use of a PC can be moved into this sandboxed model without affecting those users at all.

Sandboxing apps is here to stay whether via UWA or another system, and that means for those applications, closing down some of that openness is necessary, and to a large proportion of enterprise use is being applauded and encouraged.

Fighting that is just joining Canute on the beach.

 

[Widge]

If the games are stable on Windows Store, can't see that I have a problem with encrypted files. They may as well be encrypted now for all I am concerned, I don't faff around with them.

 

[boneyjangles]

There is a difference between how Steam was handled at launch than Microsoft has handled. One has supported and updated and One has dropped support for one application now to have the windows store.

Microsoft deserves no benefit of the doubt from this and deserves cynicism until they can prove otherwise.

Well, my primary point was about how game mode probably isn't about the typical higher end desktop gaming PC, it's probably only useful in optimizing for low powered devices like tablets, and relates to MS probably wanting to get an app store going similar to google play or iOS app store, as windows migrates to lower and lower powered devices.

My brief followup post 'member how outraged we got about steam' wasn't meant to compare MS to Valve and their respective reputations. It's just a throwaway line to try to rein in the outrage.

I feel we get far too outraged, far too fast, before stuff even comes out, before we even know technically what's it's about. Give it a chance.

Ultimately if I get a Scorpio in a years time, and a couple of games, and later I revert to having a gaming PC and I don't have to re-buy, that's pretty cool. Of course vice-versa would also work.

I think expecting Microsoft to offer purchases that work cross-platform and to do it by somehow making the PC versions Steam games is a lot to ask. It's like asking Apple to make iOS purchases appear on Mac, but not on the mac store... they have to somehow feed into Steam on the Mac... sounds like a cross-company admin and licensing nightmare.

And on that note, there are references on this thread of MS's proposed horrible DRM on the Xbox One that fell through. " More evidence they can't be trusted."

Sure, it might not have been perfect, and it was marketed poorly, but disc-as-drm *****ing sucks. Disc swapping is such a relic from the past. Since that outrage we are stuck with it for another generation. I've been buying all my PS4 digitally. With MS's solution I could have been getting games a lot cheaper and scanning codes in boxes to attach to my account. Ultimately retail games will be as dead compact disc sales, it's all going digital, but in the interim, MS's proposed DRM was an all round benefit for everyone except the parasitic used game stores.

I can't believe i'm defending MS so much, lol.

 

[ShinNoNoir]

I can't source it, but I read a fascinating anecdote once about one of the engineers on... I want to say Win98 who when they discovered that Sim City didn't run on it because it had used very specific Win95 hacks went and implemented specific "If app is Sim City do this..." code purely because of the popularity of Sim City and the expectation that it should work on the next version of Windows.
I literally cannot imagine that anecdote being told about modern Microsoft.

Joel Spolsky once mentioned it on his blog (and I have also seen the story being retold in the comment section of Raymond Chen's blog):

I first heard about this from one of the developers of the hit game SimCity, who told me that there was a critical bug in his application: it used memory right after freeing it, a major no-no that happened to work OK on DOS but would not work under Windows where memory that is freed is likely to be snatched up by another running application right away. The testers on the Windows team were going through various popular applications, testing them to make sure they worked OK, but SimCity kept crashing. They reported this to the Windows developers, who disassembled SimCity, stepped through it in a debugger, found the bug, and added special code that checked if SimCity was running, and if it did, ran the memory allocator in a special mode in which you could still use memory after freeing it.

Edit: Ah, Joel Spolsky actually mentioned it in an even older blog post back in 2000.

 

[Pakoe]

Let's see the benchmarks. Seeing as GoW4 is a good PC game, UWP isn't the problem. I'm interested in the benefits of the 'Game Mode'.

 

[Durante]

But if you play your games in "standard mode" as probably 95% of all gamers do I really don´t see a downside of UWP games.

Do those "95% of all gamers" use and enjoy any of the myriad of Steam features which are only possible because it injects itself into games?

Sandboxing apps is here to stay

Fuck that shit.

Or, well, do whatever you want with "apps", I'll continue to run programs.

 

[LukasTaves]

I don't know, you're apparently changing your argument from "you're totally misinformed, No EULA required" to "You're totally ridiculous to expect no EULA".

If I don't live in the US, it is not unreasonable to not expect to be bound by US customs regarding where I can distribute software.
If I am creating software it is not unreasonable to expect that I can redistribute required libraries as part of my executable, not as a seperate required installer (a common gripe with PC games based on MSs redistribution policies)

But please, continue to tell me how ridiculous and uninformed I am and how great UWA is.

Ok, but on that note, how is it possible to develop to win32 without having to agree with no one else's EULA?

Any tool you are going to use will have a license agreement to be well agreed, even open source software does.

You originally said that you can't develop for uwp without Ms approval, that's is not the case. You have about as much freedom of development as you have with win32, with less 3rd party support now of course, but that's increasing.

 

[LordRaptor]

Joel Spolsky once mentioned it on his blog (and I have also seen the story being retold in the comment section of Raymond Chen's blog):


Edit: Ah, Joel Spolsky actually mentioned it in an even older blog post back in 2000.

Heh, thanks for validating my memory as not a crazy fever dream.
Yes, exactly - that's what (at least some) Windows engineers once stood for - the boring reliability of a software continuum where people behind the scenes went to great lengths to try and make sure shit just worked.

I literally do not see that ethos in modern telemetry harvesting dark patterns forced install MS.

e:

Ok, but on that note, how is it possible to develop to win32 without having to agree with no one else's EULA?

Win32 is well known and understood to the point of being clean room reverse engineered and capable of being compiled to by third parties that MS has literally no sway or mandate over.

 

[Osiris]

Do those "95% of all gamers" use and enjoy any of the myriad of Steam features which are only possible because it injects itself into games?


Fuck that shit.

Or, well, do whatever you want with "apps", I'll continue to run programs.

I assume you're talking about SteamWorks yes, if not what features?

You're aware that Phil Spencer has already demonstrated SteamWorks integration in UWP?

And overlays, as promised last year? Coming very soon according to nvidia, Next version of GFE (which relies on overlays) is coming with support for UWP.

I expect more soon, BUiLD and GDC should be interesting on this front.

 

[Durante]

Ok, but on that note, how is it possible to develop to win32 without having to agree with no one else's EULA?

Any tool you are going to use will have a license agreement to be well agreed, even open source software does.

You originally said that you can't develop for uwp without Ms approval, that's is not the case. You have about as much freedom of development as you have with win32, with less 3rd party support now of course, but that's increasing.

I just installed gcc in cygwin and compiled a hello world win32 application without agreeing to anyone's EULA. Want me to guide you through it?

Do you want hello.exe?
You know, it's a Win32 executable I just made and you could simply download it and run it on your computer. Pretty wild, I know.

if not what features?

As one currently relevant example, Steam, for both Steam and non-Steam games, allows you to configure a Steam controller to mimic any traditional input and API, in order to play games not originally designed for a particular input mechanism in a different way, or add features not originally present. They just added support for more controllers to that if you recall.

It's this thing where Steam adds value to the existing, concrete library of more than 10000 PC games, rather than restricting features to the 10s of games they paid for to make exclusive to their platform in a (failing) attempt to not become completely irrelevant in the mobile space.

 

[nynt9]

I assume you're talking about SteamWorks yes, if not what features?

You're aware that Phil Spencer has already demonstrated SteamWorks integration in UWP?

And overlays, as promised last year? Coming very soon according to nvidia, Next version of GFE (which relies on overlays) is coming with support for UWP.

I expect more soon, BUiLD and GDC should be interesting on this front.

Well, it's different if steamworks or GFE can be built with an UWP API so that their overlays can specifically work, but it would be preferable if any arbitrary injection from end users (reshade, gedosato, VR hacks, mods, anything really) work as well. I don't know what Microsoft promised and I can't find it (you somehow seem to be an encyclopedia of MS PR and documentation so maybe you can help get the message straight on this one as well).

Also, the "wait for build" thing deserves the meme status it has. Why can't they just release updates continuously instead of announcing them at a keynote?

 

[LordRaptor]

It's this thing where Steam adds value to the existing, concrete library of more than 10000 PC games, rather than restricting features to the 10s of games they paid for to make exclusive to their platform in a (failing) attempt to not become completely irrelevant in the mobile space.

I mean, honestly, Valve opening up the steam controller to just be pretty much a hardware agnostic DirectInput / Xinput replacement is mind blowing.

If I was "Head of Pc Gaming at Xbox", or whatever that retarded job title is, I would actually feel fucking ashamed that someone is putting that much work in to hugely and qualitatively improve a product I am responsible for.

 

[Osiris]

Well, it's different if steamworks or GFE can be built with an UWP API so that their overlays can specifically work, but it would be preferable if any arbitrary injection from end users (reshade, gedosato, VR hacks, mods, anything really) work as well. I don't know what Microsoft promised and I can't find it (you somehow seem to be an encyclopedia of MS PR and documentation so maybe you can help get the message straight on this one as well).

Also, the "wait for build" thing deserves the meme status it has. Why can't they just release updates continuously instead of announcing them at a keynote?

Because BUILD is where they announce and work with the devs that are going to provide the products that use those features, so obviously they are going to hear it first. Developers always hear about platform improvements first.

The stuff they spoke about at BUILD last year is coming to fruition now (some started arriving in November, such as GSYNC/Freesync support), the UWP stuff they announce at the next BUILD is interesting for me, from a dev perspective, not a user perspective because I expect the improvements to continue.

Things improving is good isn't it?

 

[Durante]

Any reply to my point?

Things improving is good isn't it?

I made a chart to explain my lack of enthusiasm.

 

[Osiris]

Any reply to my point?

As I said before, not everything under a sandbox model can be opened up, and expectation that it would be is unrealistic without severe compromisation on the whole point of sandboxing.

When 95% of the concerns are met and flexibility increases, the majority of devs will be supportive, but unchecked interop? - Not going to happen, and there IS a proportion of the development community that understand this and understand why.

Moddability can be supported, but the original devs have to support it, Overlays will be supported, UWP doesn't require the store any more, these are improvements, but expecting the new model to stick to the old models flaws is unrealistic.

The same "features" and freedom that allow interop of the type you talk about, are also a serious vector for malware, so it is a hole that will be closed sooner or later, one way or another.

 

[nynt9]

Any reply to my point?

I mean, it doesn't really answer my questions either. Just some misdirection and "wait for build" because there is no answer that makes MS look good.

Edit: yep, the answer comes down to "too bad"

MS are solving a problem they have. It's not a problem that consumers have. And their solution takes away from consumers. So why should they be happy about this?

 

[LukasTaves]

So they do not have to be given that it is their choice not to dedicate resources to make it happen .

Well, technically yes, but it's not a viable choice in many cases to support legacy software, or to develop the same thing over and over.

I feel like I'm missing a really important part of the puzzle here. Is there any reason for people to develop for UWP unless they want to have a game that runs on W10 and XB1 with minimal port stress?

It's the new programming model that is being developed and that they are bringing features from now on. Developers adhere to new standards all the time, even win32 once was the new format that the solely advantage was that you could develop once for desktop and server windows.

iOS already changed their programming model, at least when talking to the gpu, android as well. Compared to those Ms is making the win32 transition to uwp way less aggressive.

And really, even on win32 there were many pushes to new programming models, MFC, wpf, Silverlight, web development and so on. Uwp also offers unification on that front, if you are a web developer you can bring that into a full fledge app without needing to learn a more specific language.

Also a developer who already used these technologies now have the evolution of that. For instance, one drawback of win32 is that all tools to compose UI for it(basically MFC or WPF) are incompatible with directx. Meaning you can't place a directx surface over a mfc/wpf element and of course the contrary is also true (there's a way around that but it makes kinda of a mess of your UI, and visually it doesn't look very good either). Uwp doesn't have this problem, you can freely compose UI on top of directx and vice versa, and XAML with it's binding properties is actually a very nice way to create UI in 3d games and apps.

Another non issue for uwp is handling high dpi scenarios. To this day steam doesn't support it for instance, and even browsers like Firefox and chrome had support only recently.

In short, it's a new programming model that handles modern stuff better than win32, and that will be pushed forward with more features over time.

 

[righthandmouse]

Has anyone with a normal pc ever had to goto task manager and close apps to get a better gaming experience?

 

[Kareha]

Hahahahaha, I fucking knew it.

 

[Durante]

As I said before, not everything under a sandbox model can be opened up, and expectation that it would be is unrealistic without severe compromisation on the whole point of sandboxing.

When 95% of the concerns are met and flexibility increases, the majority of devs will be supportive, but unchecked interop? - Not going to happen.

So basically what you are saying is:

In UWP, one of the very best things about PC gaming -- third parties independently improving a large existing game library -- is not going to happen.

I think it's good of you to be open about that. I hope it also explains to some people why I fucking hate it -- it has nothing to do with any sort of company fanboyism (or the opposite).
It's purely because I like PC gaming for what makes it PC gaming.

 

[Kareha]

Has anyone with a normal pc ever had to goto task manager and close apps to get a better gaming experience?

Years ago maybe, back in like the Windows 95/98 days.

 

[righthandmouse]

Years ago maybe, back in like the Windows 95/98 days.

exactly. this thing is pointless

 

[Abilidebob]

As I said before, not everything under a sandbox model can be opened up, and expectation that it would be is unrealistic without severe compromisation on the whole point of sandboxing.

When 95% of the concerns are met and flexibility increases, the majority of devs will be supportive, but unchecked interop? - Not going to happen, and there IS a proportion of the development community that understand this and understand why.

Moddability can be supported, but the original devs have to support it, Overlays will be supported, UWP doesn't require the store any more, these are improvements, but expecting the new model to stick to the old models flaws is unrealistic.

The same "features" and freedom that allow interop of the type you talk about, are also a serious vector for malware, so it is a hole that will be closed sooner or later, one way or another.

I don't know about you, but I don't think that's a good "trade". More "security" for less freedom. A game like Dark Souls would still be locked at sub 720p if it was following that trend.

 

[LukasTaves]

I just installed gcc in cygwin and compiled a hello world win32 application without agreeing to anyone's EULA. Want me to guide you through it?

Do you want hello.exe?
You know, it's a Win32 executable I just made and you could simply download it and run it on your computer. Pretty wild, I know.

And, there are license terms that you have to agree if you want to use it:

https://cygwin.com/licensing.html

For example, by using this tool you are agreeing that any binary you make out of it has to be made open source. Pretty wild, I know.