by Gez » Wed Aug 01, 2018 12:09 pm
TheGameratorT wrote:And I don't really want to stick to old GZDoom 3.3
Sorry but you will have to. You have to understand that keeping the old DirectX routines wasn't free: like all interface code, it has to be actively maintained to keep working, because hardware and software changes means that the interface doesn't stay static. If we reach a point where we have to choose between running on Windows XP and running on Windows 10, the choice is easy. (And I don't even like Windows 10). Getting rid of the old DirectX interfaces meant that the code could be simplified and needed less redundancy for cross-platform support (Linux, after all, never had DirectX) and also that it was possible again to switch between hardware and software rendering without having to quit and restart. (Previously, if you had initialized DirectX for software rendering, you couldn't initiate OpenGL in the same application, and inversely. The reasons for this are rather obscure and poorly documented so it wasn't possible to write a workaround.) So even if you lose on using the latest versions on your old computer, do not think there are no benefits to dropping support for old hardware.
In fact there's a general rule that what's good for old hardware is bad for new hardware and inversely. We've seen that with old optimizations that slowed down performances on computers fifteen years more recent than those they were written for... And we've seen it again and again. This is what resulted in the "vintage build" for GZDoom 3.5.
[quote="TheGameratorT"]And I don't really want to stick to old GZDoom 3.3[/quote]
Sorry but you will have to. You have to understand that keeping the old DirectX routines wasn't free: like all interface code, it has to be actively maintained to keep working, because hardware and software changes means that the interface doesn't stay static. If we reach a point where we have to choose between running on Windows XP and running on Windows 10, the choice is easy. (And I don't even like Windows 10). Getting rid of the old DirectX interfaces meant that the code could be simplified and needed less redundancy for cross-platform support (Linux, after all, never had DirectX) and also that it was possible again to switch between hardware and software rendering without having to quit and restart. (Previously, if you had initialized DirectX for software rendering, you couldn't initiate OpenGL in the same application, and inversely. The reasons for this are rather obscure and poorly documented so it wasn't possible to write a workaround.) So even if you lose on using the latest versions on your old computer, do not think there are no benefits to dropping support for old hardware.
In fact there's a general rule that what's good for old hardware is bad for new hardware and inversely. We've seen that with old optimizations that slowed down performances on computers fifteen years more recent than those they were written for... And we've seen it again and again. This is what resulted in the "vintage build" for GZDoom 3.5.