Hello Jim, Ok, now you have seriously made me angry. You said, "I do understand a person's personal choice to run the latest greatest hugest new software, but in Thomas's case he is also forcing his prospective customers to do the same." That is an absolute and total falsehood. Maybe you should get your facts straight before you shoot off your mouth as that is not true. So here are the facts. Number one, my Genesis Engine uses DirectX 8.1. That is absolutely not the latest version of DirectX, and one reason I chose to do that instead of use DirectX 9 or higher is because it comes with every PC with Windows XP on up to Windows 7. Not only that DirectX 8.1 has proven itself to be very stable, and still is the standard DirectX version supported by many mainstream games and game companies. I doubt I'm going to upgrade to DirectX 9 or higher until things like XAudio2 become more common and have been proven to be a stable game development API. Number two, my games will run on Windows 2000 SP4, Windows XP SP3, Windows Vista, and Windows 7 equally well. The only thing you need is a 6 MB Visual C++ update that can be installed on any PC running Windows 2000 SP4 or higher. The way you are acting here is like everyone must be running Windows 7 or something to run my games which is totally false. The only thing you need for Windows XP is a couple small Windows patches/updates which is not too much to ask in my opinion. If you can't stand installing a few common Windows dll files then please don't play my games. I don't have any time or patients to put up with this irronious attitude of yours that you have to have the latest and greatest everything to play my games as you are gravely mistaken. Number three, although my Genesis Engine does support a virtual 3d environment guess what? In the settings menu of the fps version of Mysteries of the Ancients there is a sound card option that allows you to use virtual 3d or stereo panning. Why on earth would I do something like that hmmmmm? Oh, it couldn't be that I understand that not all VI gamers have a high end sound card like Soundblaster Audigy Pro and might have to reconfigure the game to use a lower end sound card with only basic stereo output rather than virtual 3d audio output? Oh, It wouldn't happen to be I know not everyone has a 5.1 speaker setup and only use my games with stereo headphones so need a 2d stereo configuration setup for audio? The fact of the matter is Jim I bend over backwards to try and meet my customers needs to design games that will work for everyone. Yes, if that means I have to use newer Windows dll files to make my games more stable for Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7 I will do it. However, you can not sit there and expect me to use older libraries just because users like yourself are too darn stubern or too afraid of blowing his/her computer up by installing a 6 MB patch that updates a few common Windows libraries. I'm sorry to say but in my opinion that is just being thick headed, stupid, and too stubern to change even if it might actually improve things for you and make a slightly more stable and better product in the long run. Finally, there is one other thing to take in account here. You have mentioned many times you like Visual Basic 6 and like Windows XP and are happy with it. That's fine as far as it goes, but I don't think you personally care if your games run on Windows 7 or whatever comes after Windows 7 because you have no plans to upgrade etc. Well, some of us do care about such things. I realize that Windows XP isn't going to be around forever so I have chosen to adopt a programming standard that hopefully will be compatible with both new and older Windows releases for some time to come. Once and a while that may mean upgrading or adopting a newer API or dll file that maintains some level of compatibility with XP all the way up to Windows 7 and beyond. I'm not forcing you or anyone to upgrade to the absolutely latest Windows release out there. I'm only making it possible that if you or anyone else wants to upgrade you will be able to run my products just as well on the newer Windows releases as you did on your previous release. Now, tell me what is so wrong with this approach?
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