Windows XP 'holding back PC gaming'
But DX 11 is awesome, says AvP dev
The developer of the Aliens vs Predator game – one of the first to truly harness the power of DirectX 11 – has admitted that the sheer amount of gamers still on Windows XP is 'definitely slowing progress'.
Aliens vs Predator is a game that has become intrinsically linked with the arrival of Windows 7 and, of course, DirectX 11.
The latter will see the PC once more move head and shoulders above the likes of PS3 and Xbox 360 in terms of graphical prowess, with gamers likely to see the strides taken on the platform in the coming months.
Rebellion
Rebellion's AvP will be one of those games, but David Brickley - Senior Producer for the games developer - explained that millions of gamers are still using Windows XP and Direct X9 – and it is beginning to hold development back.
"As a company we've used DirectX since it first came into existence at the time of Windows 95, so we are experienced with upgrading and supporting different versions of Windows and DirectX... but XP only supporting DirectX 9 is definitely slowing progress," Brickley said in an interview with PC Games Hardware.
"We're currently hoping Windows 7 does well - hopefully in another year or two most gamers will be on Vista or Windows 7 and we can concentrate on DirectX 11 ... or 12!"
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Taking advantage
Although AvP is not just for DirectX 11 machines – something which would currently hamstring any PC title – it does take full advantage of the big steps being taken in graphics cards and processors.
"The PC version of AvP is fully able to take advantage of the features of all the latest video cards and is optimized to make efficient use of multicore threading if your PC supports it," he added.
"We will also be one of the first games to really show off how good DirectX 11 games can look, with hardware tessellation of the Aliens using displacement mapping, and Shader Model 5.0 Compute Shaders for post-processing effects."
Patrick Goss is the ex-Editor in Chief of TechRadar. Patrick was a passionate and experienced journalist, and he has been lucky enough to work on some of the finest online properties on the planet, building audiences everywhere and establishing himself at the forefront of digital content. After a long stint as the boss at TechRadar, Patrick has now moved on to a role with Apple, where he is the Managing Editor for the App Store in the UK.