Considering that the mGPU and VR support in the latest release of Vulkan requires Windows 10 and WDDM I don't think even Kronos gets it anymore ;)
There is absolutely nothing locking multiGPU support to windows 10 other than the willingness of IHVs to support it.
Vulkan was a Camel before they introduces the new extensions road map, you know have KHR which are "official" cross vendor LTS extensions which can be still platform dependant (e.g. you can have win32 KHR extensions), then there are KHX extensions which are effectively a rapid deployment branch primarily sucking in vendor extensions that can be a good idea, then there are the vendor specific extensions.
Now not only that it's a camel, it seems to fall back into the same tarpit that OpenGL had in which you could not guarantee compatibility between hardware vendors and platforms.
Guess where I'm spending what precious little gaming time I have these days?
The RSI team is doing amazing work, and I keep checking in - really love how they've improved loading times, and the detail of the models etc is just amazing, however as someone who's gotten quite used to head tracking I find it very hard to play sims that don't support it.
As such, I'm also a big Elite fan and now is a really good time to be playing that especially if an immersive experience is something you consider important as I do.
I understand that it's healthy to be skeptical, especially when it comes to video games, but CIG has been accomplishing some remarkable things much sooner than anyone seemed to assume so I guess I'm optimistic about VR as sooner rather than later.
Starflight[1] could do that back in 1986[2]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starflight
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFMxNlK8L4g&feature=youtu.be...
If I had anything to complain about Win 10 it's that they still haven't properly unified the control panels.
I see a pattern there, don't you?
So taking ten seconds to deactivate ads in an OS isn't really the kind of outrageously onerous burden you're laying it out to be. I agree to the extent that it seems like a pointlessly minuscule revenue stream in comparison to the ill will that it generates. And it was deceitful to sneak the ads in after people had already upgraded from Windows 7 instead of making their intentions clear from the outset. Microsoft would probably generate more income with an option to permanently disable the ad experience (and telemetry) for a one-time fee the way Amazon does with their low-end Kindles.
Operating systems historically have not been like media. Perhaps this is the future (shudder), but pretending there has not been a difference doesn't get us anywhere. And it is jarring: compare it to one day, ads start appearing on your towels at home.
Personally, OS ads and invasive telemetry are way, way too invasive for me. Never used Windows as more than a utility thing for specific apps, but I'll never use Win 10 without crippling the mothership comms, and I'm moving away from OS X as well, because of the increasing cloud-everything centricity and the neglected unix subsystem.
Finally, this is probably a complaint specific to me and a not that many other people. I do systems engineering professionally. When OSes start doing things that I can't control and start communicating without explanations as to what, exactly, is going on for reasons that are not driven by my intent, I cannot trust the software. My machine, my environment, my rules.
People always jump to the phone comparison here. My phones are rather locked down too, snd I'm not happy about the direction, but can do little about that.
Operating Systems are tools, not entertainment or informational media. Does your hammer have ads you "couldn't disable"?
> it had ads - couldn't disable
Scissors can be used to disable magazine ads.
For your specific use case, sure. My Windows machine is essentially a game console to me though. Do I get upset when I see an ad on Xbox live? It's essentially the same thing to me.
Of course Windows isn't meant to be a tool for professionals. But it's great for what it is; an easy to use general OS that plays games.
German data protection acts even make it illegal to use Windows 10 in commercial environments in many cases because of the built-in telemetry and cloud functions. Not what I would call "hardly makes the entire OS bad".
> https://www.golem.de/news/datenschutz-windows-10-koennte-arb...
> https://www.heise.de/ix/meldung/Datenschutz-Windows-10-koenn...
> http://www.borncity.com/blog/2016/10/31/windows-10-und-das-d...
> https://www.gi.de/aktuelles/zur-diskussion/detailansicht/art...
Not "have been determined to be illegal".
As long as there is no court judgement, one cannot write a definite opinion. If the authors directly wrote that it is illegal, Microsoft would surely admonish [is this the correct English translation of the German verb "abmahnen", which has a very specific meaning in Germany's legal system?] the authors of the texts or the medium that publishes such a statement.
- Windows 10 will automatically install games from the Windows Store which are not wanted such as Candy Crush
- Extensive and opaque 'telemetry' being sent back to MS which cannot be completely turned off
- Lack of control over windows updates
These are my own personal reasons why I will never be installing such an anti-consumer OS.
I mean, monetizing users by tracking their behaviour and showing them custom ads is bad enough (although somewhat understandable when the OS is free), but charging users for the privilege too (Windows 10 costs money¹)? Disgusting.
――――――
- those apps are installed at the time of installation and can be removed. If so, they are not reinstalled ever again.
- telemetry. Scary. Every application you install does this.
- MS found (via telemetry) that users don't like installing updates, and thus left themselves open to many vulnerabilities that antivirus systems don't even look for. So, MS has chosen to force users into a more secure paradigm.
These are my personal responses why I don't mind windows 10 at all, and don't feel it to be anti-consumer at all.
I'm really quite sure the applications on my machine don't. Then again I only run things I have some way to compile myself.
I'm pretty confident that the only things I use regularly on my computer (not counting my phone here) that send telemetry are
- Firefox (opt out, but prompts you)
- Visual Studio Code (opt out, doesn't prompt you, requires re-opting out on updates)
- rustup (not sure if opt in or out, don't mind if it's recording telemetry)
Unfortunately, "that would be bad for me" does not imply "that is not happening"
Telemetry is awesome for devs but totally opaque to end users. It's very difficult to know what your applications are really doing on the backend. You have to start packet sniffing, and that's a pretty deep rabbit hole.
An application could:
* send telemetry in URL parameters when it checks for updates
* send telemetry data exactly one time after, say, an hour of use.
* send telemetry data during a time when you are already sending a lot of traffic, and send it to an amazon web service endpoint (good luck plucking that out of normal network activity based on IP data alone, when so much software communicates with most likely the same AWS endpoints.)
My point is that there is probably < 5 people on the planet who scrutinize every scheduled task, every Wireshark trace, and everything else well enough to know for certain that nothing is going on. The only people who know for sure that no telemetry is going on are those who airgap their PC from any network at all.
How about they ask users first if it is okay to do this? That is a better approach, opt in.
- those apps are installed at the time of installation and can be removed. If so, they are not reinstalled ever again.
That wasn't true for the first few years and even Microsoft admitted it in one of the release notes that they weren't retaining option to never reinstall the apps. AU update reinstalled these apps for me.
- telemetry. Scary. Every application you install does this.
Again, they should be opt-in, not forced and found out later that they were collecting more data than they should.
- MS found (via telemetry) that users don't like installing updates, and thus left themselves open to many vulnerabilities that antivirus systems don't even look for. So, MS has chosen to force users into a more secure paradigm.
If they needed telemetry to confirm what everyone has known for decades, they have a bigger problem.
If there is any single thing that I've learned during my time on Earth, it is that people, collectively, "know" a lot of things that aren't actually true. Everyone knows that pouring sugar in a car gas tank will kill the carb or fuel injectors. (This is false.) Everyone knows that you taste sweet with a different part of the tongue as sour. (This is False.) Everyone knows that waking a sleepwalker is dangerous. (It isn't.) Everyone knows that Napoleon was short. (He wasn't.) ad infinitum... I will not fault MS for taking the time to actually prove a suspicion true or false, to themselves or to anyone else. This happens far too rarely, and a lot of people believe a lot of things that aren't true as a result.
The people MS are aiming for with the ads are not the type of people who would ever opt-in to these things. Microsoft know (again, via telemetry it is proven) that clueful users will either know how to opt-out of thing they do not like, or will know how to find out how to opt-out. An opt-in preference would be preferred to myself and probably a large portion of users, of course, and would probably result in approximately 0% participation, which is very likely not what Microsoft are aiming for.
With the Creator's Update, pre-installed applications, once uninstalled, will not be reinstalled when the OS is upgraded. I, personally can attest to this one. I've been installing the fast-ring builds since the Anniversary Update, and I uninstalled Candy Crush Saga exactly once. It has not returned.
How do you turn off the telemetry of your smartphone apps or web sites that you use?
Do you create a fake profile every time you buy something?