ORIGINAL: Lingering Frey
Hi Steve,
I hope your health is continuing to improve.
Something in your last monthly post got me wondering about a couple things related to future compatibility issues with MWiF. Please forgive me if this question is completely ignorant of how computer operating systems function these days. I'm a political scientist, rather than the computer kind (or a real scientist).
I currently run a Vista-based computer. I'm assuming MWiF started development under Windows XP. Microsoft has increased the development pace of their operating systems (presumably due to mobile and tablet competition more than servers or such.) If MWiF releases relatively soon (relative to its overall development time), Windows 9 will most likely be the new system shipping on computers at the time. I'm hoping my system (with two aging Geforce 295s) will last another year after Windows 9 comes out, meaning I'll probably be buying a new computer around the time Windows 10 comes out. Or maybe Windows 10.1 which will fix all the problems they had rushing Windows 10 out the door.
With the exception of the whole 32 to 64 bit thing I don't really understand, I'm presuming Microsoft is maintaining heavy backwards compatibility to run software designed to function on their earlier operating systems (well, not DoS anymore). I know you can't know for certain since you aren't in charge of Microsoft, but you know how operating systems and software work roughly 7 billion times better than I do.
So, in this context, the questions:
How likely will it be that software designed with Windows XP will run without game-ending bugs on Windows 10?
I'm assuming the graphics will be so basic that graphics hardware-based incompatibilities (meaning game freeze/crash rather than frame rate, obviously) won't be an issue, so my Geforce 8XX or whatever in this future computer won't cause any issues for me. Is this assumption correct?
Since Microsoft is driving their desktop OS to be the same as their tablet OS, will MWiF be able to be played using a touch-screen tablet automatically without you having to specifically make any changes to it? In other words, will it just "work" if I load the game on the Windows 10 tablet due to mouse-to-touch screen interface replacement within the OS? [MWiF running without crashes on a tablet could actually get me to buy a Windows tablet]
Thanks
I doubt that Microsoft will abandon (there's a technical term which escapes my mind at the moment) Win XP because of all the applications that are based on it.
MWIF is running on Win XP, Vista, Win 7 and Win 8. I haven't been using Win XP for a couple of years, and I don't have a Win 8 computer. But the beta testers do and aside from some weirdness over the past month with NetPlay on a Win XP machine, there have been no issues. I've been working on the Win XP NetPlay problem the last couple of days.
MWIF doesn't use advanced graphics, such as employed in real time simulations. So the graphics card and its associated features are unimportant. That's where most of the recent changes in hardware have been occurring.
I'm also super-careful about not using "new and improved" software features. The old ways of doing things work just fine while the "feature of the month" might not be around a year from now. For example, I replaced all the Assembler code I inherited from CWIF because it might have differences between 32 bit versus 64 bit. Another place the Assembler code can become hardware specific is if the floating point processor changes.
But don't expect MWIF to run on a tablet. It requires at least a 1024 by 768 pixel screen. And the more screen real estate available the better the game is to play. Indeed, while debugging NetPlay I have been keeping the Sequence of Play form visible on both computers. That let's me track how the game advances through the sequence of play on both systems. In combination with the major power flags on the Main form, the SOP form tells the player who is doing what.
Unless I'm mistaken touch screen applications require special processing by the software application. MWIF uses the keyboard and mouse a lot, usually giving the player a choice of which he prefers to use to enter his decisions. The touchscreen would be just one more [separate?] input stream that would have to be processed.