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DirectX 10 games on non-Vista PCs?

theangrypixel.com — Is it possible? Didn't MS tell us that we'd need to shift to Vista to play all DX10 games? Well, according to one person, you don't have to...

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  • plague, on 10/12/2007, -14/+41Funny how they show a screenshot of Crysis, which will play fine on XP with DX9
    • PATSCRU, on 10/12/2007, -3/+34i'm all for crysis on dx9, because i don't plan on making the dx10 jump for another few years.....but i would like to see crysis dx9 vs. dx10 shots side by side....
    • OmEgA286, on 10/12/2007, -1/+49"b) Most DX10 games, including Crysis, whose screenshot was included just because it’s the poster child of DX10 gaming, will automatically run on the D3D9 pathway on non-Vista systems, whether your PC has a DX9 or a DX10 card."

      looks like you need to learn how to read.
    • Ngai, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7If they made that Geometry Wars compatible with Windows XP, then i'm pretty damn sure they can do the same for DX10.

      "Its all software baby..."
    • gcnaddict, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8http://alkyproject.blogspot.com/2007/04/finally-making-use-of-this-blog-i.html Original link

      Story buried as blogspam.
    • plague, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2@omega286

      I don't see that quote anywhere on the cached page, and it wasn't there when I first read the article. If it was updated before it went down, I didn't see it.
    • betterth, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2Exactly!

      This is exactly why Halo 2 runs on DirectX 9.

      Oh wait...
    • BlackKnight6, on 10/12/2007, -5/+14Digg title is misleading and the blogger is plain wrong. DX10 has features DX9 can't do, plain and simple. DX10 does a lot of direct access optimizations making the CPU have alot less work to do when rendering, meaning you can crank CPU sided options higher. DX10 also supports Shader Model 4.0 (SM 4.0) while DX9 only supports SM 3.0 and lower.

      As for Crysis, Crytek CHOSE to have the engine support DX9 and DX10, just when you run in DX9 your CPU is slower, due to more CPU overhead and you don't get all of the graphical goodies that things like SM 4.0 only support. Crytek could have just programmed the game to be just DX10 but they want everyone to be able to run the game. Yes, Crysis will run in DX9 on XP, will it run slower and not look as good? Yes, because its not running in DX10. Go play Splinter Cell Chaos Theory on your PC. Run it in SM 1.1, look at graphics, then run in SM 2.0/3.0, it looks a hell alot better in SM 2.0/3.0 for many reasons, and enables grayed out graphical options. Anyways, here is a small article on DX10 and its advantages. Quit hating on MS. This is nothing compared to something like Apple's OSX losing the level of BC it threw out moving over to the new OS, grow up.

      http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/crysis/news.html?sid=6163791&q=crysis&tag=result;title;4

      I can't find the old gamespot article where they talk with a MS DX engineer, he went into much more detail.
    • OmEgA286, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2@plague
      ok, if that is the case then im sorry. when i read it, it was right there, so i had assumed that you didnt read the article. no hard feelings.
    • plague, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1No problem
    • OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2DX10 for XP is called OpenGL.
    • OBKenobi, on 11/09/2007, -1/+2[quote]DX10 has features DX9 can't do, plain and simple. DX10 does a lot of direct access optimizations making the CPU have alot less work to do when rendering, meaning you can crank CPU sided options higher.[/quote]

      Microsoft FUD.
  • GawtMilk, on 10/12/2007, -24/+6All DX10 games have DX9 capability. So no, you don't need Vista.

    The DX10 nature of Vista locks into lots of the new resources of Vista. So I kind of doubt we're going to see DX10 on XP.
    • Urusai, on 10/12/2007, -19/+10I'm pretty sure they removed all "resources" and "features" from Vista before they released it.
    • lifeandtimes, on 10/12/2007, -2/+38"All DX10 games have DX9 capability. So no, you don't need Vista."

      As long as the game developers choose to make a DX9 engine for their DX10 games. If a game developer decides to just use a DX10 engine, it will not run on anything else. DX10 is significantly different from DX9.

      So, the moral of the story is: As soon as developers decide to make their games using only DX10, XP users will not be playing them because there will be no DX9 version.
    • jer2eydevil88, on 10/12/2007, -13/+1@lifeandtimes

      Plus since Vista has lost native OpenGL support it is now highly unlikely we will even see games made cross platform from start to finish anymore (Unreal 2007 comes to mind as a disappointment there).
    • MioTheGreat, on 10/12/2007, -2/+18No version of Windows has ever had 'native' OpenGL support. It's always been up to the graphics drivers to provide it.

      It's no different in Vista. There was a time when OpenGL running in Windowed mode would have been crippled (read: wouldn't affect games, only things like CAD software.) That was changed a very long time ago. You're just spouting old news that the OSS community has pepetuated as FUD.
  • i4mt3hwin, on 10/12/2007, -23/+3The question isn't whether DX10 Games will play on DX9 PC's, it's whether they will be accelerated and support DX10 Effects. Doom 3 runs fine on my machine with an Nvidia 4200, which is a DX8 card. Crysis will run fine on any dx9 graphics card as well, but most of the effects will not be accelerated and will probably need to be disabled.

    Also I guarantee that in the hardware level requirements that companies like nvida/ati as supposed to follow, there is checks to make sure that operating system is Vista, or perhaps requirements to make sure that the dx10 protocol wasn't tampered with. Either way I think this big idea of software emulation of DX10 will turn out to require DX10 hardware to be modified.
    • willdiggforfood, on 10/12/2007, -2/+47Uh, Doom 3 is an OpenGL game, not DirectX (in fact, it's OpenGL 1.4 or 1.5)
    • turpenine, on 10/12/2007, -5/+54yay opengl
    • i4mt3hwin, on 10/12/2007, -15/+4@willdiggforfood
      Then explain to me why the requirements for the game includes DX9 being installed (as well as asking to install it for you during installation).
      Yes the game was primarily written for OpenGL, but it uses DX9 shaders for things like the 'heat effect' and the sky when out doors (to improve color range).

      A better example though is World of Warcraft.

      http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2381
      Here you can see how a DX8 card can run a DX9 game, with a comparison screenshot.

      Also: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6Pc0PTJmzo
      Shows Crysis running in Windows XP.
    • BostonLow, on 10/12/2007, -2/+31I believe Doom3 is 100% OpenGL when it comes to video. It's probably input, audio, or network code that requires dx9
    • RadonPL, on 10/12/2007, -4/+3@bostonlow
      Then why does it run on Linux?

      http://zerowing.idsoftware.com/linux/quake4/
    • MioTheGreat, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11You people have a very narrow idea of what DirectX is.

      DirectX includes DirectInput, DirectShow, DirectPlay (Which is now dead, I guess.), and most importantly, Direct3d.

      On windows, it's probably easier for the game to use one of the other DirectX APIs, for example, Doom3 might use DirectSound for its sound system on Windows, and one of the *nix APIs under linux. That would make it require DirectX 9.
    • fgsfds, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6I'll never understand why people digg down comments like bostonlow's. Doom 3 IS using nothing but OpenGL for it's video interface, and it DOES require DX9 for the DirectSound and DirectInput APIs.
      It doesn't "Mix and Match" between OGL and DX9, since that's hackish if not outright impossible.
  • erkokite, on 10/12/2007, -9/+9Same guy who makes Alky, so this project will probably be closed source and non-free. Interesting nevertheless, but it would be good to open source it if MS has a problem with it. This will allow the source be distributed, and it could be developed in a less centralized fashion, that would make it harder for MS to sue people...
    • willdiggforfood, on 10/12/2007, -2/+23Meh, that isn't the purpose of Open Source.
  • LemmingJesus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+49Oh well if one random guy says so, it must be true!
    • rebopper, on 10/12/2007, -9/+4Indeed. However, inevitably someone will do it. After all, its just code.
    • estvir, on 11/09/2007, -6/+6Yeah, just code which depends upon a new driver model, new kernel and many other things.

      Oh, I'm sure they'll just 'hack' all those into XP, right ? Delusional kids, reported as inaccurate.
    • BlackKnight6, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Its not all code, DX10 requires a DX10 card too, but then there is the driver issue of there being Vista drivers for the DX10 card that only supports Vista, the XP drivers don't even have DX10 stuff in them, why would they? If they ever got it all working, XP would just being doing DX10 graphics with artifacts, errors and lower FPS then running it properly. If it was possible there would be no reason to make it Vista only. Some people don't realize how much DX10, mainly the D3D portion, relies on Vista's handling of the computer resources.
  • erkokite, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9"These libraries allow the use of DirectX 10 games on platforms other than Microsoft Vista, and increase hardware compatibility even on Vista, by compiling Geometry Shaders down to native machine code for execution where hardware isn't capable of running it."

    I'm guessing that since DX10 chips use unified architectures, it is a binary flag in a compiled shader that determines whether to use the shader units as vertex, fragment, or geometry shaders. Perhaps a geometry shader is compiled into binary form with the hypothetical geometry shader flag set to true, and uploaded to the GPU in the form of a pixel shader or vertex shader. Just hypothesizing. I'm not too familiar with Direct3d .
    • LeeJunFan, on 10/12/2007, -10/+2"I believe the phrase "stick it to those bastards at m$" qualifies you as a fanboy. Very clever that, replacing the s with a $."


      I think in this case the $ is an appropriate substitution because the only reason DX10 isn't available for XP is so MS can get more money from people by forcing them to pay something that would otherwise be free, not only are you paying for DX10 but it's their way to force people to buy an OS they really don't want.
  • TheGuruStud, on 10/12/2007, -39/+14Screw directx, it's slow and looks like arse compared to opengl. Grow a pair game devs, use opengl and stick it to those bastards at M$.
    • benitojuarez, on 10/12/2007, -11/+29fanboy much?
    • zybch, on 10/12/2007, -19/+15Strange, how the opengl games NEVER look as good as their DX cousins then isn't it! Sure, they're pretty, but the majority of OGL games out there simply don't look as good.
    • TheGuruStud, on 10/12/2007, -17/+4Fanboy of what? What runs and looks good? I like opengl in a normal manner. I just rather despise (and hate) directx. It's always slower and can't compete visually. I'm tired of ***** software giving me headaches just b/c a billionaire wants more.
    • benitojuarez, on 10/12/2007, -4/+20I believe the phrase "stick it to those bastards at m$" qualifies you as a fanboy. Very clever that, replacing the s with a $.
    • Xiata, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8As a developer who knows,
      OpenGL is a lot easier to write code for but lacks a lot of cool effects DirectX offers. D3D is a bit of a pain in this respect but, hey, we get to do more of what we want to do.

      Speed though is almost purely related to the effects being used and support of the videocard.

      D3D9 vs D3D10 is significant though because it is a lot less CPU bound than GPU bound. There are a number of other reasons why D3D10 cannot be ported back to XP, but I am not getting into that. This article though shows very little understanding of the new DirectX architecture.

      But I am not one to take away someone's pipe dream.
    • fgsfds, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2"Strange, how the opengl games NEVER look as good as their DX cousins then isn't it! Sure, they're pretty, but the majority of OGL games out there simply don't look as good."

      ... Because we ALL know that Doom 3, Quake 4, and Prey all look like total ass.

      "There are a number of other reasons why D3D10 cannot be ported back to XP, but I am not getting into that. This article though shows very little understanding of the new DirectX architecture."

      Not entirely true. Although the final results can't be copy/pasted between the two, that's the result of differences in compiling and Microsoft's decision to not release an XP version of DX10. Indeed, DX10 was actually *developed* on an XP platform independently of Vista, and then ported to Vista later in the development cycle.
      The reason for this is simple: You never test a beta on a beta.
  • maxtypezero, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15whoever wrote this seems like they have no idea what they're talking about or have a very difficult time communicating what they want to communicate.
    • zybch, on 10/12/2007, -0/+16Well since its a 19 year old "software reverse-engineer" what do you expect. My gut feeling is that its just some prat trying to up his blog traffic like the guy who claimed to be able to hack apple's wifi thingy a few months ago.
  • kaffein, on 10/12/2007, -9/+1Could have swore MS said they are EXTENDING support for XP until 2011.
    I also have heard rumors that suggest dx10 will be released to XP in q4 2007.
    • legatus, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Paul thurrott of windows super site stated the date for xp support cut off was 2011. As for dx10 on xp, kinda doubt it, MS really needs the new OS to move and that is a big stick/carrot. Mostly stick.
  • blurrie, on 10/12/2007, -9/+6as cool as great crysis look, i just don't have 4 bills to waive at a great video card alone, let alone the rest of a decent rig to enjoy dx10. vista feels like how windows ME felt. it just felt bad. kinda gross. i have no real WANT to switch to vista.

    instead i'll wait to play hl2 box set, halo 3 and gta 4 on my 360.
    maybe crysis will come to the console.
    i'll go ahead and digg myself down now.
  • Holocaust, on 10/12/2007, -13/+3First it was the Full-Activate-Crack for Vista that even now still works...
    Now this....

    Case in point, Microsoft - pwned
  • Dheart, on 10/12/2007, -7/+4I also heard that Microsoft wasn't planing to release DirectX 10 for WinXP, but that is not likely to be true, because:
    a) Vista still has many problems with compatibility - Some games just refuse to run on vista, others need a lot of tweaking...
    b) Almost 90% of gamers prefer WinXP as a gaming platform and I don't thing that is going to change soon, as Vista is so system demanding and I don't think making DirectX 10 exclusive for Vista, anyone would upgrade just for that.
    Also let's not forget about Transgaming, whose product makes gaming on Linux easier. They are most likely to release a version of cedega that can emulate DirectX 10. (Now Cedega supports fully DirectX 9.0c)
  • lopla, on 10/12/2007, -12/+3Best statement of the article:

    "Unfortunately, Vista isn’t all that it was touted to be."

    LOL
  • gamerzworld, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2I'm running on Vista but he has released a preview of it.
    Blog:
    http://alkyproject.blogspot.com/

    Project Preview:
    http://fallingleafsystems.com/site_media/preview.zip

    • darthsnoopy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Interesting: From that page:

      "...by compiling Geometry Shaders down to native machine code for execution where hardware isn't capable of running it"

      My biggest question is perf..and how useful this is to mainstream, or if htis is going to be something for tweakers only. I imagine though your compiling the shaders down, you're going to take a library/proxy perf hit in translation. Assuming that the resons a person didnt upgrade to Vista don't have to do with the hardware requirements, and they're running same hardware...this perf hit may come at a pretty hefty price. DX, IIRC, was tied to the unified driver system in Vista...meaning that just API interpolation methods may not work alone. Sure, he's got the SDK samples running, but when it gets into complex shader architecture, as well as the crazy crap devs do to optimize gamecode...is the pain and perf hit going to be worth it?

      on top of that, this would have to be rock solid. Any code glitches could cause anything from artifacts to hangs, to just straight app crashes. Not sure if I want to be playing Halo3PC (I figure by then that'll be dx10 only), and find out halfway through a level that my proxy library threw a fit and I get to start over.

      Guess time will tell, but if it's too much time, noone will care.
  • bioncinola, on 10/12/2007, -11/+2i managed to get dx10 running under linux.

  • Ramble, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9I'm interested in just how he's going to do this since DX10 requires a number of large OS changes (e.g. the user-side graphics system).
    • DigitalDud, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Well, the biggest issue is the fact that Vista virtualizes video memory, and Direct3D 10's resource management, or perhaps lack of resource management, depends on this.
    • MioTheGreat, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7WDDM drivers, GPU scheduling, etc.

      DirectX 10 will never run on XP. There are far too many changes made at the kernel level to accomidate it.
    • OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2[quote]DirectX 10 will never run on XP. There are far too many changes made at the kernel level to accomidate it.[/quote]

      Accommodate WHAT? What features are you talking about? You can use any DX10 hardware feature on any platform as long as you have a way of communicating with that hardware through a driver of some sort. Last time I checked, XP had such OpenGL drivers. So did OS X and Linux.

      And the PS3!
  • seansshack, on 10/12/2007, -6/+2Is this because Vista sales = failure or just too much bloody expense (vista, dx 10 graphic card etc etc) to play a game.
    • DigitalDud, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Or perhaps its just an attempt to achieve a very ambitious programming project.
    • chrislewis, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4All the power to him if he manages this. I remember seeing a story where the MS devs say that DX10 is just too hard to write into XP (or words to those effect).
  • xSEED, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3so halo 2 is dx10 only? since it can't be played on xp AFAIK
    • ffejrey, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Halo 2 isn't DX10, but will only run in Vista....bastards
      • brando721, on 03/08/2008, -0/+0You can get cracks to run Halo 2 on XP but they are unstable and your system shuts down randomly and stuff. Maybe theres some better cracks i haven't found though.
  • Strd, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5If games developed with OpenGL API instead of Direct3d (DX), it can have unified shaders and all functionality advertised for DX10 on XP. Of cause that is up to developers, but advantages are clear - the game would run on both XP and Vista without any Vista-specific code and would use full GPU abilities.
    • coredump0x01, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3Not to mention the engine would be portable to all operating systems that support up-to-date OpenGL rendering. And the engine's renderer doesn't need to be completely rewritten to run on the likes of Linux, Mac OS X, or *BSD, sometimes, the renderer doesn't need to be modified at all as long as it is using the standard OpenGL extensions.
    • GezusK, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3So what are the disadvantages? There must be enough of them, otherwise, why are developers avoiding it? I think I remember reading the problem of slow approval of OpenGL standards is one. It takes longer for OpenGL to add new features, due to the approval process. DirectX doesn't have that problem, since MS decides, and implements. Which is why DX10 is such a change from DX9.

      Also, how is the change to Vista and DX10 any different than what Apple user went through with the jump to OS X. Older programs would run on it, which meant OS 9 had to be used for those, and new program made for OS X wouldn't run on OS 9. At least Vista does handle most older games and programs. No need to keep a separate copy of XP.

      Also, people complain about MS not being innovative, and creative. But such large changes means giving up the old software and hardware. Impossible to please everyone. But, no one is forcing you to upgrade, you can stick with what you have. You don't have to HAVE the latest game or software.
  • Enverex, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Come on people, this is the same Alky project that KEEPS PROMISING THINGS and never delivers. Look up the companies name. They keep claiming all these great things, charge people for a non-existant product and then dissapear again. This is their third time around now afaik. Nothing will ever come of this, other than them making some more money from easily misled people and spam on sites like Digg.
  • MMilitia, on 10/12/2007, -5/+4It's certainly been said before that DX10's exclusion from XP was due to technical limitations rather than marketing or laziness. Of course this could be spin but I believe it's probably true.

    But common, it's going to be a long time before games are written exclusively for DirectX 10 hardware, heck, a lot of current games still support DirectX 7. If you want full DX10, bite the bullet and upgrade to Vista - contrary to what a lot of people would have you believe it's a good operating system and an OEM copy of ultimate will only set you back around £120.
    • dave932932, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5You're a tool. If Microsoft could sell DX10 for XP at $100, they'd find a way to get it to work. Like how they got IE7 on Windows XP to weakly counter Firefox. Tech pundits said IE7 required new gizmos only in Vista, but whatdyaknow? IE7 works perfectly on XP.
    • Yokai, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Does it really matter? They want to sell a product, who really cares that much? Its all marketing, so does it really matter why they did it?
    • MioTheGreat, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2"Tech pundits said IE7 required new gizmos only in Vista"

      There are IE7 features that don't run on XP.

      For example, coupled with UAC and Vista's improved DEP support, IE7 runs in a ultra-sandboxed mode when you use it in Vista.
  • Atomicbomb22, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0Actually on the guy's actual website you can download an ALPHA (not my fault if your computer explodes) version of Directx10 for XP. Download link for the alpha:
    http://fallingleafsystems.com/site_media/preview.zip

    You can read some info about the release here:
    http://alkyproject.blogspot.com/

    Hopefully a beta version will come out soon.
  • ThinkFr33ly, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5I know everybody wants to believe that Microsoft arbitrarily decided that DX10 would be Vista only so they could "force" people into buying the OS, but, as usual, it's a tiny bit more complex than that.

    DX10 relies heavily on graphics card memory virtualization. The new Windows Display Driver Model, WDDM, introduces this feature. In order to accomplish this, it required a lot of low level kernel changes. So many, in fact, that back-porting it to XP would basically make XP's kernel into Vista's kernel.

    There comes a point where you just have to say that a particular feature is only available in Vista. DX10 fits that bill.
    • brianboyko, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2An interesting analysis.

      I think people aren't mad at MS for requiring a new OS for DX10, so much as they're really not enthused about the OS in particular.
  • Dustin00, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2I'll buy Vista when World of Warcraft requires it.
  • dukeeeey, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2Would DX10 work on XP ?
    yes of course.
    • iSlayer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Its good to dream that we can run DX 0 games on XP but what about the drivers? Would nvidia and ati put support for DX10 on xp? I know nvidia and ati are working closely with microsoft on this and I dont think it will ever happen. Even if you installed DX10 on xp I dont see how they can get the drivers to work with it also. I know MS will shut this down very quickly in a blink of an eye. Boom! this is yesterdays news of what could of been...ahh well
    • OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1[quote]Its good to dream that we can run DX 0 games on XP but what about the drivers? Would nvidia and ati put support for DX10 on xp?[/quote]

      That support would come through OpenGL support, which already supports DX10 hardware on ANY platform. Go to Nvidia's dev site and take a look.

      Some of the game engine would have to be rewritten to eliminate any Vista-specific code, but you would still have geometry shaders and the optimizations of DX10 GPU programming.

      It really could be done without any major effort. Trying to port DX10 itself to XP would be more difficult.
  • lightandshadow, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0In late 1997 both SGI and Microsoft started work on a Unified high-level API for 3D computer graphics called the Fahrenheit project, with the goal to unify OpenGL and Direct3D. However, Microsoft screwed over SGI by not delivering the "LowLevel" portion of the project they had committed to. instead they focused on Direct3D and sat by as SGI's business model crashed and burned.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_graphics_API

    "By 1999 it was clear to SGI that Microsoft had no intention of delivering Low Level. Although officially working on it, almost no resources were dedicated to actually producing code, and at the same time Microsoft was in the process of investing massively in DirectX 7.0 (similar to 3.0 largely in name only). Without Low Level, Fahrenheit couldn't be delivered, and the project stalled. Since SGI's primary interest in the project was to provide an exit strategy from their MIPS based machines onto Windows-based PCs, SGI was in the terrible position of watching Microsoft destroy their business plan without really trying. Eventually SGI gave up, assigned their rights to Microsoft, and re-wrote their business plan".
  • seansshack, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2they have to do something to get you to buy vista. The biggest problem with vista? XP was just too good. It is was crap and unstable, we all may have a bigger reason to shift. But Aero, dx10 etc = can wait for upgrade until I have to.
    • vuoto, on 10/11/2007, -1/+0Yes, they have to do something to get you to buy Vista, but they could just as well take the approach of making it a superior operating system that does not interfere with my workflow or play big brother with what I care to do with my hardware, software, data and most important, media. I'd pay a few hundred bucks for that. But Vista? I bought a new machine not long ago and had to format the drive to put XP Pro back on because I was so disgusted with what I found in Vista. After this amount of time there really should have been a compelling reason for me to upgrade from XP. As long as I can play Supreme Commander, DX10 jus't aint it. And I'm mad enough now that I'm prepared to ignore good DX10 games (at least until virtualization gets good enough "elsewhere").

      I'm inclined to be sympathetic to Microsoft Windows, but they are losing me the further they move away from being an operating system that runs Windows programs and stays out of my way.

      And don't give me that stuff about how their strategic partners required them to implement DRM. Microsoft had the strongest hand in that card game, if they cared to use it.

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