PAX East, DX9 and 32-bit Support Ending

[Nerraw]

PAX East Clarification
Blizzard posted a clarification on the time of tomorrow's developer panel. It takes place 3 hours earlier than originally announced. We will of course still be covering the panel live, right here on MMOC-Champion.

Hey all,

The PAX event site is correct. The panel starts at 9:30AM PDT / 12:30PM EDT / 6:30 PM CEST. We have corrected the blog and will be posting a reminder that specifies time zones more clearly today.

There are also still a few hours left to submit questions for our developer interview. So if you have burning questions that you would love to hear an answer to, feel free to follow the link!

Support Ending for DX9 and the 32-bit Heroes Client
DirectX9 and the 32-bit Heroes client will no longer be supported from July of this year. If you're still running an older system, now might be a good time to look for an upgrade.

In the coming months, we’re planning to end support for DirectX9 and the 32-bit version of the Heroes of the Storm client. DirectX has had several major releases since DX9, and the vast majority of players in the Heroes community are now running the 64-bit version of the game, along with DirectX11 or higher.

Once support ends, Heroes of the Storm will no longer run for players who are attempting to use the 32-bit game client or DirectX9. Please also note that while the 64-bit Heroes client might still be playable on some machines using DirectX10, this may not be the case for all configurations, which is why we recommend that all our players upgrade to at least DirectX11.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. If you‘re not already using the 64-bit Heroes of the Storm client and DX11 or higher, we encourage you to consider making the switch prior to July of this year, which is when we aim to go live with the planned changes.

[caervek]

"the vast majority of players in the Heroes community are now running the 64-bit version of the game, along with DirectX11 or higher"

If that's correct then it's quite worrying for Heroes popularity/uptake. Most gamers don't have 64bit/DX11 hence all the really popular games still supporting 32bit/DX9 as that's what the majority of the playerbase uses, HotS bucking the trend implies it's remained niche despite all the improvements since launch

[Micronetic]

So people with 32bit and DX9 machines will go to League of Legends?

[Gaidax]

Who even uses dx9 only nowadays?

It’s frikkin’ 2k18, update your shit.

[Nerraw]

Most gamers don't have 64bit/DX11

Steam's hardware survey disagrees.

http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey

[caervek]

Steam's hardware survey disagrees.

http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey

Steams hardware survey is pretty much a joke as it's optional and most gamers don't use it.

By removing support for 32bit and pre-DX11 cards Blizzard are cutting off the majority of the Asian and Russian markets, which are the biggest MOBA markets.

This either means that HotS has had such an awful uptake in those markets that Blizzard are seeking to cut their losses, or that it's done so well in other non-traditional MOBA markets that it's succeeded in carving out it's own niche as a lightweight casual alternative to LoL/Dota (which in fairness is what Blizzard announced it would be), hopefully the latter

[Ballistic]

Does Blizzard launcher collect hardware data? because if it does that means they enough data to know if this is the correct decision or not.

[Ickz]

Hopefully this means more optimization for current gen hardware? Last time I tried getting into HotS, I couldn't get past the fact that my fps would plummet into the 60s or even 50s during heavy combat regardless of how low I set the graphics - this is on a GTX 1070/i7 4930k@4.2ghz.

[Gaidax]

Steams hardware survey is pretty much a joke as it's optional and most gamers don't use it.

By removing support for 32bit and pre-DX11 cards Blizzard are cutting off the majority of the Asian and Russian markets, which are the biggest MOBA markets.

This either means that HotS has had such an awful uptake in those markets that Blizzard are seeking to cut their losses, or that it's done so well in other non-traditional MOBA markets that it's succeeded in carving out it's own niche as a lightweight casual alternative to LoL/Dota (which in fairness is what Blizzard announced it would be), hopefully the latter

Ah yes the conspiracy fantasies begin.

They are doing all of this for all their games, likely because supporting DX9 simply is holding them back, by wasting time on compatibility for people using ancient hardware.

And unlike some fantasies here, they have actual data on who uses what and it is likely that the critical mass is reached for decision to take place.

It simply makes sense, there is no need to make shit up.

- - - Updated - - -

Heck, anything above Windows XP and GPU from 2011 and going forward supports DX11 in hardware. I can't imagine what kind of shit one has to use to not match this minimum requirement.

I can only imagine maybe Linux with Wine which have DX11 implemented in shoddy way, would be the most relevant user group, but that's super niche.

[caervek]

Ah yes the conspiracy fantasies begin.

Did you quote me in error?

Your post seems mostly unconnected to mine and/or agreeing with me :S

[Reza2001]

"the vast majority of players in the Heroes community are now running the 64-bit version of the game, along with DirectX11 or higher"

If that's correct then it's quite worrying for Heroes popularity/uptake. Most gamers don't have 64bit/DX11 hence all the really popular games still supporting 32bit/DX9 as that's what the majority of the playerbase uses, HotS bucking the trend implies it's remained niche despite all the improvements since launch

Someone did say this "Blizzard removing this will make their work 2 times less , because with every update they are basically making 2 updates , one for 32-bit version and the other for 64-bit" if that's the case then I'd say it's reasonable as long as they work on the engine system and improve or maybe even rework it

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Someone did say this "Blizzard removing this will make their work 2 times less , because with every update they are basically making 2 updates , one for 32-bit version and the other for 64-bit" if that's the case then I'd say it's reasonable as long as they work on the engine system and improve or maybe even rework it

Well it is 2018, eventually ppl will need to upgrade.