[Bf-committers] Blender on Windows - some thoughts about XP and32bit

[Nkansah Rexford]

Xp support should be dropped. Yes, for real, ASAP

google.com/+Nkansahrexford | sent from Tab
On Dec 5, 2013 3:33 PM, "Jürgen Herrmann" <shadowrom at me.com> wrote:

> Hi there,
>
> I too think we should drop XP Support asap. It would make it easier to so
> a clean transition to VS2012+ without the need of compatibility stuff
> within blender and its dependencies. Unfortunately I am not able to
> complete this atm because of lack of time...
>
> /Jürgen
>
> ----- Ursprüngliche Nachricht -----
> Von: "Thomas Dinges" <blender at dingto.org>
> Gesendet: 05.12.2013 15:19
> An: "bf-blender developers" <bf-committers at blender.org>
> Betreff: Re: [Bf-committers] Blender on Windows - some thoughts about XP
> and32bit
>
> I forgot to mention:
> We also only support 4 year old Mac OS versions (10.6 and above) and I
> am pretty sure that a 13 year old Linux is not supported either.  :)
>
> Am 05.12.2013 15:07, schrieb Thomas Dinges:
> > Hi everyone,
> > I want to share my opinion about some things regarding Blender on
> Windows.
> >
> > Please note: This is just my own opinion and no decision of any kind has
> > been made here, so please don't panic. I'd like to get the opinion from
> > the other active Blender developers here.
> >
> > 1) Windows XP
> > ======================
> > Windows XP is 13 years old and even Microsoft itself drops support for
> > it once and for all in April 2014.
> > Sometimes we have bugs that only happen on XP, we have some (little)
> > special code in libraries such as OIIO for example to support XP....
> >
> > I think it's time to fade out the support for it. If a vendor (in this
> > Microsoft) doesn't even support its product any longer, why should a
> > third party do it? Also on a side note, XP has a lot of security holes
> > by now and they won't be patched. Microsoft itself expresses a clear
> > warning to users:
> >
> http://news.techworld.com/security/3476295/microsoft-to-windows-xp-users-your-operating-system-is-a-major-security-risk/
> >
> > It should be easy to keep the binaries working, but on a support level
> > (Support in bug tracker, system requirements on blender.org) I suggest
> > to mark XP as "not officially supported any longer".
> >
> > 2) 32 bit
> > ======================
> > Dropping 32 bit for the Windows platform is nothing that should happen
> > soon, I guess some people still use Windows Vista and 7 with 32bit OS.
> >
> > Nevertheless, if we take a look at our minimal system requirements:
> > http://www.blender.org/download/requirements/ , it mentions a Dual Core
> > CPU with SSE2 support. Afaik all those CPUs support 64bit instructions
> > so no new hardware would be required, just a OS update.
> >
> > Also, there is always Linux, if people want to keep using older hardware
> > but cannot afford an update to Windows 7/8.
> >
> > 3) Problems and chances
> > ======================
> > So, why do I bring up this topic? This has several reasons.
> >
> > Developer team
> > ---------------------------
> > Windows developer team is quite small already, compared to Linux/OS X
> > platform. I think we have some devs who develop on it but actual
> > platform maintenance (libraries, release builds) is done by 2-3 people
> > max. And I don't think any of us is still using a XP/32bit setup.
> >
> > Personally I don't use 32bit systems for several years already, and I
> > would be very happy if someone could take over support for that. It just
> > takes a lot of time to compile libs (like recently new OIIO/OSL) for 32
> > bit as well, fix (compile) errors, build 32 bit Blender, run some tests
> > and make sure it works all fine.
> >
> > MSVC 2008
> > ---------------------------
> > Using a 5 year old compiler is a bad thing. Not only can we get a much
> > better performance for (Cycles) Rendering for example, by using a recent
> > version (like MSVC 2012), we could also get rid of some special code in
> > our libraries and patches which we added just to make it compile on this
> > ancient compiler...
> >
> > MSVC 2012 is 20% faster in Cycles rendering afaik, so we don't talk
> > about some tiny numbers here.
> > So, why didn't we update yet? Lack of Windows developers and time.
> > Especially if we have to build/update *all* libs for both x64/32 and
> > make sure it runs smooth everywhere, this is just a boring task no one
> > really wants to do.
> >
> > Jürgen did a great job with his work on vc2012 libs, but I think he is
> > busy lately and some things need to be finished here still before we
> > could switch to this for official releases.
> >
> > Other applications
> > ---------------------------
> > Other 3D applications already dropped support for Windows XP and/or
> > 32bit: http://temp.dingto.org/SysRequirements.pdf
> >
> > This is of course no real reason, but a pretty clear indication.
> >
> > 4) Possible plan
> > ======================
> > Windows XP:
> > Blender 2.70: Last version with official support for Windows XP, after
> > the release we remove it from blender.org (system requirements info
> > text) and fade out support in the bug tracker.
> >
> > Blender 2.71 and above: Binaries will probably still run fine on XP, but
> > it might break at some point.
> >
> > 32bit:
> > Blender 2.70: Add a notice on blender.org, that we highly recommend
> > using a 64bit operating system for best performance and best support.
> >
> > And again, I'd like to hand over the support for Windows 32 bit to
> > someone else, preferably someone who actually is *on* this platform and
> > can test issues as well.
> >
> >
> > Sorry for the long mail and I hope you don't misinterpret this. I am
> > very well aware of people living in poor countries who cannot update
> > easily, but at the same time we also have to look forward and stop
> > supporting ancient technology.
> >
> > Best regards,
> > Thomas
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > Bf-committers at blender.org
> > http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
>
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