We’re classing this as a rumour for now, pending official confirmation from EA, but it’s looking pretty likely: a tweet from Johan Andersson, a developer at DICE, has revealed that the Frostbite 2 engine used in the upcoming Battlefield 3 (our 58th most anticipated game of 2011) will support neither the ageing Windows XP or DirectX 9.
“Frostbite 2 is primarily developed for DX11,” reads the tweet. “XP & DX9 is _not_ supported, 64-bit OS is recommended. Lots of time to upgrade if you havent!” Whilst it’s not an official announcement, coming from a developer on the team does make it seem pretty certain.
Whilst Windows XP is now not far off a decade old, and has since been usurped by two major releases of the operating system, the Steam hardware survey from December shows that a good 25% of gamers that use the service still use it, although that figure is steadily declining (down from around 35% in July).
In terms of DirectX, version 10 was introduced with Windows Vista, followed by 11 with Windows 7, although a compatible graphics card is also required. Once more, referring to the Steam hardware survey, figures from May show that about 57% of users have DirectX 10-compatible systems, with just 5.6% on DirectX 11. Whilst many games in the last couple of years have had DirectX 10- and 11-specific additional effects, Battlefield 3 will be only the second (after Shattered Horizon) to specifically require version 10 or higher.
Battlefield 3 is likely to be revealed at some point at or before the Game Developer Conference 2011 at the end of March, where a number of technical panels about the game will take place, and this rumour will likely be confirmed or denied. EA’s CEO John Riccitiello recently confirmed in an interview that the game will be out towards the end of 2011.
ElGuason
man that’s crazy i mean there’s a lot of people using xp still that’s gonna hurt them i think.
PriceKitty
Consoles and macs are better anyway.
Dice knows what they’re doing for supporting Ps3 over Xbox and not supporting Windows.
^_^