AMD Readies Ryzen Platform Drivers for Windows 7

[Melvis]

It might be the most used OS, but it definitely isn't outselling Windows 10. If that was the case, this chart wouldn't have the Win7 line going down and the Win10 line going up. They both would be going up, and the Win7 line would be going up much steeper than the Win10.

I can definitely see why AMD is supporting Win7, but I can't see any good reason why someone would put Win7 on a new computer. After using Win 8/8/1 and not 10, I hate working on Windows 7 computers. Windows 7 just feels so old, and I actually miss some of the things that I use all the time in Windows 10. It kind of feels like when Win7 was the new hotness and I had to go back to work on XP machines.

There was a article on it here on TPU just a few month ago showing that the sales of W7 where outselling W10. But id have to do some digging to find it again, but it was here on TPU.

 

[newtekie1]

There was a very short uptick in Win7 sales right when Microsoft announced they were going to stop selling Win7 all together. But overall, Win10 is outselling 7 by a large margin.

 

[Shihab]

There was a article on it here on TPU just a few month ago showing that the sales of W7 where outselling W10. But id have to do some digging to find it again, but it was here on TPU.

7 has reached EoL (for OEM shipment of 7 powered PCs) >2 years ago, save for Win7Pro (which isn't cheap enough to be a competitive choice). OEM sales make the majority of OS sales, so I fail to see how 7 can outsell 10, which is practically powering every machine being sold since 2016; and 8 which has been doing the same since 2014(?).

 

[Melvis]

7 has reached EoL (for OEM shipment of 7 powered PCs) >2 years ago, save for Win7Pro (which isn't cheap enough to be a competitive choice). OEM sales make the majority of OS sales, so I fail to see how 7 can outsell 10, which is practically powering every machine being sold since 2016; and 8 which has been doing the same since 2014(?).

I think we put it down to alot of people that upgraded there W7 machines to 10 and ended up rolling back to 7. I will find the TPU article on it soon.

 

[medo]

I'll wait until you guys are finished beta testing windows 10 for me before I upgrade. Thx in advance.

+1

 

[Dethroy]

Can't believe all these false claims regarding Windows 10, especially if folks haven't used it on a daily basis.
Windows 10 is a great OS and everytime I'm forced to use Win 7, I can't help but think "How are people still clinging to that outdated software?". I'm puzzled to see tech enthusiasts unwilling to move to a new platform.

 

[kruk]

Windows 10 is a great OS and everytime I'm forced to use Win 7, I can't help but think "How are people still clinging to that outdated software?".

What can you do with Windows 10 that you can't do with Windows 7 (except playing DX12 games)?

 

[Imsochobo]

Can't believe all these false claims regarding Windows 10, especially if folks haven't used it on a daily basis.
Windows 10 is a great OS and everytime I'm forced to use Win 7, I can't help but think "How are people still clinging to that outdated software?". I'm puzzled to see tech enthusiasts unwilling to move to a new platform.

I have 3 computers on windows 10, 1 on windows 7.
Windows 7 is still my favorite....

windows 10:
Why change to stuff that is more resource intensive for the sake of making it bloated.
Calculator have been bloated beyond any imagination as an example, I like when stuff starts instantly

 

[Mindweaver]

A vacation warning has been issued. Let's keep it clean.

 

[Shihab]

Can't believe all these false claims regarding Windows 10, especially if folks haven't used it on a daily basis.
Windows 10 is a great OS and everytime I'm forced to use Win 7, I can't help but think "How are people still clinging to that outdated software?". I'm puzzled to see tech enthusiasts unwilling to move to a new platform.

I, on the other hand, often wonder why people are so liberal with the "outdated" label.

"New" isn't necessarily "better", especially when it's about something as complicated as an OS; it's mostly an option that can be better or worse depending on the users' needs and expectations. I, for one, am concerned more with how it performs with some renderers and image processing applications, some CAD/CAE applications and office software. 10 doesn't prove better (significantly or at all) on those fronts performance-wise, and stability-wise, 7 wins (not saying that it is more stable by design, rather that it has a huge support head start). I do like some of the new GUI features introduced with it, but I weighed they aren't worth trading -relative- control over the OS (updates, telemetry, etc) I had with 7.

The scales might tip in favour of 10 for me and other people once 7 hits the end of its extended support, or when UWP or DX12 exclusives gain even half a decent market-share. None of these are happening soon though, and thanks to AMD, neither will we have to worry about hardware support being cut off.
Heck, I'm actually ready to abandon 7 the moment Microsoft reverse their updates/telemetry stance!

 

[eidairaman1]

That dinosaur of operating systems should be already discontinued. Who wants to run hot new hardware on a 7½yr old OS? Have fun playing DX12 games, oh wait..

Your looking at this from a personal perspective. For many medium to large businesses the idea of transitioning to a new OS is scary. Contrary to what some believe, businesses do try to keep up with the times as hardware has continued to evolve. Intel is attempting to force the hand of many to use Windows 10 if they want to embrace their technology going forward.

I know from personal experience that several of the more specialized applications that I see used on a daily basis still have difficulty working properly in Windows 10. Sure we could blame the software manufacturer, but a company should never NEED to upgrade unless they feel confident in the transition.

As above, and many people simply wont join the Windows 10 choo-choo train. Support for W7 still is a few years, so no rush.

I think it's a well positive move from AMD.

I know some company's who still work on MS-DOS 5.0. There's no fysical harddrive, it's all ROM based and all is programmed to work out of the box instant. But again, many systems in businesses still operate at Windows 2000, XP or Windows 7. I dont feel the need to upgrade to Windows 10 'just because it has DX12' and all that crap.

Most new games will still be playable in DX11 for a while.
Also there are still new games and coming that still use DX9c

I am moving out of the dark ages with my new build to 8.1

Nice such a scrappy little company can pull that off. But this isn't about us!

There lots of big business still with Enterprise Win7, and many aren't looking to change anytime soon. Such enterprise customers have custom support agreements with Microsoft and are willing to pay the steep price to keep that play, as a changing all their hardware is way more costly. They'll opt for Premium Support agreement, allowing special updates well after the end of official support. While here companies can slowly change over to AMD hardware and when they drop Win7 such hardware is still upgradeable. Perhaps this AMD's incentive IDK.

Wait wait, wasn't the official news that both Intel and AMD will only support W10 and the newest Linux versions on Kaby Lake/Ryzen?

I'll wait until you guys are finished beta testing windows 10 for me before I upgrade. Thx in advance.

" ageing Windows 7 operating system " LMFAO, windows 7 is still better than Windows 10.

That is excellent and a smart move since W7 is still the most used OS on the planet and is (last time I checked) still outselling W10. We all know that W7 support will go beyond 2020, look what happened to XP, and who gives a flying BEEP! about DX12? DX needs to DIAF, as OpenGL and Vulkan are way better then DX. Also if your not a gamer then its even more of a useless point bringing up DX.

Well done AMD Im very happy!

This is great news for me even, MS was getting tons of flack for XP and Vista especially how hungry they have gotten. MS was getting it for 8.0 and 8.1 too for its gui. W7 was refined well enough out the gate.

I am using W7 Pro 64bit until I feel a true need to run W10. With MS about to launch another GWX parasiteware scheme, I'm sticking with the matured OS. XP rigs with 2-3GB ram run fine with the 32Bit version of W7.
I might buy another SSD of the same and put W10 on it for s&g as a dualboot config.

 

[Melvis]

I cant find it here on TPU...yet but here is a few quick google searches.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/windows-7-now-growing-faster-than-windows-10-511460.shtml

https://betanews.com/2015/12/01/win...nues-to-slow-as-windows-7-and-8-x-gain-share/

 

[kn00tcn]

Can't believe all these false claims regarding Windows 10, especially if folks haven't used it on a daily basis.
Windows 10 is a great OS and everytime I'm forced to use Win 7, I can't help but think "How are people still clinging to that outdated software?". I'm puzzled to see tech enthusiasts unwilling to move to a new platform.

oh a true enthusiast realizes the problem isnt that it's new, the problem is the baggage it comes with, but thanks to that i've gotten quite familiar with how linux works

 

[Dethroy]

oh a true enthusiast realizes the problem isnt that it's new, the problem is the baggage it comes with, but thanks to that i've gotten quite familiar with how linux works

I'm very familiar with Linux as well. Our whole virtualization platforms, storages and everything network and security related runs on Linux. I wouldn't want to use it at home though.
My point was, that Windows 10 is better than Windows 7.

 

[cyneater]

Good bussiness move AMD.

Many bussiness still run windows 7 and earlier versions of windows up until a year or so ago I knew of a bussiness that still ran NT3.5. Most of the machines at my old work used windows XP. The software would only work with windows XP.

Personally Windows 10 is awesome. As I have made a decent amount of coin installing windows 7 or linx on peoples PC's who hate windows 8/10 becuse of the ( insert randrom curse word) to discribe the giu.

Personally like many other mature minded people who do not water cool care about RBG lights on ram or like EA ill go to some Nix distro. lack of real startup menu and spyings and having it forced down my throat are the reason I dislike windows 10.

Even though the upgrade was free I hate the gui I find it feels like a big phone and its less friendly than OSX. If I wanted a new gui id probbly go OSX.

Each to there own.

Not everyone wants a bleeding edge microsoft OS or gets a rager when they mention direct X 12.

If anyone would like to make a new desktop os that can play games.... they might get a market share as many people don't like windows 10.

 

[kn00tcn]

I'm very familiar with Linux as well. Our whole virtualization platforms, storages and everything network and security related runs on Linux. I wouldn't want to use it at home though.
My point was, that Windows 10 is better than Windows 7.

my point was that there are too many deal breakers, therefore it's not better, no way... no choice but to segregate it into only doing media content & phase out win7 to the same

most of linux lacks proper hardening, so it's also sucking

 

[Tomorrow]

Most new games will still be playable in DX11 for a while.
Also there are still new games and coming that still use DX9c

Indeed. There are no DX12 only games. DX12 at the moment is more of an afterthought and in most cases it actually lowers performance (especially on Nvidia hardware). Plus it's limited to a single OS. Vulkan is a much better alternative - unfortunately it requires the game to use OpenGL to work.

I will very happily replace my aging Sandy Bridge with a Zen build in the future. I do not play DX12 games, but I have some DX11 ones which run perfectly on the 7. I also have some older games that I have spend countless hours to get them running on the 7 and I'm not going through this again with 10.

Indeed. Zen looks pretty solid after years of milking by Intel.

I'll wait until you guys are finished beta testing windows 10 for me before I upgrade. Thx in advance.

Haha same here. Hopefully it will be ready in 2020 when Win7 extended support ends.

I'm not against new software or hardware. Im running GTX 1080 on a 1440p 144Hz IPS monitor and most of my software like browsers etc are the newest release. But i just don't like Win10. There are constant bugs with each new build (even with major releases - i'm not talking about insider builds). The forced windows update is terrible and i won't even go to the black box telemetry, weird driver issues, ugly flat looks and the fact that MS pushes me to log in with their account, pushes me to use the store, pushes me to use inferior metro apps and even has the metro apps as default despite having desktop apps packaged too.
It's not as bad as Win8 first release was for keyboard and mouse users but it's another ball of whacks.

 

[Octopuss]

Vulkan is a much better alternative - unfortunately it requires the game to use OpenGL to work.

Vulkan has nothing to do with OpenGL.

 

[Tomorrow]

Vulkan has nothing to do with OpenGL.

Vulkan has everything to do with OpenGL. It is even developed by the same developer that controls OpenGL development. Just like DX12 is a low-level API version of DX11 Vulkan is the same to OpenGL.

Vulkan, formerly named the "Next Generation OpenGL Initiative" (glNext), is a grounds-up redesign effort to unify OpenGL and OpenGL ES into one common API that will not be backwards compatible with existing OpenGL versions. The initial version of the API was released on 16 February 2016.

 

[Octopuss]

From that standpoint, yes. But they are two separate and standalone APIs. You do NOT need OpenGL in any shape or form for ANYTHING Vulkan-related. It would make less than zero sense anyway.

You are also wrong with the Directx comparison.
Vulkan is actually - as far as I remember - based on Mantle. At least partially.
edit: actually, according to Wikipedia, Vulkan is not based on OpenGL at all.

I suggest you educate yourself next time before making statements.

 

[Tomorrow]

From that standpoint, yes. But they are two separate and standalone APIs. You do NOT need OpenGL in any shape or form for ANYTHING Vulkan-related. It would make less than zero sense anyway.

You are also wrong with the Directx comparison.
Vulkan is actually - as far as I remember - based on Mantle. At least partially.
edit: actually, according to Wikipedia, Vulkan is not based on OpenGL at all.

I suggest you educate yourself next time before making statements.

Vulkan can only be implemented in OpenGL games. That was my original point. Vulkan can't run on top of a DirectX only game. Yes it's based on Mantle - i know that.

 

[ZeDestructor]

Vulkan can only be implemented in OpenGL games. That was my original point. Vulkan can't run on top of a DirectX only game. Yes it's based on Mantle - i know that.

Actually, no. You can implement Vulkan on a DX-based game (see the Mantle renderer in BF3 (iirc) for an example of just that). The thing is, Vulkan wants OpenGL shaders, and refuses DX shaders, so any game dev who cares even slightly about cost and development schedules and already has D3D experience won't do a Vulkan implementation alongside a D3D9 or D3D11 implementation - D3D12 is so much easier than porting every single shader, and a bunch of other API calls.

Fun fact, you can also implement OpenGL in a D3D game - SCS software did just that for ETS2, then ported it to Linux and OSX with native OpenGL, unlike most of 2K and Square Enix' efforts that wrap the D3D11 engine and live-translate the calls into OpenGL.

 

[Tomorrow]

Actually, no. You can implement Vulkan on a DX-based game (see the Mantle renderer in BF3 (iirc) for an example of just that). The thing is, Vulkan wants OpenGL shaders, and refuses DX shaders, so any game dev who cares even slightly about cost and development schedules and already has D3D experience won't do a Vulkan implementation alongside a D3D9 or D3D11 implementation - D3D12 is so much easier than porting every single shader, and a bunch of other API calls.

Fun fact, you can also implement OpenGL in a D3D game - SCS software did just that for ETS2, then ported it to Linux and OSX with native OpenGL, unlike most of 2K and Square Enix' efforts that wrap the D3D11 engine and live-translate the calls into OpenGL.

Wow this is really informative. Thanks. Now i feel a tiny bit smarter again.

 

[RejZoR]

That dinosaur of operating systems should be already discontinued. Who wants to run hot new hardware on a 7½yr old OS? Have fun playing DX12 games, oh wait..

This. If you buy brand spanking new platform, why on Earth would you use Windows 7 ? Sure, I liked it's fancy AERO Glass as well, but despite silly things with Windows 10, I'd never go back again. If you spend 1K $ or € on new hardware, surely you could spend extra 100 on brand new OS.

 

[Octopuss]

There were enough legit reasons for staying with Windows 7 given over the past few months and I don't think that discussion needs to be repeated. You like Windows 10 - good for you. No need to comment on W7 then.