DVDL2019: I already asked for a refund.
A wise decision, as it turns out. Why? Nobody guarantees the developer will not decide to demand the latest and screw you over when your OS/GPU would come to the end of support. This is not like with a typical GOG product, it's a risky investment at best, and a shipwreck at worst.
harbingerdawn: What does Windows 7 have to do with the AMD issue? Win7 users wouldn't be affected by it.
Then remove the newly added odd popup from the product now! Quote from it (the oddity is that it's not an error but a warning):
Error
Your system does not meet the minimum requirements for this program. GPU vendors only support Windows 10 and newer, and driver updates critical for SpaceEngine may not be available for your system.
Run anyway?
Yes | No
Is the popup made for pirates? How nice, so much care for piracy, thank you! Legal users can always see the reqs from a store page. As I said, this is not the norm in the industry to do what you've done, only 4 GOG products do this sort of things with a popup in general.
Instead of treating customers like idiots, you could inform which OpenGL features exactly are not present when it's really necessary. A very simple comparison to do since the game's requirements are known, a driver is capable to report the information: That's the smart approach to the problem that is objective and is actually helpful. The current appears to be dumb checking the OS version, the code is made in at best minutes. If all what it does is just not showing some effects, I don't see a "critical" problem in any way. Besides, you product is the only one (!) on the whole store being so incedibly weird in this regard, no other does this exact popup. I repeat: No product on the whole store does this kind of thing that you have pulled off in the latest product version for some ridiculous reasons without any real testing. How can you say if that's "critical" if you never tested? It doesn't cause anything critical.
If you baselessly claim my current driver to have no "criticial" updates, well, I have a sprinkle of reality: It is not "critical" to have it updated, the engine displayed stuff correctly and did not bug out badly on a version of the AMD driver from 2 years ago; Critical comes from the updated drivers for my GPU, is where all the Hell is roaring right now and I will not switch nor plan to switch because 1 single developer out of all the GOG products wants for a user to be on the latest drivers, potentially screwing up anyone who brought this product and is in a similar situation somehow where the latest drivers are suicidal to use. If you want to code so badly, why couldn't you code the support back or fallback to something when an OpenGL feature is not found? This is how everybody does. Yes it is convoluted, yes, it is not too easy, I do wish to not offer compatibility too but we have the responsibility when we created something, that's what being a developer is all about.
Like, do not take me very wrong, I perfectly understand why you are trying to "defend" the project by saying like it's not the project's fault in anything, why you despise all but specific setups like own system or why you love to not offer compatibility. What I go from is a customer's standpoint of view, not yours, I am not here to please you in any way. All what I initially wanted is to warn other users of the system, made an error, then you misread my error and have passed some crazy popups seemingly based on that.
harbingerdawn: I don't understand what you mean by "outting Windows 7 people".
"Outting Windows 7" is: Treating Windows 7 people like ash on a rooftop, not testing on the system, putting spam popups, not caring about the customers, being against supporting the system in the product that from 2011 (!) while its modern Russian site still lists Windows 7 (did you forgot to update the site?). This is how you outted it, literally, it's put out into the darkness with zero respect or honour. Space Engine
started with Windows XP as the minimum, Windows 7 as recommended. then it ditched Windows XP, then murdered Windows 7...
What's next, slauthering Windows 10 for Windows 11, 12, etc? Can the customers be sure you'll not do that again? Very likely to be repeated for the same reason of "we have limited resources, let's support only one thing, the customers do not matter, compatibility does not matter, all what matters is to break things." The only way you could confirm you wouldn't is by returning what you've taken away and sticking with it like a responsible reliable gaming developer. The majority of other developers on the planet do that thing quite well, despite the hurdles.
harbingerdawn: As for why 0.9.8.0 is not advertised as a "demo experience",
0.9.8.0 is not as "far" from the current as you love to think; Your eyes got clouded, do not perceive the project like an outsider. I took a swift look on your latest version, doesn't make much difference against this one, the core thing is the same, void-eaten. For example, "Hello Neighbour" in Alpha is basically not cooler than it is in the final, the core is the same (it offers Alpha as a demo). If the bug in 0.9.8.0 bugs you so badly, why wasn't it taken care of? Let me guess, not interested to spend coding time on adjusting the free product to the Nvidia drivers beyond 436.02. Tells a ton about the approach to own product's history or to accessibility for people to try it out in its past form; Making me sure you'll not care about Windows 10 customers when their time comes too.
harbingerdawn: A PC meeting the minimum requirements for SE does not cost thousands of dollars. The hardware required can be had for maybe $600 in the US, and that's assuming one buys only new products rather than used. Recommended spec would be maybe $700.
This shatters around a simple fact: The world doesn't circle around the US, the majority of humanity is in poorer developing countries to whom this is no peanuts and a lot of people use shockingly old hardware for one reason or another. Trying to shrink the amount of customers that can buy a game is quite a nightmare business plan.
All what this year's interaction told me about you as a developer is:
A lazy developer who despises all the systems but their own-likes, who will happily break compatibility moving on, who is riddled with excuses on everything, unable to perceive the project without a clouded in-dev vision, who will put the kind of popups in the product that no other GOG product does (no other specifically refers drivers, the 4 only are OS blocking), who is out of touch with their customers and is thinking everyone is living in a developed wealthy country, is imagining to afford a PC or two is a no-brainer-easy-peasy, who will not do anything or help a customer with an integrated GPU, a new Intel GPU or a GPU that differs from their own too much (see Steam, folks, see it), even though its the developer who wrote the graphics rendering of the engine. In short, one word: Negligence. Who would dare to invest in you or your project after all of that?
I am afraid this is only the peak of an iceberg. Likely uglier beneath ("
made in Russia"), more uglier deeper in.
