Dota 2 is dropping support for older operating systems and graphics APIs

Daniel Sims

Posts: 1,319   +43
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In context: Valve announced this week that in the near future, it will begin removing Dota 2's support for older Windows and Mac systems as well as older graphics APIs in order to streamline development. This should affect a very small percentage of players even though Dota 2 is designed to be compatible with a wide range of PCs.

Towards the end of a blog post, Valve said the changes will be coming over the course of months. Eventually it will remove support for 32-bit Windows and macOS versions below 10.14. Dota 2 will also eventually only support DirectX 11 and Vulkan, dropping support for DirectX 9 and OpenGL. Finally it will stop supporting XAudio, switching to SDL Audio.

The blog points out how Dota 2 already takes advantage of the newer operating systems and APIs for better graphics, sound and performance. Until now however, Valve has still been supporting players who are on the older systems. The blog suggests it's dropping support to free up resources to focus on more up-to-date systems. "Removing these older technologies will let us streamline our development efforts as well as use the newer features of these APIs to provide an even better Dota experience."

Valve doesn't have public numbers for what percentage of Dota 2 players this will affect, but it says nothing will change for "most" players. A look at the stats for all Steam users (Dota 2 remains one of the most popular games on Steam) reveals that less than one percent are using the 32-bit versions of Windows 7 or 10, and less than 0.2 percent are using macOS versions older than 10.14.

For comparison, Riot Games' League of Legends lists 64-bit Windows in its recommended system requirements, but not minimum. It still supports macOS going back to 10.12 but doesn't support DirectX 9. Valorant, despite having similarly generous system requirements, already only supports 64-bit Windows.

The same blog post also announced Valve will start selling tickets to the 2021 Dota 2 International Championships on September 22 at noon Eastern. The Championships begin on October 7 in Bucharest, Romania. Valve is requiring all in attendance to be fully vaccinated against Covid-19 and to wear a mask. The company linked to an FAQ with further details.

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I'm sure there will be plenty of players clinging to their ancient OS who will whine and moan about this and still refuse to upgrade.
As it stands, I only use a 32 bit copy of Windows 7 to come to Techspot and listen to people making such sweeping proclamations as yours. BTW, it works just dandy for this purpose.

XP works fine, (with a good AV), for "erotic art acquisition", not that I'm personally involved with such interests.

What's Dota? :rolleyes:
 
At least they are not killing off systems that fully support DX12 titles. MS is the only one arrogant enough to do that.
 
As it stands, I only use a 32 bit copy of Windows 7 to come to Techspot and listen to people making such sweeping proclamations as yours. BTW, it works just dandy for this purpose.

XP works fine, (with a good AV), for "erotic art acquisition", not that I'm personally involved with such interests.

What's Dota? :rolleyes:

You just made the man's point.
 
You just made the man's point.
He didn't as there aren't any players "whinning" about Dota 2 cutting support off for their older OS, yet. It's absolutely reasonable to run older operating system if it works fine, why would it not, and it does what it's supposed to do.
 
You just made the man's point.
How so? I'm not complaining about anything to do with gaming. My machines are all task based to something other than gaming.

As for the 4 GB limit for 32 bit systems, I've tried to extend the graphics capability with add in cards, a GT-730 and a GT-710, both with 2 GB of Vram, neither worked correctly, despite supposed "backward compatibility", with all versions of Pci-e.

So now, I content myself to only 100 or so tabs open, courtesy of Opera's "tab snooze" function, which M$ is just now pushing for Edge..

I almost daily get the message from Opera, "you computer is out of memory. I just hit reload, in the speed dial start screen magically appears anyway..

FWIW, the alleged memory saving champ, Firefox, isn't anywhere near as forgiving. You get a couple dozen tabs open with that,, and it allows the RAM being used by the system, to collide with the RAM being used by the IGP, and the damned thing throws up a black screen. (It doesn't say."game over", but you know that's sort of implied) 🤣
 
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You do realize some people use computers for things other than gaming, right?
But this article and thread are about a Game, and my post only talks about this effecting a person playing such game. It's pretty rare for a person to be playing dota on a 32bit machine, as any rig built for any type of gaming in the last half decade will be 64bit.


As for General use machines, The only mainstream OS in the last OS that is even worth running the 32bit version is windows XP. And it'd be stupid to even use such a OS in this modern era. There is no AV in the world that is gonna keep it locked down, and secondly it doesn't hold up well to modern tasks. XP sucked years ago for multitasking, and that didn't change.

Vista and up were standard use as a 64bit OS, with 32bit as an option for application or driver specific scenarios. Why anyone would forced themselves to use it, even in a VM. Just dumb. And I used Windows 7 64bit VM's all the time for talking to Rockwell PLCs.

It's so easy to blow past 4GB of RAM, that even trying to defend a 32bit OS makes yourself look like a fool. These are nothing more than application specific scenarios.
 
But this article and thread are about a Game, and my post only talks about this effecting a person playing such game. It's pretty rare for a person to be playing dota on a 32bit machine, as any rig built for any type of gaming in the last half decade will be 64bit.


As for General use machines, The only mainstream OS in the last OS that is even worth running the 32bit version is windows XP. And it'd be stupid to even use such a OS in this modern era. There is no AV in the world that is gonna keep it locked down, and secondly it doesn't hold up well to modern tasks. XP sucked years ago for multitasking, and that didn't change.

Vista and up were standard use as a 64bit OS, with 32bit as an option for application or driver specific scenarios. Why anyone would forced themselves to use it, even in a VM. Just dumb. And I used Windows 7 64bit VM's all the time for talking to Rockwell PLCs.

It's so easy to blow past 4GB of RAM, that even trying to defend a 32bit OS makes yourself look like a fool. These are nothing more than application specific scenarios.
Do I really need to be branded a "fool", when all I was doing was breaking your ballz in the first place?..

My prime machine has 24 GB of RAM, my next to prime machine has 16 GB, the one after that has 8 GB, The one I'm using ATM has 4 GB, and I also have two working perfectly satisfactory XP machines with 2 GB each.

The platforms being G-31, G-41, P-45, H-55, Z-77, Z-170.

I Guess the "what's Dota", line was a little too difficult for you to comprehend as a joke, eh?.

I'm not a gamer, but I'm not naive or stupid either.,
 
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@scavengerspc Don't forget to take two pairs of these along;

71FTiCghzZL._SL1300_.jpg

One for Dracula, and one for you, in case Dracula's falls off.

I hear these are all the rage for skiing in the Carpathians:

61YW5bdwLXL._AC_UL1500_.jpg
 
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(y) (Y) I did know he was a Count but I thought he was also a Prince.
Oh well. Live and learn.
Maybe they're the same rank, but in different cultures. I already admitted I don't know jack about royal rankings. Did you have to rub it in? 🤣

I do know that "land barons, own high rise apartment buildings and other prime real estate in our modern feudal culture..

In any case, all this talk of "vampires" made me want to dig up and watch all my, "Underworld" DVDs

Here's why
BiugyduIMAAP7m4.jpg:large
 
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Maybe they're the same rank, but in different cultures. I already admitted I don't know jack about royal rankings. Did you have to rub it in?
Actually, you probably know more than I do about that. I want to look it up but I might wait until I go there to ask. :D

In any case, all this talk of "vampiresd" made me want to dig up and watch all my, "Underworld" DVDs

Here's why
Ah, yes. I'm thinking she is the best reason to watch them. Again.
 
I never get tired of watching her in her tight leather pants,,marching in while firing both her silver bullet semis at once.. (y) (Y)

(It reminds me of home here in the hood, except the only thing these mutts ever hit is other people's windshields).

(y) (Y) I did know he was a Count but I thought he was also a Prince.
Oh well. Live and learn.


Hm, these days you can be a king and a queen all at once, so you never know. Oh, who am I kidding, at's always been that way in British and French royalty ;)

Speaking of black leather pants, "Black Widow", is out on DVD.

I can have a "who's got the nicest a** combat movie night".
 
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Maybe they're the same rank, but in different cultures. I already admitted I don't know jack about royal rankings. Did you have to rub it in? 🤣

I do know that "land barons, own high rise apartment buildings and other prime real estate in our modern feudal culture..

In any case, all this talk of "vampires" made me want to dig up and watch all my, "Underworld" DVDs

Here's why
BiugyduIMAAP7m4.jpg:large
I prefer Hellsing Ultimate, and to be more specific the TFS abridged parody :)

 
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