#Windows 8 dolphin emulator not running windows 10
#Windows 8 dolphin emulator not running software
#Windows 8 dolphin emulator not running code
#Windows 8 dolphin emulator not running windows 8
#Windows 8 dolphin emulator not running windows 7

For example, we use the Microsoft Visual Studio to compile our Windows builds, Qt for our desktop graphical user interface, Cubeb audio library for sound, multiple graphics and input APIs, on and on. As a project, we rely heavily on a number of outside libraries and APIs. However, there is a limit to the sustainability of this process.

#Windows 8 dolphin emulator not running code

As long as the new code meets current standards and doesn't over complicate things too much, support is resumed. How did it last so long? The answer is that Dolphin is an open source project! If someone breaks support for an older operating system when merging a new feature, anyone can come behind them and do the work on their own to refactor the code to support the new feature while still maintaining support for the old OS.

#Windows 8 dolphin emulator not running windows 7

Mouse over or tap on a graph for details.Ī shockingly small number of Dolphin's users were on Windows 7, and none of our developers used Windows 7, yet we were still fixing Windows 7 support well into 2022. So how many Windows 7 users did we actually have? We turned to our optional usage statistics to find out. But, if a lot of Dolphin's users were still on Windows 7, then perhaps this would be worth the trouble, at least for now. In this case, Windows 7 was costing an increasing amount of developer time to maintain. When it comes time to make difficult maintenance decisions, one of the things we have to do is a cost versus benefit analysis. It was okay when it came to one or two minor issues every year, but when it was happening multiple times a month, something had to change. And if an issue was reported months later, which was common due to dwindling user numbers on Windows 7, that meant that it usually fell on another developer to pick up the pieces and fix things. If we did merge something and it broke Windows 7, that meant we had to add more branches to the code and complicate features, or potentially use a different method altogether to implement said feature. Not only are we no longer using Windows 7 regularly, we don't even have any Windows 7 systems readily available for us to test with! This meant that Windows 7 was totally untested by the Dolphin team, so Windows 7 support could break at any time and we'd only know when a user reported issues to us. This was made all the more difficult by the fact that Dolphin's developers have long moved on. We broke it and then fixed it and then broke it again, and had to fix that too. In our previous Dolphin Progress Report, we detailed the back and forth of trying to keep Windows 7 running. But within the last couple of months, time has caught up to Windows 7. Running into a minor issue here and there wasn't going to cause us to drop support, however.

Over the past couple of years, we ran into differences with Direct3D11 support which affected LogicOps Emulation, BSOD issues when using USB Passthrough, among others.

#Windows 8 dolphin emulator not running windows 10

Once Windows 10 released most new features simply never came to Windows 7. One of the main reasons that supporting Windows 7 has become such a burden is that Microsoft very strongly wanted people to use Windows 10. We did not take this decision lightly, but after evaluating the situation, we knew what had to be done in order to make sure we can keep working on Dolphin without having to make compromises.

#Windows 8 dolphin emulator not running software

With Microsoft ending support for Windows 7 a few years ago and more and more software abandoning it, supporting Windows 7 has become a liability for us.Īfter several months of breaking/restoring Windows 7 support, we've decided to drop support for Windows 7.

#Windows 8 dolphin emulator not running windows 8

While Windows 7 was able to survive the release of Windows 8 and 8.1, Windows 10 finally provided another popular option, and users have moved on. However, all good things must come to an end. We've supported Windows 7 for 13 years, making it our longest supported single operating system version ever. This combination was a tremendous success, and users loved Windows 7 so much that it had the longest support lifespan of any version of Windows - over 10 years!ĭolphin has been proud to support Windows 7 for its entire life, and then some. It continued the technical advancements from Vista while righting most of its wrongs, all wrapped up in a friendly, reliable package. After the wide rejection of Windows Vista, Windows 7 set the bar for all Windows versions to come. Dolphin Progress Report: June and July 2019

We don't plan on purposefully breaking support, but, its days are numbered. Eventually, the differences between Windows 7 and newer versions of Windows may increase to the point where we drop support for the aged OS. With none of our active developers using Windows 7 as their primary OS, the userbase dwindling, and Windows 7 starting to meaningfully fall behind newer versions of Windows, it's going to become more and more likely that features are accidentally broken in Windows 7.