According to an interview with Gabe Newell, only one in fifty Steam users have a DirectX 10 graphics card. This led to comments from Newell himself claiming that Microsoft made a mistake making DirectX 10 only compatible with Windows Vista. Of course, this, in turn, made the number of players who use DirectX 10 much smaller than expected.
In addition, Newell talked about the lack of device diversity when it comes to PC gaming. While keyboards and mice are platform standards, Newell said that he would like to see Wiimotes and Guitar Hero guitars for PC. But due to lack of DirectX support for these devices, developers haven’t spent the resources to make them.
If you missed it, this GC ’07 Valve Demonstration video reveals that the Orange Box will be released on Steam on October 10th, which is the same day U.S. retailers will release the game package. The game will hit European stores on October 12th.
While PC fans will only see the new Source engine features (including smoother anti-aliasing, soft shadows and distortion effects) in Half-Life 2: Episode Two, console owners will get to see the new features, along with HDR, in Half-Life 2 and Episode One courtesy of the Orange Box.
Lastly, here are the minimum requirements for the Orange Box; note they’re slighter higher due to the enhanced Source engine features:
1.7 GHz Pentium 4
512 MB system RAM
DirectX 8 compatible video card
