Windows

From DmWiki

Windows is the flagship operating system of the Microsoft corporation, and is highly valued by users for being easy to use, with the everyman in mind in its design, with the original Windows system bringing computers home to users who were often either incapable or unwilling to learn how to utilize a command prompt. While Windows 1.0 through 3.x were the operating systems of choice for those who wished to utilize a computer without needing to learn (what was considered to be) esoteric commands and structures.

Windows 95 truly brought personal computing into the mainstream, and brought with it the introduction of the DirectX API. While originally simply an engine for blitting and calling bitmaps on screen (not very useful for real game development) the API was improved over time, and saw the development of some of the more impressed game titles, one of the first popular DirectX titles was named Hellbender.

The most popular Windows OSes today are based on the Windows NT (New Technology) operating system, and are Windows 2000, Windows XP, and the newly released Windows Vista. Accompanying the OSes (respectively) are DirectX 7 (2000), DirectX 8 (Windows XP SP0 and SP1), DirectX 9 (Windows XP SP2), and DirectX 10 (Windows Vista). While DirectX is backwards compatible, because of the fact that no DirectX build can be reverted to an earlier build, Windows XP is incapable of being run with anything less than DirectX 8 and Windows Vista only supports DirectX 10.

Windows is the most commonly targeted operating system, and has many titles developed for it. However, in recent years, the OpenGL API has vastly improved alongside DirectX, and thus Linux and OS X operating systems are also being targeted in the industry as well now, with titles like DOOM 3 being able to natively support all three operating systems without the user being required to try and run compatibility layers.