Pass-through access to the video card and other peripherals is available in new-generation CPUs, so now it's up to the VM developers to implement support for it. The upcoming version of Hyper-V requires a new-generation CPU which may indicate that it will be implementing this.

As far as the here and now goes the only option is the video card emulation available in VMware and VirtualBox products, and while this is slower and less compatible some things already work quite well with it.

Im still using XP for the main reason that
a - Its still VERY functional
b - Everything runs on it well and good
d - Im still getting used to Windows 7 on my mums Laptop so this is sticking for now
e - I missed reason c
f - That wasnt a reason
g - neither was that
h - maybe I should stop
w - yeah I should

XD

Hardware support for VMs are actually in most AMD chips (though only specific Intel chips you have to check which ones) because intel dominates the market VM makers for public use generally haven't used them Business VM's however are another matter

i'm not sure how those two guys factor into this... ;)

i don't even know what you mean. dial-up? hasn't that been extinct for a decade?

that's kind of irrelevant when the average Steam user doesn't have much of a gaming PC anyway. it's a pretty well stratified user-base and thus a pretty good indicator for the kind of hardware your average gamer has.

i don't deny that but there has to come a point where users of obsolete soft- or hardware are forced to go along with the rest of us, in the interest of compatibility and progress. it's always been that way, with CD-ROMs, with DVDs, with 3D-accelerators, etc.

GoG aren't a huge company. they have limited finances and manpower. both of which should be focused on compatibility on the latest available hard- and software. with Windows 8 around the corner, it would be a joke if they continued to support XP while neglecting W8.

I fully expect the day that XP goes to below 15-20% on a steam survey is the day one of the big publishers will announce they're going DX11+ only

Why would publishers go DX11 only when almost all games are designed for consoles using DX9 hardware?

because it won't happen for about 18-36 months by then the wiiU and next xbox will be very close to release or well and truely out, the wiiU is a DX10 equiv part, the next Xbox is DX11. PS4 is not expected for 3-4 years now so may just be releasing details/recently out at this point DX9 is dead on consoles and only used for games already in production.
So why would they continue to support DX9 when it's a waste of devs?

Simple. There is very little commercial benefit from supporting DirectX 10+. It might make a difference if there was a substantial commercial argument that enabled the average gamer to discern the difference between DX9 and DX10 (and DX11 for that matter) but the reality is that there is very little in the way of visual differences.

Crytek, for example, artificially locked out some of the Ultra High features for XP users of Crysis even though the features themselves had been implemented in DirectX 9. The real difference between DX9 and above is minimal.

Now you tell me: When you have a choice between supporting the most recent technology and thereby locking out 15% of your potential customers, and producing the same product with pretty much the same quality using older technology, thereby enabling almost all your potential customers to use it, which one do you choose`as a businessperson?

I remember that Windows 98 support wasn't really phased out until around 2005, by which point the OS share of Win98 really was miniscule. The switch was only made when the impact would have been minimal.

There's a good reason why sales of Just Cause 2, Halo 2 and Stormrise all tanked for the PC, even though Just Cause 2 was an absolutely awesome game.

Slightly higher art costs for much lower graphics dev costs (I don't have to pay for someone to do all the pretty effects that need extra coding in DX9 I can just use the DX11 calls) and I ONLY lose 15% of my target audience... but wait my target audience probably isn't that 15% using XP since most of them will be on 64bit OS's add to that I can just use the new Xbox's artwork and don't need lower res versions due to DX9 limitations... yeah screw XP it can take a flying leap hello shiny DX11...

Now look at those 3 games that "tanked" they released early in the OS's life cycle when adoption was around 10% JC2 was still enough of a hit to be profitable and it had a TINY target audience (gamers with the right OS and right GPU class) they sold well to their available market they did not "tank"

What mess?

Sounds like he still uses the actual start menu! though why he doesn't just set 7 to basic instead of aero...

Ultraconservative users. Got to love them.

That's not ultraconservative; we've got customers who still use NT4.

Just jab that dagger deeper.

I've seen systems still using BBC micro's to do invoices etc because so and so doesn't want to learn a new system (pointing at a guy who should be retired)