Path of Exile stops supporting Windows XP, Vista and DirectX 9

The ARPG Path of Exile game will end support on Windows XP and Vista in the next update, Grinding Gear Games said.

In the announcement on the game’s website, Grinding Gear said “the March update 3.6.0 will not run on Windows XP or Windows Vista operating systems.”

According to the developer, the number of XP and Vista users is almost only 0.1% of the total Path of Exile players. Obviously, Windows XP is too old, while Windows Vista is almost not interested.

The end of a generation of OS and graphics

“Microsoft, Steam and the vast majority of game companies have stopped supporting these operating systems, and we plan to do the same. This will free up more technical resources to use for more impactful work.”

At the same time, Grinding Gear will also drop the DirectX9 version of the game. DX9 is required to support Vista and XP users. But the vast majority of users run DirectX 9 because it allows them to turn off ‘shadows’, not because their computer doesn’t support DX11.

“The game environment in Path of Exile is designed around the ball. Going forward, we have to rely more on the ball because it is an important part of the game environment, and the game without the ball will be very different from what we envisioned. For that reason, we made sure our new renderer handles shadows faster. The DirectX 11 version (with shadows) is much more efficient than DirectX 9 which does not support shadows.”

Basically, if you’re a fan of Path of Exile and still play on XP or Vista, you have until March to upgrade to at least Windows 7. Meanwhile, 99.9% of Path of Exile users will enjoy it. enjoy the game faster, as Grinding Gear says it can “simplify the code a lot.”