I notice that Microsoft has killed the link to Direct X9c June 2010 version. This has been the go to for many players who are having installation issues with Everquest. Once 9c is installed the game works fine. Mostly happens on Windows 10 where the Direct X 12 does not have the 9C inclusive. So without 9C there are going to be many players who will not be able to download EQ. Just like when Windows XP and Vista were discontinued by micorsoft then the EQ devs made adjustments to EQ and it no longer works on XP/Vista. So are you working on making the game download properly without 9C?
The redistributable has already been packaged with the launcher installer as a dependency. If you really are wanting the file anyway, unzip the exe and look in the $TEMP folder. 7zip can extract the installer.
I just helped 2 players yesterday and last night in my guild who are unable to get EQ to work and the only way it did was to use the old June 2010 link. So if its supposedly in the patcher why isn't it working?
Microsoft reasons. I had kept a copy of the online installer, the one in the EQ setup is showing the same file info. Just checked it and the online components are no longer available, the offline installer needs to be packaged with the installer now.
Ok please dumb this down for me. The old X9C 2010 link no longer works There is another link over in player support that works. What offline installer are you talking about?
Did Darkpaw remove it from their download? Its part of the install from their download link to install EQ. A lot of people skip installing it because they assume its outdated and not needed when they run the EQ install.
What link works? MS supplied a web installer (as the one in launcher is), and separate offline installers. If DB can get a hold of it and repackage the launcher with it, it will be fine. No the web installer is still packaged as a dependency in the launcher installer, but the online components are now removed by MS so it just errors out.
Ya, they will have to host the dx9c installer on their CDN now. Or point to an archives repo some where for directx if there is such a thing.
If you do a search on the MS site the links still appear but the download center for all Direct X downloads is broken so it isn't just DX 9.0c you cannot access right now, should be fixed eventually.
+1 for MS breaking their backend (again). Unless this has to do with the cut fiber in the NE area which happens to be where MS is hosting the DirectX components. Good to know it is planned to be corrected.
Anyway, this should be a good motivation for the devs to make EQ not depend on DX9c anymore. Modernize EQ to use a non obsolete Version of DirectX (see Windows 10)! Or scrap using windows for EQ at all.
It doesn't work like that, you can't just "change" DirectX, it's hardcoded into the system. It would be like saying everyone stop depending on English, it would require not only speaking a new language, but all the signs/packaging/etc be translated and re-printed/changed out. Everything from the code to the models is made explicitly for DX9. They may as well make a brand new game if they re-code the graphics engine.
Really a bad move from M$ to delete their DirectX downloads (or making them inaccessible) ... A google search reveals some websites with suspicious adresses (e.g. "directx90c.something.com") jumping into that hole, offering DX9.0c package(s), sometimes even in different versions. As tempting they are, I am not that trustful these days to get the packages from such sites. Some sites seem to have the files on Microsoft's fileserver deep-linked (skipping MS's intro, EULA etc.), but the files themselves are not available anymore.
Every game company should file a lawsuit against Microsoft for breaking their software promises. Express it in terms of a host of David's against a massively uncaring Goliath. Watch how fast M$ puts DX9 in the public domain.
Aren't the newer versions of directx backwards compatible ? So, could they simply take all the directx9c specific parts and 'recompile' with the current directx ?
It's not quite as drastic as that, the graphics engine was re-written once before to get it to DX9 from an earlier DX (in the run up to & during GoD development).
What makes modern 3d-engines complex isn't that it is written for an up-to-date version of DX. What makes it complex, is that modern 3d-engines has a very large feature-set, compared to older engines. Modern DX does not itself makes 3d-engines complex, it is possible to make a simple engine that uses modern DX. In this context, Everquest is a simple 3d-engine, there are a lot of modern render-features it doesn't support. No one is expecting that an updated 3d-render, will use all the modern feature DX12 can provide. It is obviously much more than just a recompile, DX12 has a different rendering pipeline than what Everquest assumed during its development. A rewrite of the 3d-render fitted to the modern GFX-pipeline will yield much improved performance, and(with some care) make it more maintainable as well. Is the workload of a rewrite comparable to the one they did when they switched to DX9? I honestly don't know. If they just keep the old render-"architecture" and pretend there hasn't been any fundamental changes in DX, and just replace old DX-calls with the closets DX12 equivalent, we would get something that is compatible(but inefficient), with modern DX. On the other hand, re-implementing the old feature-set from scratch to take full advantage of recent changes in the GFX-pipeline will be much harder, but will also result in a much better player-experience for all of us. Even if it doesn't add anything new, feature wise. Just imagine raiding with zero graphics-lag in constant 120 fps!