Assuming you mean Windows NT 4.0, if you stick to using the DirectX version 3 interfaces, everything will work fine under Windows NT. With the exception of a leaked development version of DirectX 5 which wasn''t at all hardware accelerated, DirectX 3 is the last version that was properly supported under Windows NT. Windows 2000 and later will, according to Microsoft, be kept up to date with DirectX releases, and Windows 2000 does run DirectX 7 code today.

Since DirectX 3, in retrospect, largely sucks compared to the progress that has been made since then, I suggest you don''t worry too much about whether the program can run under NT. Not many people use NT boxes for playing games, and the majority of people who DO use NT as a desktop workstation system will soon upgrade to Windows 2000.

I *strongly* disagree. Windows 2000 sucks and is an expensive upgrade. No semblance of a majority of NT4 users will upgrade--don''t make them suffer because you''re too lazy to address issues between platforms. Even Windows 2000 has issues.

Please forgive the very defensive tone. =)

Windows 2000 Professional is not that expensive an upgrade when you compare it to the cost of NT in the first place. I also take issue with the statement that Windows 2000 "sucks". As an MSDN subscriber, I''ve been using Windows 2000 Professional since beta2, and even when it was in beta, it was by far the most stable operating system Microsoft has ever produced. Of course, many people might argue that that is faint praise, but the issue here is whether it is superior to NT 4.0. It is. Tons better.

I''ll restate what I said previously -- anyone who uses NT and plays games is VERY likely to upgrade to Windows 2000. The advantages are too great. NT 4 is forever stuck at DirectX 3.0. It is insane to suggest that a developer either live in the past with DX 3.0 or create special versions to be specifically compatible with DX 3.0 interfaces to please the tiny portion of people who use NT for game playing.

If a game that uses DirectX isn''t supported under NT, I think its crazy to call the programmer "too lazy to address issues between platforms". Don''t blame the programmer, blame Microsoft for cutting off DX support at version 3.0 under NT.

Perhaps I worded all of that too strongly.

Unfortunately, though, price is an important issue that cannot simply be overlooked in a case like this. I honestly don''t feel that *most* people will find enough actual *value* in Windows 2000 to justifying an upgrade from Windows NT 4.0. Besides, the simple fact remains that there are *still* Windows 9x vs. Windows NT issues in Windows 2000.

Yes, there will always be issues with compatibility when the core operating systems use a different kernel, even if their APIs are theoretically compatible -- I agree with you there. And I would even agree that a programmer would be somewhat lazy to avoid those differences, when it came to 2000 vs Win98. But the differences between NT, which is stuck forever at DirectX 3 are far greater.

So there you have it! Agreement, sort of!