says Phil Taylor on his blog"just to set expectations. I was hoping for this Friday, but that is not going to be possible."source: http://blogs.msdn.com/ptaylor/default.aspx

Hopefully the extra time needed means that more features are in the release than out. Also, hopefully they are taking their time to make sure this release is solid. Looking forward to hearing more.

No, this does not mean any extra features made it in. This just means that is when I am able to go public.

I thought what was in and was was out was decided months ago. There again, if that was the case then I suppose we would have been told what was in and what was out months ago.

Correct, the original targets were decided months ago.What actually made it in from the original targets was decided in the last 4 weeks, as the saying goes "no battle plan survives contact with the enemy". It should be no surprise that the plan is just that, a plan. And that you don't get all that you plan for. Plans have estimates, any new work is just that and cannot be accurately estimated. You plan, you work at it, and you adjust. That is just life in software development. Its a rare release where you get everything.We got most of what we aimed at, I would say there are 2 fixes I would have liked in the DX9 path that we didnt get and 2 rendering features I would have liked in the DX10 path that we didnt get. And yes I will point out what we didnt get that I would have liked to when I make the disclosure post. Even without those 4, its still a good release. I'd also like to point out this is the 2nd update for RTM, and we initially didnt plan on any DX9 features. So that in itself is an upgrade of SP2.The release of information is complicated by the fact that SP2 is in Acceleration and Acceleration is payware. I apologize for that, as I didnt anticipate that being an issue back in August and I now realize I mis-set expectations then.

Thanks for the information Phil. I know you have mentioned that the intended release for SP2 is by winter. Do you think we will have a more definative release timeframe (not an exact release date, but a tighter time range) in your post next week?Also, I am glad to hear that not too many features were de-scoped. I guess that is what I was trying to get at in my earlier post. I have had releases in my work where we have dropped more than 50% of the features that were originally scoped.Thanks again.

Wait a minute, did Phil just say we are going to have to pay for sp2?

The last sentence left me confused. If SP2 is in Acceleration and Acceleration is due within the next month, then why would the stand alone version of SP2 not be due till the winter? Or have I got the time frames wrong?Jim

>Wait a minute, did Phil just say we are going to have to pay>for sp2?The comment did make me wonder too.

SP2 will be a free update. The confusion will arise from the fact that Acceleration includes the SP2 bits, and will come out before SP2 becomes available. Our release schedule doesn't allow for them to both come out at the same time, unfortunately.

He said SP2 is INCLUDED with Acceleration. He has already stated SP2 is around a 100mb download. EDIT: Oops, too slow on the draw. lol

>SP2 will be a free update. The confusion will arise from the>fact that Acceleration includes the SP2 bits, and will come>out before SP2 becomes available. Our release schedule>doesn't allow for them to both come out at the same time,>unfortunately.So if you want SP2 sooner then get Acceleration but if not get it free?

Acceleration and SP2 are 2 separate sets of bits out of 2 separate source trees, with 2 separate setups, so 2 separate test passes are required.and we are probably going to have a separate beta for SP2 to make sure we didnt miss an integration/bug fix out of the Acceleration tree and into the SP2 tree, as well as beta the SP2 setup.so that is why there is a delay.

Okay, thanks for clearing that up, Phil.Curt

Are we going to have to install the newer sp2 over the Excelleration sp2 to make sure we got all the features? Or are both sp2's the same?