rootninja

The short answer:

It’s all about the software: the Direct 3D API and Windows Display Driver Model.

The structure for graphics drivers changed completely from Windows XP To Vista. Windows 7 extended WDDM and called it version 1.1 and Windows 8 will be 1.2. All in the name of improvement.

So forget your video card. You might have the latest and greatest money pit of a video card, but it still won’t run Battlefield 3.

The Frostbite 2.0 graphics engine used for BF3 just won’t run on Windows XP at all. There’s no way to upgrade the components of Windows XP or to downgrade the graphics of Battlefield 3. It’s too bad because i’m sure there are a number of people that are simply not interested in upgrading from Windows XP, and there are still plenty of cutting edge games that run just fine on that system.