The People Behind DirectX 10 352
ThinSkin writes "In the first of a three-part series covering the people behind the new DirectX 10, ExtremeTech interviews Microsoft's David Blythe and Chris Donahue to discuss the development, decisions, and future of the new API. They answer several questions such as how different it will be than DX9, why it will only be for Vista (and not for XP), and when we might be able to see it."
That's an interview? (Score:5, Insightful)
A lot of people are complaining, "Oh, why won't we have DirectX 10 for Windows XP." There's a good technical explanation for that, where it's really not possible to do what DX10 does in the Windows XP driver model."
So if the decision had been made, "Yes, we're going to try to make all this work on XP," you'd really have to sort of hamstring DirectX 10. You'd have to say, "Then we can't do this, we can't do that..."
You could even see the graphics card having a big hand in doing some of the stuff that was traditionally done on the CPU. Things like collision detection, or calculating obscured geometry so you don't have to render it. You start to see a lot of flexibility in how developers can use both the geometry shader and the stream-out-to-memory function together.
Video is another area where you're starting to see the graphics card manufacturers doing a lot of fun stuff with their video processing using the power of the GPU. And you could see DX10, especially with the reduced overhead, enabling more powerful video processing on the graphics unit.
Re:Duh (Score:1, Insightful)
Now let the flamewar begin :)
Re:Duh (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes but, I don't really consider time frame a "technical reason" as far as this goes. Thats more of an economical reason, wouldn't you agree?
Why should DirectX 10 support Windows XP? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why should Microsoft make DirectX 10 available for old versions of Windows? How many new video drivers released for Linux in 2006 support early 2.4.x kernels?
Sometimes making progress means saying "sorry, we don't support that; you'll have to upgrade to something newer".
Re:Why should DirectX 10 support Windows XP? (Score:3, Insightful)
The Linux kernel can be freely downloaded at http://kernel.org/ [kernel.org] I don't think upgrading to Vista will be a zero-cost venture, especially since the hardware requirements are excessive.
DirectX & Antitrust (Score:4, Insightful)
In short: authorities were concerned about Microsoft dominance in the web-browser market. And they have been worried about Mcirosoft dominance in the media-playback market. Yet they are not concerned about DirectX and the dominance it gives to Microsoft? How come?
Re:Duh (Score:3, Insightful)
Which is it? Do you want Vista tech backported to XP or do you want Microsoft to keep Vista tech exclusive to Vista?
What obligation? (Score:5, Insightful)
Come on.
How many programs only run on Mac OSX and don't run on OS9?
I hardly see how a finger is being given at all here... and it's not like you haven't had fair warning that Vista is coming out.. hell it's late, late, late... so there's no big 'whoops I bought XP because I didn't know Vista was coming out'.
The main deal is that Vista will still run all the XP stuff, so you haven't had the 'finger' given to you for buying XP, because when you do upgrade to Vista down the track you won't have to upgrade all your software as well if you don't want to... that would be giving the finger... kinda like how Apple did with OSX not really supporting old OS9 programs.
Man, Microsoft can do no right by some people, no matter how hard they actually do try.
Re:Why should DirectX 10 support Windows XP? (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, so they still have?
Where is the formula to decide how much service depending on product cost a company should give to their consumers?
Because Microsoft has already supported their XP users for years in non-essential software to use the OS. For how much longer should they do so? Many here seem to know the answer because they seem to say Microsoft is doing something wrong here. Please don't leave out the details for me and give me the date.
If this was essential updates and about security, stability, and so on, the answer would be simple: during the product lifetime that Microsoft sets up for all their operating systems. But this is glitz to play some new games.
Re:OpenGL (Score:4, Insightful)
Why *should* they? And don't answer with some ideological doctrine, give a *practical* reason why Microsoft should do what you propose. DirectX has been wildly successful without any submissions to extend OpenGL.
Re:Drivers running in user mode (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Why should DirectX 10 support Windows XP? (Score:2, Insightful)
Why should Microsoft make DirectX 10 available for old versions of Windows?
In one swoop, they've condemned people to upgrading if you want to play games on the dominant PC gaming platform. Do you see why that might irritate a few people? Vista sure isn't going to be free.
What's going to cost more? Vista or an Xbox 360?
On the other hand, that'd remove my main reason for not saying screw it all and moving to an x86 mac for everything. My existing PC plays all the games I'm going to have time for for the next few years recently. So maybe it's not a bad thing at all! I've stuck with Windows 2000, I haven't moved to XP yet, as all my CAD and design files work fine..
Microsoft intends to play a game of market thermonuclear war to get Vista integrated and entrenched ala XP/2000. Fortunately, that's the type of war that could also leave their market share in smouldering ruin just as easily as it will reinforce it.
Mark my words : The less technical ground Vista has to fight on, the nastier the marketing efforts are going to be.
Re:Why should DirectX 10 support Windows XP? (Score:3, Insightful)
The Windows XP end of life has not been decided according to their pages, and is not necessarily in 2009.
I'm also a bit unsure of exactly why hardware upgrades requires some sort of obligation by the vendor to have their software be backwards compatible? (your opinions about this matter seem to go in that direction) Do you believe this because it is proprietary software? Would you not ask for this if it was an open source OS? Is the obligation a moral one? Proprietary software ethics? But in that case, do you also request that computer game and software applications should scale back well to support older hardware because otherwise they'd be doing an immoral act of breaking functionality with older hardware? Or does this only apply to proprietary operating systems, like Windows and Mac OS?
It's an INTERFACE goddammit (Score:4, Insightful)
Basically, DirectX is meant as an Interface between Windows and (Video) hardware. It says "if you call my function xxx, I will translate that to a certain call to the hardware". It is terribly easy to make DirectX 10 compatible with XP. You just take DirectX 9, add the new calls, and let them return "sorry, I cannot do that". Then game developers will simply add an option "activate advanced DirectX 10 features" to show off the cool stuff, but any XP user will still be able to play the game. So there is no good reason to exclude XP from the new games market, as Microsoft is trying to do.
Even better, they could (and IMHO should) open up the source code of DirectX. I am dead certain that an XP version of DirectX 10 would be created in days.
But of course, they have great MARKETING reasons why they will not do that. Yes, it is all marketing. The rest of the argumentation is blah.
Give me a break! (Score:5, Insightful)
So, one of the first complains I read over here about Windows is how they have been carrying a legacy of compatibility from Win 3.11 days. Now, they try to simplify the platform (didnt Mac did that when going from OS9 to OSX?, and from PPC to Intel?) and everybody starts whining.
What is keeping Microsoft from backporting is the complexity it would yield, Windows XP is a mess, thats why they had to restart the development of Longhorn to a new model. They decided to throw away the compatilibity and improve the technology.
I do not know how good or bad will vista be, I use Fedora anyways, but I think there is just so much bullshit people can throw at Microsoft, IMHO they are *trying* to do something fine, for a change.
Re:DirectX & Antitrust (Score:4, Insightful)
Because nobody's being forced or tricked into using DX to play games - the people who made the game made the choice and that choice is entirely up to them.
If MS locked down Windows so that only DX API's could be used (no OpenGL, etc) then there'd be cause for argument.
Re:Duh (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Duh (Score:3, Insightful)
Why would a program using an interface be affected by what mode the code behind the interface runs in ?
Re:Duh (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the stuff of which dreams are made. i.e. it's not remotely plausible. Look at the stats on w3schools, for example. Today, June 2006, 89% of Windows users are on XP. XP has been out for 4 years and it doesn't even make that much sense today to ignore Windows 2000 users. There are still as many W2K users as Mac users and the "port" from XP to Win2K is easy enough to make it worthwhile. Not many people would make an XP-only program today.
Two years ago, XP was on 57% of Windows machines - i.e. after 2 years it achieved 60% market share. No-one, two years ago, made XP-only software for end users.
Which OS to put DX10 onto is not a technical decision. The commercial realities forbid a Vista-only API unless MS want to wait five years for DX10 to be widely accepted by end-users.
In other words, they will put DX10 onto XP or DX9 is all we will get from most publishers until 2010. Few developers have the resources to target two versions of DX at once.
Re:Duh (Score:2, Insightful)
Microsoft: "You must upgrade to Vista because DirectX 10 will not work with Windows XP, due to a new driver architecture." Me: "I see... but surely that means you're just attempting to pull more money out of me and other Windows users by our eyeballs. After all, I wouldn't upgrade to Vista otherwise because I've used the beta and it was slow as hell. It concentrated so much on "pleasing" visual effects and transparency that it took twice as long as XP to do even the most menial tasks. My computer is not below average by any means, would you care to explain why I'd buy a new operating system that would slow my computer down rather than keep the existing one which works just fine for everything I want to do?" Microsoft: "Uh... well, it'll be more reliable." Me: "I've had uptimes on Windows XP of three weeks before now without rebooting. In fact the only reason I reboot at all is to install new drivers for a piece of hardware or something like that. That's quite reliable enough thanks, given that the majority of people (not slashdotters, naturally) turn their computers off every night so don't even need that extended uptime." Microsoft: "Oh. Well you won't be able to play new games like Halo 2 without Windows Vista." Me: "That doesn't concern me. Why should I upgrade?" Microsoft: "Because it'll put another £100 in Bill Gates' coffers." Me: "I thought so!"
The Vista beta was horrific. Yeah, sure, they're going to fix some of the problems before the final release, but the truth is that it rated my computer 3/5 for hardware performance when I have a 256mb Geforce 6600GT, 1GB of RAM and an Athlon XP 2800+ processor. My computer runs faster than anyone else's I know, even those with faster processors and the same amount of RAM. What the hell do you need to get 5/5?
I'm digressing, but the point is that Microsoft are just attempting to grab our money. They won't be getting mine, that's a sure fact.
Re:Duh (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not a Windows users as such (I only use it to play games every now and then) but since for once they did seem to make a good decision in that specific area, it shouldn't be downplayed... regardless of how much fun it is to diss Microsoft in general...
And wouldn't DRM be safer in kernel mode anyway ?
Keep the bashing for when it's justified, it's not as if there aren't enough occasions to indulge, especially with Microsoft.
Re:Duh (Score:5, Insightful)
Adding the ability to support two driver models would have a dramatic influence on the design of the project and would likely force them to go in a totally different direction. It's not that it's not possible to do, it's just that it would likely be quite detrimental.
Personally speaking I give them a salute for finally doing something right. They're evil anyway so why does it matter? Just consisently do what's best for the software and eventually people will be okay with the decisions.
Re:Why should DirectX 10 support Windows XP? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What obligation? (Score:2, Insightful)
Since MS will not fix issues with older versions of DirectX after they start distributing a new version, game developers are pushed into developing their games to the latest DirectX version.
So via this mechanism, MS makes sure that game developers use MS' chosen DirectX version.
By making DirectX 10 to be Vista only, and since they have locked-in game developers to the latest version of DirectX, it's actually MS (which sold you XP) which is making sure that in the future you will have less use of XP.
For clarity, here's an analogous situation:
- Imagine that a washing machine manufacturer, after selling millions of v1 washing machines, had (somehow) made an agreement with all detergent manufacturers so that (somehow) any new detergent batches they made could not be used in v1 washing machines, only in the "new and improved" v2 machines.
In this situation would you not hold it against the washing machine manufacturer since they had no responsability in making sure that the older washing machines worked with the newer detergent batches?
The issue here is that, to get what they payed for (play games/clean clothes), consumers need a base component and a consumable, both coming from two different sellers (OS, game/washing machine, detergent). If, knowingly, the seller of the base component makes it so that, some time after the sale of that component, there will be no more consumables available for it, then said seller is knowingly decieving their customers.
That's what MS is doing here.
There are only 3 possible outcomes:
Re:Duh - but what's really going to happen? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Duh (Score:5, Insightful)
Because so many people here have tied their self esteem up in the success of Linux and the consequent failure of Microsoft that they have to bitch about everything.
DRM? (Score:3, Insightful)
Hardware accellerated desktop, display drivers that can restart themselves if they crash, less reboots to install new drivers, multiple hardware accellerated windows, virtual memory for video cards.
Obviously those are all features intended to overshadow the main new feature... DRM!
Sorry... sarcasm doesn't translate well over the internet...
Re:Duh (Score:3, Insightful)
So instead they chose to hinder application developers, especially game developers, with two choices:
A. Design for DirectX 9 and not use any DirectX 10 specific feature
B. Adopt DirectX 10 and abandon any potential customer not running Vista which will be more than half of their target market for a LOOOONGGGG time
If they opt for B, and I wager a future version of HALO will opt for B, then we can switch to hindering consumers. When the game they want to buy runs best on or requires DirectX 10, but unfortunately the consumer has 2000 or XP what do they do. There is a 50/50 chance the hardware they have wont run Vista or run it well. So at this point, to run a 50 dollar game the family has to buy at a minimum the Vista retail upgrade package, or worse a whole new computer.
I'm glad the DirectX engineers aren't hindered, because everyone else will be, you know like just all their customers.
It is a basic reality today, most consumers DON'T NEED Vista or new hardware to run a web browser, email and office apps. PC's have reached a level of power that is overkill for what most people use them for. 3D games are one of the few applications that are pushing new hardware and software sells for Microsoft and Dell. Therefor it follows that DirectX is the best avenue to compell Vista sales for Microsoft, and new hardware sales for manufacturers, especially for high end machines that have better profit margins. Since Microsoft controls a fair number of game titles they can try to use them to drive Vista upgrades, at the risk of alienating some customers from their game divisions. But then too a lot of gamers are fanatics for spending huge amounts of money on their computers and graphics cards
Re:What will their NEXT version be? (Score:4, Insightful)
David Blythe used to be an architect in the advanced systems division of SGI. Very sharp guy. (If I recall, he even fixed a couple of gl bugs I found on the (now old) infinite reality engine.)
Re:Duh (Score:5, Insightful)
HAHAHA! Best joke I've heard in a while. You obviously haven't been programming with D3D a lot.
It's absolutely vital that you check Vendor ID, Device ID, and Driver version in order to work around the countless bugs, quirks, and performance holes in all the well known broken systems out there (unless you absolutely want to slap a BIG 'only supported on Card X with (at least) Driver Y' STICKER on your packaging).
Major misconception here? (Score:2, Insightful)
DX10 is *not* a DX9 patch. Yet you're asking MS to make DX9 DX10 compatible?
Microsoft has *never* backported to an older product compatibility for a *new* anything. Ever. Tehy have in the past on occaision provided backwards comptibility in a *new* product, but they have *never* modified an *old* product to support a new model.
DX10 will simply *not* work in XP using XP's driver model. They would be forced to backport the driver model of Vista. This is an absurd expectation.
Does a new Linux kernel backport it's improvements to a previous kernel? Hell no.
This is amazing. I have *never* seen a group of people so blinded by their dislike of a company to expect them to do something *no-one* does.
Apple doesn't do it, Red-Hat doesn't do it, Blizzard doesn't do it, and you expect, no, DEMAND that Microsoft do it.
Re:Duh (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure what you mean by "safer" but the DRM would work more effectively, which is why they're putting it there. The design goal is to have a "Trusted" kernel running on "Trusted" hardware, so that the system can disallow any software-based circumvention technique -- including device drivers that tried to save the framebuffer to a file. That's both the reason why most drivers are going to run in user mode, and why the rest have to be "certified" by Microsoft. Certification isn't about quality; it's about DRM enforcement.
The real reason. . . (Score:3, Insightful)
They need a compelling reason for people to buy the upgrade.
I know a troll when I see one, and that's no troll (Score:1, Insightful)
No one but the poor sods still doing x86 pc game development give a damn about directx.
true: Simple Direct Media Layer, openAL, and Mesa are all cross-architecture and cross-platform compatible with 100% documented API and daily updates.
The pc market has been in decline for over five years now and there is no sign it will ever recover.
neither true or false: wherever there is economically-available software and an acceptable user-interface to that software, the people will choose.
And it is going to get a lot worse as MMORPGs continue to eat up pc game players gaming budgets of time and money.
conditionally true: modern MMORPGs have proven to be designed for addiction, more than satisfaction; a good MMORPG would agree with a user's will to let down the game and continue about his life with a schedule that isn't violated by entertainment; satisfaction that is decided by unique skill and technique more than variable enhancements of random tools collected in the artificial environment that do less to enhance the scene and more to abbrogate and upset the ballance of responsive interaction by the user. Think of Diablo 2 and Everquest: both are repetitive, addictive, have no technique to play other than collecting a predictable balance of character enhancements, and every player that returns is certainly for the "nostalgia" and not remembering the dissatisfaction that caused their absence.
Every pc developer is looking to Sony and the PS3 so save them with the 100+ million sized installed base of console gamers.
conditionally true: a console has a fixed architecture that developers and users expect to not cause any variation of playability to effect availability of the software and media.
And everyone has to listen to them cry about how their directx codebase is now effectively worthless.
true: DirectX isn't meant to be scalable and backwards-compatible as is openGL, because DirectX is subversion hidden under a misleading title/name that is neither direct and neither associating with technology-X; Microsoft DirectX expects to conquer every venue and leave the compatibility among antiquity and abandonware. At least in Linux, the Amish peacfully co-exist with the Borg and gothic Mimes of Apple.
Boo fucking hoo.
true: Atticus Finch caught Boo in the chicken-coupe with Hoo, and he remedied the situation with a buckette of water. Tell your Mother that her "morality-inspiring" movies are just as dirty as Britney Spears and Paris Hilton.
Anyone dumb enough to still be basing their graphics engine on an increasingly marginalized API like directx deservers what is coming to them.
Re:The OS is the glue between HW and apps/games (Score:3, Insightful)
Uhuh. What's your point? In the case of DX, the designers are also acting as the ARB. So? Heck, that just further disputes the idea that "[the] glue is (ultimately) dictating to the materials what properties they must possess", since clearly they are dictating nothing, but rather working with hardware/software vendors to design an API which fits the needs of the game developers.