DirectX 10 Hardware Is Now Obsolete 373
ela_gervaise writes "SIGGRAPH 2007 was the stage where Microsoft dropped the bomb, informing gamers that the currently available DirectX 10 hardware will not support the upcoming DirectX 10.1 in Vista SP1. In essence, all current DX10 hardware is now obsolete. But don't get too upset just yet: 'Gamers shouldn't fret too much - 10.1 adds virtually nothing that they will care about and, more to the point, adds almost nothing that developers are likely to care about. The spec revision basically makes a number of things that are optional in DX10 compulsory under the new standard - such as 32-bit floating point filtering, as opposed to the 16-bit current. 4xAA is a compulsory standard to support in 10.1, whereas graphics vendors can pick and choose their anti-aliasing support currently. We suspect that the spec is likely to be ill-received. Not only does it require brand new hardware, immediately creating a minuscule sub-set of DX10 owners, but it also requires Vista SP1, and also requires developer implementation.'"
Where is OpenGL when we need it? (Score:5, Interesting)
Are they TRYING to shoot themselves in the foot!? (Score:1, Interesting)
1.Introduce DX10 but only for Vista
2.Gamers buy new DX10 compatible hardware and Vista to play new games
3.Introduce DX10.1, only for vista, and incompatible with original DX10 compliant hardware
4.???
5.Shoot self in foot
6.Profit?
Once again, early adopters take it in the shorts.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Why (Score:3, Interesting)
Is the developers tipping point reached? (Score:2, Interesting)
But at least the new Unified Shaders seemed to be useful for developers, so at least they had advantages to it. But now, DirectX 10.1 only seems to make certain features compulsory, thus removing choice for the developers and also does not add new features to make it compelling to use.
So when do developers say "Screw this, DirectX 9 will suffice for the immediate future and works well, we will eschew DirectX 10 and beyond, serve our XP-using customers and use OpenGL for future development"? Especially if the big advantage DirectX had (until version 9), the universal availability on the Windows platform is gone now with DirectX 10 and beyond?
You can tell Microsoft is ignoring customers.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Microsoft must be too busy counting their cash to be considering consumer satisfaction right now.
All they're doing right now is getting everyone who uses DirectX to hate them with a passion right now.
I wonder if they've realized what they've done?
Re:Where is OpenGL when we need it? (Score:3, Interesting)
I think what you say makes a lot of sense, except the last phrase. If games are easier to write (skipping over the effectiveness/perceived effectiveness of any 'platform'), then there are more people writing games and becoming developers, which would make the game market more competitive, and thusly we would have better games!
I can't see any reason why game development should not be point and click, if they made something like OpenGL easier to write for, I think it would be a positive for the game market, and might bring a viable alternative to Microsoft
I think a developer coding for multiple platforms using open standards must be far more complex/trained/advanced than a guy firing up Visual Studio and run some "Wizards" so he/she actually deserves the extra money. I heard OpenGL is called "expensive" many places so I was trying to explain why.
MS Windows only developers, game developers are already politely bribed by MS. Making OpenGL the easiest to code technology ever won't change their Direct3d obsession or they won't magically ship a native OS X/Linux game as result.
Re:More juice! (Score:5, Interesting)
Support of the feature by the video card is mandatory. Use of the feature by the game is not.
At least, that's how I understand it.
That aside, am I the only person who remembers reading this "bomb" months back? The plan was that instead of checking for individual features (and coding around their lack case-by-case, like we will still get to do with OpenGL) the developer would check for a DirectX version, leaving fewer opportunities for wonky bugs from weird support combinations.
-:sigma.SB
(Disclaimer: I am a game developer who exclusively uses OpenGL for hardware 3D and I fully intend never to write a single line of DirectX code. Ever.)
Known Roadmap (Score:4, Interesting)
DirectX 10 and up is not just an accelerated video API but it is also a standard. Microsoft has completely eliminated the capability bits, or "capbits", concept in order to ensure to developers that if they program a specific version of the standard that all of the functionality mandatory by that standard will be supported by the graphics hardware. No longer will a developer target DirectX9 or OpenGL2 and have to ask the hardware whether or not it supports a plethora of options and then have to completely branch their development umpteen ways to support different varieties. If a game targets DirectX10.1 then 4xAA is guaranteed to be there, period. If a game does not require 4xAA then it doesn't have to target DirectX10.1.
So get used to it otherwise you'll be shitting yourself for every single DirectX release going forward. This is how it works now.
Time for a trip back to 1984! (Score:1, Interesting)
When the Mac first came out, it was dismissed as "a game machine". Macs were used for things like drawing pictures and, in 1986, playing Dark Castle. "Real work" was done on PCs.
Also, as long as I'm being picky, "no one" should not be hyphenated.
Re:Wait... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:More juice! (Score:3, Interesting)
Isn't the new OpenGL standard coming out right about now (at Siggraph)? Doesn't it roll a lot of the old extensions into the base standard, and thus end a lot of that kind of case-by-case junk too?