DirectX 10 & the Future of Gaming 93
Homogeneous Cow writes "Brent Justice at [H] Enthusiast has put together a quick look at what DX10 has to offer gamers and what the main differences are between that and our current DX9. Unified Architecture and Small Batch Problems are shown to be addressed. There are a lot of ATI slides supporting the text as well." From the article: "The obvious question for the gamer that arises is, 'Will this terribly expensive and arduous upgrade path positively impact my gaming experience enough to justify the cost?' That has yet to be seen and can only be answered with the games we have yet to play. We can however discuss some of capabilities of DirectX 10 with a unified architecture and how it can potentially benefit gamers."
Sorry (Score:1)
Only on Vista? (Score:2)
Unless of course Vista works fine on a dual boot Mac and costs less than $400 for a copy. Then maybe... maybe... I'll use Direct X 10.
Re:Only on Vista? (Score:2)
Re:Only on Vista? (Score:1)
Re:Only on Vista? (Score:1)
Re:Only on Vista? (Score:1)
Sure you'll have to wait, but that time barrier can protect you from the shit [doom3.com] games, eh?
Re:Only on Vista? (Score:1)
Re:Only on Vista? (Score:2)
Re:Only on Vista? (Score:1)
Why would you? (Score:2)
I think.
This article appears to be a summary of a somewhat-intelligent Powerpoint. But, I can't really tell, because the summary is pure marketbabble -- that subtle mix of technobabble not really explained and repetitive marketspeak that doesn't really say anything.
Who would've guessed... (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, how else could you sell that DRM system? It happened quite the way I (and many others, I'm sure) expected it: No support for older systems if you want to use some features, so you HAVE to upgrade if you want them.
I'm also quite sure that a lot of game studios will support DX-X and nothing else, so if you want to play Halflife 3 and Duke Nu... (ok, no lame jokes, I promised), you have to get Vista.
I guess it's time to get used to som
Re:Who would've guessed... (Score:2, Funny)
and you promised no lame jokes... tsk tsk tsk
Re:Who would've guessed...Retro arguments. (Score:4, Insightful)
About the "have to". Yes, nobody "has to" run DX10. Unfortunately, people don't just want their PC to sit there and look pretty. Now, it's no secret that a lot of today's PCs are sold as game machines. Look at the numbers of GFX-cards sold and tell me it ain't so. You don't need a X1900 to run office products (well, not yet, this might change with Vista and its stunning 3D GUI). Still, a good number of PCs sold today come with graphics cards that cost more than 40% of the rest of the system. So yes, people will "have to" upgrade. If they want to play the games, then yes, there's no option.
Re:Who would've guessed... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Who would've guessed... (Score:1)
So you think current game devs will target an OS which won't be on a majority of desktops for quite a few years?
Well, I suppose they'd sell a few more copies that if they targeted only a Mac.
Re:Who would've guessed... (Score:2)
That might be in their books enough to offset the smaller market. Also, they don't need to pay the SecuRom guys, which means that more bucks per copy stay in their pockets.
Yes, I could very well see games coming out for DX10 only. And only
Re:Who would've guessed... (Score:4, Insightful)
Game publishers don't have a lot of flexibility in development (and pure development houses without a publishing arm have even less). Anything that sells less than 100K copies is considered an abject failure.
DX-X is going to have a very, very narrow market for at least a year, and probably much longer. Publishers would sooner develop for the Nintendo Revolution before committing to a Vista-only release, because the numbers simply aren't going to be there. Further, Microsoft is a direct competitor, and it is not at all hard to imagine them pulling the same Secret API tricks for their game developers that they (allegedly) pulled for their Office developers.
So, no. I think Vista will be treated with great trepidation for a long while after release.
Schwab
Re:Who would've guessed... (Score:2)
no matter how it sucks, live with it.
No thanks. (Score:4, Insightful)
Essentially, any game requiring DX10 support will screw itself out of an audience. A lot of people are not about to sacrifice a working XP install just to get some new game.
Especially if it means that losing 50% of multimedia functionality due to mandatory Digital Restrictions Management being enforced at the OS level.
Re:No thanks. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No thanks. (Score:1)
Also note this is what they are doing with
At any rate, it will be some time before game devs target DX 10, since it will be some time before thier target audience moves to Vista.
Re:No thanks. (Score:2)
Re:No thanks. (Score:1)
I think few game devs moved to DX until version 2 or 3; I remember pretty well since I had just started college and was big into gaming.. and I don't ever remember seeing a game that required DX 1. If you know of any that had any kind of popularity, I'd love to know.
Re:No thanks. (Score:2)
Re:No thanks. (Score:1, Informative)
Virtually no games used DirectX 1. It was an abject failure. It wasn't until DirectX 3 that games actually began to use it.
Until that time, most games were DOS only, with a few Windows games using the standard Windows API for graphics display, and standard DOS-style drawing routines for the actual drawing. Games didn't start really using DirectX until two things happened.
First, a very large number of people had Windows 95 instead of Windows 3.1, or DOS. That didn't happen for a
Re:No thanks. (Score:2)
So you're comparing the technology leap between DOS/W31 to Win95, that is, going from a 16bit, preemptive multitask and 1MB memory to a 32bit memory architecture with preemptive multitasking with 2GB of Virtual Memory Management
and
What is essentialy a DRM,
Re:No thanks. (Score:2)
Re:No thanks. (Score:4, Insightful)
A lot of people will get Vista on their new computer. The gaming freaks will upgrade if needed. And despite all the BS, DRM-less content will not stop functioning. What will happen is simply that you will have "Vista-only" services with hard DRM. I seriously don't get this argument, and those that think it will be a major showstopper/exodus to Linux over it. Vista will play all content where the DRM is broken and all the content where the DRM isn't broken yet. Hint: XP and Linux can only do one of two.
Re:No thanks. (Score:2)
Re:No thanks. (Score:2, Insightful)
While I would love this as well, it won't happen until OpenGL starts including audio, input control and network control as a single integrated library. Right now, you'll get the gre
Re:No thanks. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:No thanks. (Score:2)
Re:No thanks. (Score:1)
Re:No thanks. (Score:1)
I already knew of the existence of those projects, I feel the problem is that they are three seperate projects, not one unified, integrated package, with the same style of API across all three.
Re:No thanks. (Score:2)
Re:No thanks. (Score:1)
Quick Overview (Score:3, Interesting)
My take: Graphical advances will continue, but will probably have minimal impact on gaming. Most of the pretty new effects will continue to be powered by new shader algorithms, and 3D video card vendors will look to optimize these micro-programs in their new cards.
Required Gag: So if DirectX is now on 10.0, does that make it DirectXX?
That's Direct Double-X (Score:1)
No, it's "Direct Dos Equis" (Score:1, Funny)
You don't realize just how powerful the Direct Dos Equis API is: with Direct X 9, Lara Croft might look a little better... but with Direct Dos Equis, *any* female character looks like Lara Croft!
Re:That's Direct Double-X (Score:2)
"And are people pronouncing it direct double-x yet? Hmmmm... specially optimised for the next Lara Croft outing perhaps."
I think you are thinking of ErectX 10.
Re:That's Direct Double-X (Score:2)
DirectXXX, pr0n straight to you, from the internet.
What about OpenGL? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it even possible to fix that kind of issue without having your API written into the OS/Kernel?
This inquiring mind wants to know!
Re:What about OpenGL? (Score:4, Interesting)
Beyond that, I see something interesting happening in graphics hardware. There's a saying that machines go through 3 phases:
1. Simple, but not truly useful. (Got the base concept, but that's about it.)
2. Horribly complex, but useful. (Tacked on fixes until it's usable, but now it's a mess.)
3. Simple and usable. (Really understand what we're doing, finally.)
It seems to me that "DirectX 10 hardware" may finally be approaching a phase-3 machine. Along with that thought, it seems to me that a gross rearchitecture might do better yet, because they may still be carrying too much baggage along with them. This would be an opportunity for Open Source / Open Hardware. Starting from the oft-mentioned open graphics card that's trying to get off the ground, imagine experimenting with the unified-shader as well as other architectural simplifications. To begin, it obviously wouldn't perform, but it could deliver scaling information to tell what would be possible with higher clock rates and more shaders. Even at some level of scaling, while not adequate for newest games, it could well deliver eye-candy desktops, and adequate performance for older games.
Besides, how much *gameplay* improvement has the fps seen since the old Doom engine. (Doom, Doom2, Heretic, Hexen, Strife) Most of the work has been in graphical detail, though I'll agree that multiplayer and physics have seen significant advances. As for graphical detail, many of the source ports, like Doomsday, add some of that in.
Re:What about OpenGL? (Score:2)
Re:What about OpenGL? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:What about OpenGL? (Score:2)
Re:What about OpenGL? (Score:1)
Re:What about OpenGL? (Score:5, Informative)
No, at least from a coding point of view it passed that around the time of maybe DX5 to DX7. Back then it was a real chore to write stuff for, documentation wasn't entirely great and textbooks got all confused and out of date really really quickly. Round about DX8 it really started to be OK though, and that's about when I did a bit of Xbox dev work. Since then, I've been on PS2 duties so have fallen out of touch.
The thing is, DX isn't the same as OpenGL. It's pretty much a full game middleware platform, only for Windows and Xbox instead of being really multiplatform. Open Source stuff can approximate the feature set if you combine things (OpenGL + SDL + various things for audio, networking, etc.) but they're all done by different people, with different coding styles and different levels of goodness. DirectX's strength is its coherence, and the big install base of Windows users.
DX10 is throwing away a big pile of audience, I'm not sure that's a good idea...
Re:What about OpenGL? (Score:2, Interesting)
But isn't SDL pretty complete, once you let it wrap OpenGL?
Is there much penalty for letting SDL wrap OpenGL?
From what you know, is there a compelling reason why DX10 couldn't be done on XP? Has the driver model changed that much? MS is gambling a LOT on this stand, but ATI, nVidia, and the game developers are putting up the money.
Re:What about OpenGL? (Score:2)
Don't get me wrong -- I've been playing Doom since about a week
Re:What about OpenGL? (Score:2, Informative)
Small batch problem? I think OpenGL solved that one with display lists - basically, you create a list with commands once, then you can execute the whole batch with a single call, instead of calling glVertex3f() for every single vertex.
Fixed pipeline isn't really an api problem either, the gpu's added a function to allow a programmer to change pipeline type, from vertex to pixel and the other way around. It doesn't look like it's hard to implement in OpenGL either, it's just a setPipelines(int, int, int)
just another step in the evolution of 3D graphics, (Score:1)
DX10 is compelling!!
As soon as Vista is released, run out and buy it!!
As soon as DX10 graphics cards are released, run out and buy one!!
As soon as other hardware requirments are firmed up, buy new!!
Revenue streams are counting on you!
Oops, I forgot to tell you to buy those new DX10 games.
Re:What about OpenGL? (Score:4, Informative)
I don't know if OpenGL suffers from the same phenomenon. My guess is that it does to some degree, but I can't imagine that it's as bad as DirectX.
The geometry shader is actually a cool concept. It fits into the pipeline *before* the vertex shader, and it has the ability to create and delete vertices and polygons, which vertex shaders cannot do. This helps free up PCI bandwidth and CPU time by generating complex geometry completely on the graphics card. Applications using stencil shadow volumes and particle systems should benefit immediately, and in the future I expect a move toward lots more procedural generation of geometry. Today's graphics cards can render so many triangles that most applications just can't send them enough to keep them occupied, so having the card generate its own triangles makes sense. For example, you could send the card a list of points on the ground and it could generate a field of unique leafy plants swaying in the wind, one for each point. If the plants are complex then the bandwidth saved by generating that vertex data on the card instead of transferring it over the PCI bus from main memory could be huge.
Re:What about OpenGL? (Score:2)
Immersion comes from where now? (Score:5, Insightful)
Here comes the "back in my day" part. I remember sitting in the computer lab in college in '93 or so, and seeing guys literally jump backwards and rip the headphones off their heads while playing Doom. I did it myself a time or two. That seems pretty immersive
Immersion at 320x200 with sprites that looked the same no matter what angle they are veiwed from comes from somewhere, and I hope that game devs can continue to tap that. I guess the good/great ones do, and the rest just make every chair in the game unique and hope that's enough.
System Shock 2 too. (Score:2)
Re:Immersion comes from where now? (Score:2)
Yes, gameplay is ESSENTIAL, however the Holy Grail of gaming technology has long been considered truely immersive virtual reality, and we can't get there without lifelike graphics.
The people who say that older games were just fine sound like the infamous quote of "256k should be enough for anybody".
I'm not saying graphics let developers off the hook in te
Re:Immersion comes from where now? (Score:2)
My poorly made point was that I had an immersive experience without much in the way of realistic graphics, and that the graphics only have to be at a certain level before I can "feel like I'm there".
I also hope we get other good stuff too. Like really good AI. I'll settle for the physics and graphics of HL2 w/
Re:Immersion comes from where now? (Score:2, Interesting)
Yeah, I also remember back in the days, in 1895 exactly, when the Lumiere brothers showed the first movie ever made - a footage of a train pulling into a train station. Viewers were so shocked that they fled the theater. That's immersion. If only c
Overpriced Xbox (Score:1)
I'm sorry but DX10 or not, I won't be upgrading to Vista. In fact, I've been on Win2k til now when I managed to switch over my last app that I needed for Linux... City of Heroes. I play Half-life 2 and most other games through Cedega on my Fedora core 4 box and they run BETTER in most cases!
Honestly, people who buy Vista just for the games are going to chuck out a couple thousand just for an overpriced X-box with DRM and virus collecting agent built in.
Re:Overpriced Xbox (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Overpriced Xbox (Score:2)
I think Vista may be the biggest change in Microsofts history and perhaps the biggest mistake. OEM's may have to start selling Linux and Mac in order to make their bottomline. Especially since they make most of their money off businesses and government purchases and consumer sales have
Re:Overpriced Xbox (Score:2)
How is this different from Vista? They said they were going to stop making everythinmg backwards compatible and have an agenda to get you to upograde to all new software as well like the new Microsoft Office.
And besides, retailers of systems aren't dumb. They'll bundkle
M$'s REAL plan (Score:1)
Face it, Vista will be hacked... (Score:2, Insightful)
On to Vista...
Better copy protection at the install level? Perhaps I'll need to "dial in" to Richmond and get a "unique" key. That will take the crackers maybe a few days to get around at the most.
DRM at the OS level you say? I'm
Re:Face it, Vista will be hacked... (Score:3, Insightful)
Or, you could not use Windows....
Or, you could not use Windows....
The more people use BSD/Linux/Amiga/whatever, the more companies will develop games for BSD/Linux/Amiga/whatever.
Re:Face it, Vista will be hacked... (Score:2)
Yes, but by then the person who switched to BSD/Linux/(Amiga?) will have moved on to another hobby to fill his time. Provided senility hasn't overwhelmed his cognitive functions, that is. Seriously, has anyone stepped forward to take the place of Loki games? [lokigames.com] (Sort of impressive that the site is still there.) If I were a Linux newbie I might be hopeful about your plan, but we've regressed!
Re:Face it, Vista will be hacked... (Score:2)
Re:Face it, Vista will be hacked... (Score:2)
Your "solution" isn't a solution. If I say "man, cars pollute a lot
Re:Face it, Vista will be hacked... (Score:2)
DXX as a Roman numeral (Score:1)
add another x (Score:2)
DirectX XX DirectXXX
ok... quinsensory stimulation it is... but it would really suck to have to deal with DRM when you go to lick a... nevermind
Re:confusion (Score:1)
Batches (Score:3, Insightful)
Mind you, display lists could be an OpenGL equivalent, but usually aren't (performance-wise).
I have a BIG problem with the article... (Score:2)
"The next constraint with DirectX 9 and current GPUs are the nature of the fixed pipeline path. In a GPU all the vertex and pixel processing are separated with a fixed number of processors for both."
Umm, excuse me, how many processors do we have right now onboard a graphics card? Let's see... 1. Main GPU, 2. TMU (I think, please correct if inaccurate) and that's it.Aand there's only one of each, beefy as hell. Hrm, I recall a Creative 3
Page 2 looks like a /vertisement... (Score:2)