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A Glimpse Into 3D future: DirectX Next Preview
Dave Baumann writes "Beyond3D has put up an article based on Microsoft's games developers presentations given at Meltdown, looking at the future directions of MS's next generation DirectX - currently titled "DirectX Next" (DX10). With Pixel Shaders 2.0 and 3.0 already a part of DirectX9 this article gives a feel of what to expect from PS/VS4.0 and other DirectX features hardware developers will be expected to deliver with the likes of R500 and NV50."
My web server doesn't do much 3d graphic processing
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
The developers who drink this Kool-Aid are halfway down the damnation road to Palladium/NGSCB. There will be little room to squirm back to GL, etc. when the lock comes down on future platforms for DX.
I know somone will mod this down for incindiary content. I don't much care. I have watched commercial software development slide into dire conditions over the last ten years - with Microsoft at the helm. It's like watching the "worst possible scenario" play itself out in slow motion.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Yes. Having some, or having none.
"I don't care, as long as I'm having fun"
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
I have done some work with DirectX and the biggest problem I see is that new versions come out too quickly. Do you want your project to be totally tied to DirectX version N with you know N+1 will be out next year making your huge project obsolete or requiring a rewrite. For that reason SDL or OpenGL (an API that hardly changes) appeal to me. Who wants to build on shifting sands.
That's one of the most ridiculous comments I've ever read on Slashdot. You're saying it's an advantage for OpenGL to be behind the times? If so, then what's stopping developers from using it? Maybe they like to have the latest features? Using your reasoning, people ought to develop for the VIC-20 because it's a stable platform that doesn't advance, but Intel PCs are "shifting sands" that annoyingly keep getting more memory and speed and thereby threatening to render obsolete your version of Breakout.
Seriously, when you develop a game, you pick a version of DX that you want it to be developed on. If you pick DX8, you don't have to stop in the middle and change when DX9 or DX10 come out. You can stay with the same stable feature set that you originally started with. Just like you could with OpenGL. The difference is that DX gives you a choice to rewrite for the latest gee-whiz features...if you want to.
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
You see, there was this film, and it was called 'XXX'. And the star was a guy called Vin Diesel.
Get it? Everyone on the same page now?