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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."
XBOX Next?
:)
DirectX Next?
I guess we all know what the Next version of Windows is going to be called!
I could care less about this functionality being exposed through a proprietary API.
My question is: when will it be available in OpenGL 2.x? :-)
Cross platform is the best way to go with game development...and OpenGL is the only game in town for cross-platform 3D graphics. It is also the official 3D API for Macintosh.
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
I try not to make it a habit to flame people, but do you know what you're talking about? Adding new functionality to DirectX *before* the new hardware comes out, means that when you buy your new GeForce FX 9999, you don't have to wait for Microsoft to release a new version of DirectX 6 months later to use the full potential of the card. This has absolutely nothing to do with embrace and extend. This is their proprietary graphics/multimedia API in the first place. How can they "embrace and extend" their own library?
Your second bit of anti-Microsoft conjecture is no better than your first. When it comes to Microsoft working with Intel to add extensions to the x86 processor set, so what if they did? Do you think they wouldn't benefit all x86 operating systems? At the level of the instruction set, how would you design into an x86 CPU, instructions which only benefit one x86 OS? Yes, Microsoft has worked with Intel on the instruction set, but mostly vice verca. It is Intel who releases the manuals on "how to write an OS for our CPUs." But no matter how they're working together, that is a good thing, not "the evil empire at work."
Please, learn a little and think a little before you post your knee-jerk anti-MS reaction. There are plenty of legitimate reasons and opportunities to bash Microsoft. The problem I see is a lot of people look like that guy from Can't Hardly Wait who keeps trying to find the right second to start the slow clap.
Disclaimer: I have never looked at or written a piece of code in my life that used DirectX.
However, your comment makes no sense. All games written for one version of DirectX should work in the later versions. Otherwise you'd have games failing left right and centre and people on here bitching about how they can't update DirectX without killing their favourite game.
Hell, I have a couple of DirectX 5 and 7 requiring games and they work just fine under v8 and my recently installed 9.
The only downside to the frequent updates is when you want to take advantage of all the new wizzy things the graphics cards are doing. But I don't think thats a fault of Microsoft, more an indication of the rapid pace of development (since MS merely support the things the graphics card makes tell them their next cards can do)
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Compare this to OpenGL, which is lagging so far behind that only rare titles take it seriously (Doom3 is the one that springs to mind).
I can only see one property of OpenGL that is "lagging behind" DirectX: Whiz-bang features.
Is OpenGL "lagging behind" DirectX in portability? hardware support? scalability?
I would argue that OpenGL as a general-purpose 3D API is more useful than DirectX soley because it is more widespread. The API is implemented (or implementable) on a more diverse selection of hardware and software platforms than DirectX can ever dream of.
As a Intel-Windows-Cutting-Edge-Game-only API, DirectX is the way to go, but for everything else, we have OpenGL.