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DirectX 10 & the Future of Gaming
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."
Considering if it only works on Vista, I doubt I will use it any time soon.
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.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Hey! Look! We've found it! We've found the reason to upgrade to Vista!
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 some retro-gaming...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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.
Summary: DirectX has been rewritten as tighter, simpler, and faster code. The number of new features will actually be minimal, but the rendering architecture should be more powerful overall.
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?
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Upon skimming over the article this question popped into my head. Of the disadvantages of DX9 that DX10 is supposed to fix [such as the small batch problem and the fixed pipeline shader architecture], does OpenGL have those same disadvantages and if so, what is being done about them? Are those disadvantages present in both Windows and Linux/OSX etc?
:)
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!
Nothing to see here
The article says that's just not very likely to happen because directX 10 is integrated with the structure of Vista. You'd be liklier to find WineX 10 first.
And are people pronouncing it direct double-x yet? Hmmmm... specially optimised for the next Lara Croft outing perhaps.
OK, I'm going to take another whack at a dead horse. I don't know that "immersion" comes from thousands of unique trees in a rendered forest. Honestly, I don't know where it comes from. I think it may come partly from the player _wanting_ to be immersed.
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.
There are 01 kinds of cars in the world. The General Lee, and everything else.
What makes me think that game studios will try to push for DX10 is quite simple. DX10->Vista->DRM. And the still floating idea that making a game impossible to copy means more copies sold. I'm actually quite sure that we'll soon see games that ONLY work with DX10, for the "improved graphics". Now, as far as I can tell, an engine written for 10 won't run on 9. So a studio would have to make SERIOUS adaptations (and invest a lot more time) to make a game run on 9 when their primary target audience is 10. And they want it to run primarily on 10.
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.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I don't see the major game publishers producing DX10 based games for awhile, not until market penetration for Vista is pretty deep. Basically your adding the cost of the Vista OS to your game, which is the same or more cost of a physical console gaming unit. I imagine DX9 will be around for a long, long, long time.
Here's the real plan guys - Microsoft is planning on bundling Duke Nukem Forever with Vista. It will have the most awesome graphics ever, and will provide amazing immersiveness due to being the first game to fully utilize all of the DirectX 10 features. In the game, Duke will walk up to a terminal to check your system's DRM to make sure you can play the next level. Gaming has truly evolved now! Boy oh boy! I just can't wait!
Hmmmm... specially optimised for the next Lara Croft outing perhaps.
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!
Well considering the fact that to upgrade to Vista, you are going to have to buy al new hardware (including a new monitor), I think alot of people will choose to either not upgrade or probably switch to another OS like MAC's.
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 actually leveled off and droped now that most consumers own PC's.
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System Shock 2 also did also a good job with its graphics (good during those days) and sounds.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
I haven't actually purchased a Windows disc since 98 SE, and I don't plan on ever having purchase one again. Yet I type this out on Windows XP, an operating system where if I want updates I need to "verify" my copy. Oh wait! 30 seconds on Google and a 500kb download, problem solved.
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 sure it will be easily fixed and either removed, or tricked into thinking every file on your drive has been purchased from the concentration camp that is a Windows Media Audio music store.
Is it sad that we will have to go to these measures to get a usable OS just to play games? Yes. But the fact that it will be done (kind of a great challenge for the cracking community) means we don't have to spend a bunch of time spreading FUD about how Vista will take over our systems and make us cry.
520, actually, but close.
Jesus said to his disciples: "If you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one" - Luke 22:36
Oh, gosh no! You've got it wrong.
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.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Ok, let's wait until 2018 when we see DirectX 20...
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
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Batches are necessary, they are right about that. Without batching, you can never use the graphics hardware optimally. Many games are CPU-bound because they issue too many API commands, for example, if there are 5000 visible trees, then you have to send 5000 drawcalls. It gets worse if one mesh has multiple materials, for example a tree with a material for the trunk, another for the leaves etc. In this case, you can only group the geometry with the same material together. Instancing helps reducing the overhead for rendering geometry with the *same* material, but if your game level has 47 materials, all of them visible, you have to render all of them separately. DX10 helps by introducing texture arrays and constant buffers, which means that you can stuff all your textures into one array adressable without issuing commands, same for constants (like, color or specular exponent). In the end, you just issue ONE drawcall, and the mesh gets drawn, with its multiple materials.
Mind you, display lists could be an OpenGL equivalent, but usually aren't (performance-wise).
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DirectXX must mean 100, not 20.
Performing sanity checks on your own beliefs is vital in avoiding poisoned koolaid.
To quote from page numero uno in the link provided in the summary:
"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 3D Blaster Voodoo2 (still sitting right on my desk) has three processors. But I'm really digressing as I read back on what I type and what I quote. Here is what I meant to say...
Fixed number of processors? You mean one, right? Unless you run an SLI system, or happen to have an old Voodoo2 card or two, the number of processors is going to be one (again, please correct me if I'm wrong, I've never dealt with high-end hardware, considering I purchase upgrades about 2 years behind the "standard.")
All insight appreciated. Hit a fool up.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
All the sudden talk about ATi on the bottom of page 2. This somewhat reeks of advertisement. Can we not find something that doesn't have to resort to citing examples that brag about some company's stuff? Can we not just have technical details, like true nerds and geeks like me want, or are we going to have to suffer through corporate advertising even when we want to know details about cool technology?
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
The main advantage of DX 10 is in supporting hardware that, frankly, doesn't exist yet.
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.
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Why? What problems does that solve? You still need to buy a whole new computer, and then when you've finally got it set up, replaced all the Windows software you'd bought over the last 10 years, and learned to use a completely unfamiliar OS,
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 Open Office and other apps that can duplicate the experience. Besides, MAC's are the new consumer darlings right now and have a cool factor that Microsoft lacks... that and Linux is free and stabe. Never underestimate a consumers ability to be cheap.
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