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Beyond DirectX 10 - A glance at DirectX 10.1
Hanners1979 writes "Although we still appear to be some way away from the release of Windows Vista, and with it DirectX 10, specifications for the first point release of the 3D graphics API, DirectX 10.1, have already been finalised and largely made public. Elite Bastards looks at what's new and what will be changing in this release, set to become available not all that long after DirectX 10 — There's more to it than you might imagine."
well that didn't take long /. great timing
Doctors do Massage in Longview WA now, who knew?
I was reading this and was amazed to see "DirectX 10.1 will also see the introduction of full application control over anti-aliasing" ..... hasn't that been a feature in OpenGL for quite some time?
At least it looks like 10.1 will be decent and will have some nice performance improvements, especially with page-fault handling. Is it just me or are GPUs becoming computers on a chip?
Thankfully DirectX has grown up since the days of 1995/98... ick
can they make it sound more impresive than a measly point one?
ACCUSATIVE YOU SON OF A BITCH
the next gen of videocards wait for this technology or include it so we don't have really short lived video cards.
DirectX.
DirectX! DirectX! DirectX!
hi mom!
DirectX does not seem a good standard for the industry to follow. DX9 came out how long ago? It seems as if 3D technology advances have slowed down. Yes there have been updates to DX9, but I don't really remember anything that was exciting. Yes, there has been talk about DX10 and the changes it would bring, but now it's known that it's Vista only. That's why it has taken so long. So the industry is waiting for Vista to finally have implementation of their new graphics features? Sounds like a bad move. What if MS delays Vista? What then? Are the graphic chip makers gonna sit and wait? What we need is an actual open industry standard. Bring back OpenGL so we can make improvements as they come, and not having to wait for Microsoft to lead it where they feel they can control it to make money, and continue locking out other platforms.
GPU shader processors certainly are Turing complete and there are plenty of people (ab-)using them for general purpose calculations. See for example http://www.gpgpu.org/. For some types of calculations, GPUs are much faster than CPUs due to their massively parallel processing. In fact, I have written my thesis on that very topic, comparing CPU and GPU based implementations of some algorithms.
to include Direct X 10 in XP? This has to be one of the worst examples of extortion that MS have done in a long time.
Let's hope that most games stick with DirectX 9 (or OpenGL... one can only wish)
being vague is almost as cool as doing that other thing...
Just by reading this article title, it may seem rather like we're getting ahead of ourselves here - After all, we still have another handful of DirectX 9 boards to come from ATI, never mind being a fair few months away from the launch of Windows Vista, and with it the latest iteration of the DirectX API, DirectX 10.
Nonetheless, despite all this, DirectX 10 is likely to see a number of point revisions during its lifespan and the first of these, imaginatively titled DirectX 10.1, will be the first of these. It may surprise some of you reading this, but the features which will be added by DirectX 10.1 have already been decided upon and information made available about them, so in this article we'll be taking a look through what we can expect to see in DirectX 10.1 compliant hardware.
I would imagine this goes without saying, but before tackling this article I'd well and truly recommend beginning by reading our look at what DirectX 10 has to offer in our article entitled "ATI on the possibilities of DirectX 10" to get yourself up to speed on everything that this major inflection point in 3D graphics rendering entails, from geometry shaders through to (more importantly for this article) the WDDM driver model. So, if you feel that you know all you need to know about DirectX 10, let's move onwards to the future world of DirectX 10.1.
Introduction
Before we begin outright, we should remind ourselves briefly as to exactly why the API will be seeing point releases as of DirectX 10. The main reason for this move is the removal of cap (or capability) bits in the API. In the past, cap bits allowed for graphics vendors to basically pick and choose what features their hardware would support (albeit within some fairly strict guidelines to ensure compliancy to particular DirectX and Shader Model revisions). Although this left the likes of NVIDIA and ATI with plenty of room to develop and tout features that the other didn't have, it also had the side effect of creating development Hell for any game developers working on titles, leaving them to sort through a myriad of cap bits for different GPUs and configurations to ensure that they were supporting the right features for the right boards - More often than not, this simply meant that advanced features that only one graphics vendor supported were left out of the vast majority of titles altogether (Truform anyone?). The removal of this labyrinth was one of the main things developers were screaming out for when it came to discussing what was required of DirectX 10, and so it came to pass.
Of course, this removal of cap bits had to be offset against the ever changing and progressing world of GPU development, so the graphics vendors still needed a way to push the technology forward and allow new technologies to find their way into games. Thus, DirectX 10 will be seeing point releases, one of the main facets of which will be to facilitate the inclusion of new funtionality for compliant graphics hardware to make use of. This makes life easier both for developers (who can target DirectX 10, 10.1 etc rather than individual features) and consumers - How do you explain to the man on the street that yes, a Radeon X800 and GeForce 6800 are both DirectX 9 parts, but both support different Shader Models in their respective architectures. It isn't much fun, trust me. As DirectX 10 and its point releases will also have very little in the way of features that are only optional in the API, buying a graphics board compliant with a particular DirectX 10 version will ensure that it does everything it needs to do to satisfy game titles that use that level of technology. No more Vertex Texture Fetch-esque confusions this time around then.
The other question to answer (or not answer, such is the way these things work) before we start is - When will DirectX 10.1 be released? From what we've heard thus far, it appears that it may well become available not all that long after DirectX 10 itself. What isn't so likely however, is that we'll be seeing DirectX 10.1
Just like Visual Studio and Office it's yet another thing that props up Windows.
If I were a DX developer I'd be more interested in playing "ubiquitous developer" than "Windows Sock Puppet".
I may get modded down for this comment, but honestly, what is so special about windows that makes DX infeasible to implement for other platforms?
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Why not call it DirectX 10, and release it with Vista? Heck, by the time Vista is released, it may be DirectX 11.
Funny createSig(Witty remark, Odd reference)
{
return (Funny)remark + (Funny)reference;
}
Considering the fact that DirectX10 is only available on Vista and that 50% of employers say they are not going to purchase (14% if which say they will wait 15 months before evaluating), it's a safe bet to say that we won't be seeing any games that use DirectX10 for at least 2 years.
Anyone REQUIRING it before then will be severely limiting their consumer base; games failing to be picked up due to a small consumer base will also affect the adoption rate since other game manufacturers will be watching those games that first launch with it.
In alot of ways, Vista is a major gamble for Microsoft and one that alot of people say is going to fail. Only time will tell. In alot of ways, I'm glad that OpenGL development has been put into high gear. This may cause game manufacturers to change tactics since OpenGL is supported on ALL OS's.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
Why would any company want to lose out on the win98,2000,XP crowd when they market their game? Only Microsoft has any interest in selling stuff that uses DX10+. To me DX10+ is dumb, stupid, and inane.
God spoke to me.
I think I'm gonna hold out for DirectX 10.11: For Workgroups. But really, I'm a bit tired of game websites across the net losing their loads over the prospect of DirectX 10. As far as features are concerned, I fail to see what is getting people so worked up about it over OpenGL.
It used to be that games used both OpenGL and DirectX (especially before Direct3d had the features to compete with OpenGL), but since game developers have made windoze their PC development platform, direct3d has become the defacto graphics library to use. One of the reasons there was no Half-Life 2 native LINUX/Mac port is because there was no OpenGL development and Valve had no inclination to do MAJOR programming work to make it work with OpenGL.
Until somebody writes a game that does something on LINUX/MAC that can't be done on windows because of the underlying OS that is successful I doubt if we'll see any change.
I wonder when Linux will drop support for the obsolete, proprietary OpenGL-standard and use a modern, open toolkit like DirectX.
DirectX! Apply directly to monopoly!
or..
DirectX! Apply directly to graphics card!
But not for the obvious reasons. I'm tired of these articles because then the woodwork of MS bashers comes out and says the same tired comments over and over again. "MS is just doing this so everyone has to buy Vista!" "There is no reason why DX10 can't be backported to XP!" It's like these people never saw these articles posted before, and they really feel like they are making some new contribution. They are not.
DirectX! APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE FOREHEAD! DirectX! APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE FOREHEAD! As you can see, there are far worse examples of annoying repetition ;)
After years of pushing DirectX, Nvidia is now betting on OpenGL and has promised first class OpenGL support for their upcoming cards. What does this mean? At the very least it means that there must be good reason for choosing OpenGL over DirectX. Also, keep in mind that OpenGL is an actual graphics standard whereas DirectX is not. Both will co-exist for the next couple of years but it is likely that in the long run OpenGL leaves DirectX in the dust.
...is that the vendor lock-in is FREE!
Jacob Carter: But by who?
Jack O'Neill: It's whom!
Samantha Carter: Actually, it's what.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
Impressive ! DirectX 10.0 isn't even released, yet their PR department is already selling us 10.1 ! Wow ! What about the features for the OS they're planning to release in 2020 ?
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
I think Win98 is the way to go for Dos game playing. Dos emulators don't seem advanced enough for me, I tried one and the framerate was exceedingly slow, like 1 frame per 5 seconds.
God spoke to me.
I'm not an MS fanboy, but to those people who complain that its not good to make Vista-only games because its such a small market, are the same people who complain that there aren't enough games for Linux/Mac. I don't have statistics yet but its pretty much guaranteed that no matter how small, Vista will still have a bigger market share than Linux and Mac combined. I'm not trolling. This is reality.
Usually a /. ed webserver just means I'll revist the article later. A non event.(Doesnt stop me posting though).
/.
But this one tickled my fancy.
"Elite" implies they are impervious to
The "Bastards" part implies they will kick my ass if I ever deemed challenge them(Which would be a waste of time as I am not worthy).
Its odd. As I trudge nostril deep through the sewerage that is my work place, this "page cannot be displayed" bought me a smile. And my day feels better for it. Thanks Elite good guys.
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
Hopefully DirectX 10 is better than this webserver =o
Fully formatted mirror.
I see this as forced revenue protection rather than progress. Why are they bothering to release info about 10.1 when 10 isn't even out yet... let alone being used to full potential. This is typical MS. "We're failing now... but look what we'll do next." It's old.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The concept of "improvement' is somewhat subjective. Many would disagree that the move to CD's was an improvement over LPs. ( for example ).
Yes, i need to do better with my proof reading. I type way too fast, and tend not to care about the outcome.
Why would i want to switch to another platform when what i have fufills my needs already? I can complain about 'modern technology' all i want, and still not be part of it.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The name actually has a lot longer story behind it, and once we had it and started getting popular we were just stuck with it. The idea was to make it offensive enough to keep people away...y'know, to keep the riff-raff out. ;)
:)
The name doesn't mean what you think, but I got a smile reading your interpretation of it.
- "When I say dance, you'd best DANCE motherf*cker!" -Violent Femmes
This is good buisness strategy, it allows Developers and Users to see that Microsoft has a plan for the future and is fixing it in stone now so that games/programs can be planned well in advance. It can take years to write a good game(scene) engine, so by finalizing the requirements for DX 10.1, they can start planning and perhaps even writing their engines now to take advantage of the features to be present.
When DX9 first came out alot of the games were still coming out 1 or 2 versions behind the current release of DX because of the costs to change to the new version half-way through were too prohibitive
Same goes for vid card manufacturers, whether DX10.1 will be released 2 or 10 years in the future is irrelevant, by planning it now, the major vid card makers can start planning their buisness models for the future cards too. ( Wow.. that's a scary thought, one company to RULE them all and in the darkness bind them??? ).
It also gives the Khronos Group ( the guys that now handle OpenGL ) a chance to see what Microsoft has in store and to counter them by making sure the next releases of the OpenGL spec match or exceed the functionality of DX10.1
I don't need to test my programs.. I have an error correcting modem.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liger_Zero
Doesn't this officially make 10.0 a beta? It's outdated before realise; sounds beta to me...
Great Intellect...
Bring back OpenGL? OpenGL is alive and well. It would be great if some of the Windows developers started using it though, since they are in the majority.
If it were in a developer's best interest to use OpenGL they would. OpenGL has a history of having mediocre drivers if you are *not* doing things as Quake does them. In other words OpenGL was of such little interest to ATI and NVIDIA that about all the optimization attention it got was whetever Quake used. Now this was a few years ago and things are better now but developers remembers this and are a little gun shy due to "spotty" support and optimizations. They all know Direct3D will be at the forefront of ATI and NVIDIA's efforts. Now consider the arguments made by other posters where the new features and tools show up first, in Direct3D.
Again, what's in it for developers? Linux gamers? No they dual boot or emulate, they are already Win32/Direct3D customers. There is no new money to be made, a port would merely move a sale from Win32 to Linux, more work, no revenue. The Linux market is really only those who refuse to emulate or dual boot. Mac OS X gamers? Well at least they have a history of spending money going for them, at least when emulation and dual boot were not feasable since an emulator had to emulate the CPU not just a gaming API. However with the switch to Intel dual booting is now an option, and to make things more confusing there is Cider for emulation. Write for Win32/Direct3D and link in Cider to translate the Win32 calls to Mac OS X. I like OpenGL, I come from a scientific visualization background, but come on, there is not much of a business case from a developer's perspective "today". It had slightly better case "yesterday"
Please, feel free to join the rest of the world.
Uh, by "rest of the world" you mean the 5% running Mac OS X and Linux? Hey, if you are discussing soccer then phrases like "rest of the world" are meaningful, but in the context of computer gamers it is a joke.
At least DirectX gives you a start on Microsoft consoles, OpenGL gives you close to nothing on consoles.
"Well if they had a clue maybe they'd realize that gamers really couldn't care less what operating system they're using as long as it runs the games."
They do. It's called...a console. You can fanboy yourself all over this issue, but a console dispenses with a lot of headaches, be they Linux, Mac, or Windows. The only thing they can't do is get rid of the fanboys that can't be bothered to create their own games, and demand that others invest their time and money to please them (then hold some faux threat when they don't get their way).
The difference is that it will be very easy to make games that run on both Vista and XP/2000/etc compared to making a Linux or Mac port. While I'm sure there will be a large market for Vista, if a company can use OpenGL (or even DirectX 9) just as easily and sell the game for other versions of Windows as well, they would be stupid not to. There'd have to be a some feature in DirectX 10 or Vista that is essential to the game, which I find unlikely.
Why didn't they follow Apple's lead and call it DirectXX?
Obviously the 10th point revision would be DirectXXX.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
I know Microsoft does not deserve all the roses in the world for its software, but some users in here seem to think beyond all reasoning. How exactly is the announcement of features bundled in DirectX 10.1 a bad thing? It's great that we're seeing some development even beyond DXX simply because the next release is supposedly groundbreaking according to people outside of Microsoft. Complaining about a release that comes shortly after is no good because that only prompts developers to adapt its features sooner rather than later. It will still be backwards-compatible with cards that support 10.0 only, just like with DX9c,b,a, etc.
I am also stunned to see that so many of you are upset with DXX being a Vista only choice. I don't consider this to be a big deal, really. Microsoft is not forcing you into buying Vista and developers are not forced into developing under DXX. I'm quite sure there will be plenty of top releases for WinXP before we all upgrade to Vista. While some of you guys are at it, you might want to complain about the fact that your current cards do not support DX10 specific features. Isn't that just awful? Now they are forcing us into upgrades?
Microsoft is evolving its software just like hardware developers are evolving hardware. It is generally very difficult for a person to accept that $4,000 worth of today's hardware is obsolete in top gaming within a year, but why should software developers not respect that software too needs to evolve?
To sum things up, Microsoft isn't doing anything wrong here. They realize that DXX isn't feasible for the aged architecture of WinXP and feel like moving on, and as long as there's a big bunch of WinXP users, no one has to worry about not using Vista. Once the majority has migrated to Vista, gamers will still have to buy new hardware to run the newest games and might as well cash out a few extra bucks to get Vista, right?
Full Tilt
Apparently John Titor is submitting to slashdot now.
More like wishful innacurate zealot rambling. nVidia isn't betting on OpenGL, nVidia has ALWAYS supported OpenGL to the same level as they have DriectX, which is to say excellently. Ever since their fumbling first attempt with a proprietary API they decalred their cards native APIs were DirectX and OpenGL. They supported both as native, and no others. You'll find that with games that support both, their speed is equal. To this day, I've never seen them slack on their GL support.
And yes, DirectX IS a standard. It's not an open standard, but it's a standard. Look up "standard" in the dictionary. A standard is just something that's regularly and widely used. There doesn't even have to be an offical document on it or anything, so long as a bunch of people do it a certian way, it's a standard.
DirectX is the predominant standard in PC gaming graphics, sound, input, and so on. You look at game titles, better than 90% of them require DirectX. Yes it's MS exclusive, but it's still the standard for gaming.
Unless OpenGL really gets it's shit together and starts keeping up to date with graphics hardwre developments, then no, I don't think there's any chance of DirectX going anywhere. GL support lags behind hardware which means to implement a GL game using the latest, greatest features you've got to implement them multiple times to deal with the different extensions form different vendors.
If only I had mod-points -- guess whem I would give them to...
sig? Oh, that sig...
Take a perceived lead and pile the promises on higher and deeper, to kill whatever competition might possibly provide an alternative to Microsoft's fake technology.
Yield on the promises is always less than ten percent, and the part that I would need always gets swept under some rug and left behind.
Microsoft is the classic pusher, and Microsoft technology is intellectual crack.
Who the hell troll bombed the first few pages of this damn thing? What don't you get about funny?!
I'm seeing a lot of comments here lamenting the fact that the majority of PC games are developed using DirectX instead of OpenGL. You have to remember that DirectX Graphics (formerly Direct3D) is just one part of the overall package. DirectX also provides simple, useful interfaces for sound, input and networking. While I'm reasonably sure that the networking support doesn't get a lot of use, the sound and input APIs do. Heck, even the much-touted OpenGL example World of Warcraft actually makes heavy use of DirectX under Windows. Just not for graphics.
If there was a good overall package that leveraged OpenGL for graphics, then you'd see OpenGL being used more often. At the moment there's really only SDL, and to be frank, while SDL is great for some things, it's just not on the same footing as DirectX having come late to the party and not had the level of funding and development.
DirectX 10.1 will be a free upgrade from DirectX10.0 but starting with DirectX 10.2 (codenamed "Jaguar") you will have to pay $129 for the upgrade.
Later releases of DirectX will include GUI window tiling effects (set to debut in DirectX10.3 "Panther") and a "widget" layer complete with water ripple effects (curently scheduled to appear in DirectX 10.4 "Tiger").
Running games and graphics apps in OpenGL was better and faster than D3D - why? Simple! D3D had to go thru the OS first. OpenGL was direct to hardware. That was one less step to do (from what I'm understanding reading the OpenGL website,) which usually resulted in better performance, and the general reason was that games running D3D needed more CPU/GPU power and RAM to run as smoothly (Anyone recall Unreal Tournament 2003's requirements? Remember the hidden OpenGL renderer which gave you an extra 10 or so FPS, just like the OpenGL renderer in the original Unreal Tournament?) Having less layers of code to go through will almost always, with the exception of poor programming, outdo going through a separate API. With the lovely novelty of universal drivers, games can easily be written to directly address the hardware. In steps OpenGL, and out steps D3D. Hello Linux, OSX, and Windows gaming, all in a wonderful harmony. As long as everyone plays by OpenGLs standard, all should be well in theory. This is only a thought, and a theory.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
MS was really very smart here.
D3D10 only available on Vista.
"Hmm," Developers say, "that is not a good thing. I'll stick with D3D9."
"AHA!" MS says smugly "we thought of that already."
MS has purposefully broken prior versions of D3D in vista by forcing them to run in software emulation.
So if you are a developer, you have to make a choice: make your game for the old MS operating system or for the latest one.
Or think outside of the box, abandon this stupid API, and use FREAKING OPENGL!!!
Consumers != tech-savvy people. They'll probably buy a computer with onboard graphics that will not play their muchly-coveted game, simply because they have no honest clue what "Minimum System Requirements" means. They'll bitch, moan, and move on because "It doesn't work." In comes OpenGL (Which any half-competent 3-d accelerator can handle) and suddenly "It works!" D3D will be just like Microsoft within a few years since Gates left the company - nothing but shambles.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
The driver has bugger all to do with the API. The sleep call is a sysem call API. Exists on almost all computers out there.
I'm seeing a whole lot of DirectX dissing here. Alls I gotta say to you fools is:
Don't hate the playa. Hate the games.
OpenGL is still better.
Direct X10.1, the sucessor to DirectX 10 will have exciting new features, bla, bla, bla ...
...
As in the Vista only sucessor to the Vista only DirectX 10, that grand piece of thecnology which on it's own will make me - and possible many others - a long term user of the PC as gaming platform move to consoles
With the current widspread practice in the industry of making "me too" games, putting graphics above playability and in general producing (at least in the PC) the most boring crop of games in the last 10 years (50% of which based on movies), i personally feel that DirectX 10 being Vista only was the one before last nail in the coffin of gaming on the PC, the last nail being when the gaming industry embraces it.
Having been a long time fan of playing in the PC due to it being by nature the platform where the more complex and innovative games first appear, i'm now a fan of the budget games bin (trying to find those oldies but goodies which i missed when they first came out) and am aiming at getting a Whi to satisfy my future gaming needs.
I suspect i'm not the only one doing this...
Sorry its not Direct X. Its a lack of customers that does in the Linux and Mac groups.
Put it this way, I can find hundreds if not thousands of posts here from Linux and Mac heads who always claim how much better their OS is. This goes hand in hand with all the claims that they do "real" stuff with the machines instead of playing games and that games are not important to an OS.
Whats it going to be?
If you can afford games you can afford buying an OS just to run them. Relegate XP to what many of you claim its only good for. Its cheaper than buying a console and you can have your good OS on it with your game OS.
Macs went the way of publishing. Apple aimed them that way. They didn't cater to the gaming crowd or game developers. What would you expect to happen? Linux is too fragmented to cater to the developers - AND combine that with an attitude of it should be free or Open source or forget it and that scares off a lot of people. While it isn't always true, people out to make money from their games are going to see the negative side more than the positive.
Microsoft, catered to the gamer and the developer. OpenGL would have been a good choice but if your going to market something it should be something you own. Direct X brought games out of the stoneage on computers. Before then it was a wreck. When the first voodoo cards came out with their Glide drivers it showed that a unified proprietary driver could succeed in the market. The market didn't care that it was closed, it only cared that it worked. Hence Direct X succeeded for the very same reasons. Just as Windows makes it easier for novices to use computers Direct X made it easier for developers to make games. Early versions were not that great but eventually it got better. When developers don't have to aim at individual cards but instead a baseline of "expected features" it eases developement.
Don't expect any shift anytime soon. If anything being able to run XP on a Mac may just stop any market from forming. Hell I am curious if one day you will be able to buy a "Windows for Games" just to install on machines other than those installed with Xp/Vista/etc.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Simple. Where is the payoff for developing Direct X for other platforms?
It works for the Windows platform. Consumers can get that platform about anywhere a Pc is sold. Support for the platform is usually the vendor of the Pc or Microsoft itself. So, why would you spend development time to take Direct X to another platform when it works just fine on its intended platform which comes with a ready market?
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Do not try to compare OpenGL with DirectX, but with Direct3D. DirectX is more than only 3D accelleration.
At first I thought WDDM stood for Windows' Damn Digital Management.
-Styopa
Will it work with my forehead VCR?
Wow. Some hostility there hey?
Do you suppose maybe OpenGL is (somewhat) behind because Microsoft has locked up much of the consumer graphics market with DirectX? Do you think maybe not having a giant monopoly in charge of the graphics api all their competitors use might be a good idea?
It upsets me a great deal that DX10 is vista only, because I'm still running Windows 2000 Professional... and I had no intention in upgrading to XP nor any other Microsoft operating system for the next *10 years*... because they made no "improvement" which I really want even if I got it for free, not a single one... well ok with the exception of 64bit support but I don't have a 64bit processor.
Now suppose 1 DX10 game in my favourite Genre is relased the next following.. shall we say 3 years, sounds quite likely to me. It's simply so amazing, that it's a must have... to run it I have to buy software I don't want for 100s of $/... and it requires me to set up a dual boot with win2k so that I can use it when I don't play and don't have to be exposed to all the new irritating features which *bothers the hell out of me*. If it offered.. shall we say a new cool filesystem then I would be paying for something substantial other than a API change... but we all know what happend to said filesystem.
Running games and graphics apps in OpenGL was better and faster than D3D - why? Simple! D3D had to go thru the OS first. OpenGL was direct to hardware.
Vista does not allow direct-to-hardware video control. It is attempting to make everything go through it's own video layer first. I'm not sure it even can have the same type of advantage you say that OpenGL provides. This is truly a design choice, an attempt to make Windows of a different paradigm than say Linux or OSX.
Not that this is inconsistent of Microsoft, or fundamentally 'wrong' per se, but strikes me as an attempt by one child to hog all the toys. They want a unique Windows platform. I personally believe we are past the age where diversity in platforms is inherently beneficial to the consumer.
And over there we have the labyrinth guards. One always lies, one always tells the truth, and one stabs people who ask t