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Real Life DirectX 10 Performance
AnandTech has a look at the performance PC gamers can expect see under Windows Vista with DirectX 10. Unfortunately, it isn't pretty. Despite the power of the new 10-compliant graphics cards, the choices made in developing this technology have resulted in a significant gap between what is possible and what is actually obtainable from commercial PC hardware. What's worse, the article starts off by pointing out that much of the shiny effects exclusive to DX10 games would have been possible with DX9, had Microsoft been inclined to develop in that direction. From the article: "[Current] cards are just not powerful enough to enable widespread use of any features that reach beyond the capability of DirectX 9. Even our high-end hardware struggled to keep up in some cases, and the highest resolution we tested was 2.3 megapixels. Pushing the resolution up to 4 MP (with 30" display resolutions of 2560x1600) brings all of our cards to their knees. In short, we really need to see faster hardware before developers can start doing more impressive things with DirectX 10."
I feel so sorry that they can't run the latest games at 2560x1600.
Exactly.
DX10 doesnt have "performance". DX10 is an API. You can benchmark API quality by a great many things, but performance is fairly irrelevant when that performance is tied so much to the undelying hardware.
DX10 is a good API if in a couple of years time, the shader models match the industry direction and there isnt a whole bunch of GL_EXT_OBS_ASS_HATTERY_BUF_GAY_PRIMITIVE extensions to make things work. This is likely considering the industry partnership arrangements MS have.
Anandtech can enjoy their cry that their hardware wasnt good enough to make the most of DX10. This is really a good thing for the API, it means that DX10 has some lifetime. A scarier headline would have been "Current Gen Cards Can Max Out What DX10 Is Capable Of". That would be the death of an API...
3laws: No freebies, no backsies, GTFO.
Don't knock it. There's always someone who's willing to be the early adopter to no advantage. That guy, and others like him, make things affordable for the rest of us. The early adopter is usually happy with the situation and so should we be.
Michael Reed, freelance tech writer.