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DirectX 10 Hardware Is Now Obsolete

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the shouldn't-have-blinked dept.

ela_gervaise writes "SIGGRAPH 2007 was the stage where Microsoft dropped the bomb, informing gamers that the currently available DirectX 10 hardware will not support the upcoming DirectX 10.1 in Vista SP1. In essence, all current DX10 hardware is now obsolete. But don't get too upset just yet: 'Gamers shouldn't fret too much - 10.1 adds virtually nothing that they will care about and, more to the point, adds almost nothing that developers are likely to care about. The spec revision basically makes a number of things that are optional in DX10 compulsory under the new standard - such as 32-bit floating point filtering, as opposed to the 16-bit current. 4xAA is a compulsory standard to support in 10.1, whereas graphics vendors can pick and choose their anti-aliasing support currently. We suspect that the spec is likely to be ill-received. Not only does it require brand new hardware, immediately creating a minuscule sub-set of DX10 owners, but it also requires Vista SP1, and also requires developer implementation.'"

70 of 373 comments (clear)

  1. More juice! by JosefAssad · · Score: 5, Funny

    4xAA is a compulsory That would seem to me to be the biggest change, that it requires batteries now.

    --
    The Banjo Players Must Die!
    1. Re:More juice! by mpe · · Score: 3, Funny

      4xAA is a compulsory That would seem to me to be the biggest change, that it requires batteries now.

      Presumably Microsoft will be calling one of the new features "EverReady Boost" :)

    2. Re:More juice! by Solra+Bizna · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Support of the feature by the video card is mandatory. Use of the feature by the game is not.

      At least, that's how I understand it.

      That aside, am I the only person who remembers reading this "bomb" months back? The plan was that instead of checking for individual features (and coding around their lack case-by-case, like we will still get to do with OpenGL) the developer would check for a DirectX version, leaving fewer opportunities for wonky bugs from weird support combinations.

      -:sigma.SB

      (Disclaimer: I am a game developer who exclusively uses OpenGL for hardware 3D and I fully intend never to write a single line of DirectX code. Ever.)

      --
      WARN
      THERE IS ANOTHER SYSTEM
    3. Re:More juice! by TheRaven64 · · Score: 4, Informative

      On many games, I can run at a much higher resolution without AA than with. In my opinion, high resolution > antialiasing. This is especially true on displays like LCDs, which have a fixed pixel size. Running at a lower resolution than native will add scaling artefacts, and AA can make these even worse. Of course, the spec only make support for AA mandatory; it doesn't force you to use it.
      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    4. Re:More juice! by inca34 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I think, that's ultimately what Microsoft is trying to do. It makes no sense to do what they've done to DirectX 10 except when you view it in the light of the Xbox console. They are killing PC gaming.

    5. Re:More juice! by Metasquares · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If they piss enough developers off, all they're going to kill is DirectX as everyone moves to OpenGL.

    6. Re:More juice! by mrchaotica · · Score: 2, Interesting

      (and coding around their lack case-by-case, like we will still get to do with OpenGL)

      Isn't the new OpenGL standard coming out right about now (at Siggraph)? Doesn't it roll a lot of the old extensions into the base standard, and thus end a lot of that kind of case-by-case junk too?

      --

      "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

    7. Re:More juice! by Snaller · · Score: 2, Funny

      "(Disclaimer: I am a game developer who exclusively uses OpenGL for hardware 3D and I fully intend never to write a single line of DirectX code. Ever.)"

      So you are a poor developer? ;)

      --
      If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
  2. Wait... by Draconix · · Score: 3, Funny

    You mean developers are actually using DirectX 10?

    --
    By reading this you acknowledge that you have read it.
    1. Re:Wait... by Ilgaz · · Score: 4, Insightful

      i take it you're not a game developer and/but a linux user yes? All serious gamers are happily running Windows XP with latest service pack. I have not yet seen a single gamer liking Vista unless he/she got a true monster machine which you can't tell difference whatever you do. Some game companies have guts to say "We do NOT support Vista at least until SP1 ships".

      I am running OS X here and all my games are OS X native but you don't need DX 10 enabled Vista to browse game forums :)

      The absolute need for Vista to run DX 10 killed it from the beginning. The DX 10 and Vista respectively. I am sure lots of game developers who coded direct3d only stuff questioned their choice and started to look to recent OpenGL advancements.

      I am hoping they finally started to figure risks of using a MS only technology rather than platform independent, documented frameworks such as OpenGL, OpenAL.

      Did MS care to explain what kind of undocumented,hidden quantum computing (!) routines in Vista needed for DX 10 running? :) Or did they simply state "We can't sell Vista otherwise, those FPS racing teens will buy it for DX10". I think they overlooked to gaming community, they weren't that stupid.

      You think that "Linux user" wouldn't have clue but you forget WINE factor. If I had a problem with a missing dll in DirectX, I would talk to WINE people :)

    2. Re:Wait... by Professor_UNIX · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I am hoping they finally started to figure risks of using a MS only technology rather than platform independent, documented frameworks such as OpenGL, OpenAL.
      I've always wondered about this. It seems that the single biggest problem with porting Windows games to Mac or Linux is lack of DirectX support, so why do developers even use this broken technology to begin with instead of OpenGL? Is it easier to program for? Presumably Windows also supports OpenGL so why not make games that are easily ported like id does?

      Or did they simply state "We can't sell Vista otherwise, those FPS racing teens will buy it for DX10".
      Well, obviously that is the reason. There's no reason Windows 2000 Pro wasn't sufficient to run today's modern games if they had just released the latest DirectX libraries for it, but then they wouldn't have sold Windows XP and dragged gamers into the wonderful world of DRM and activation. I was more than happy to keep using Windows 2000 Pro on my gaming machine and didn't need any of the features of Windows XP.
    3. Re:Wait... by Machtyn · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The absolute need for Vista to run DX 10 killed it from the beginning.
      This is correct and a misunderstanding by Microsoft of the PC Gaming crowd. We like our hardware powerful. Every little thing that can be done to improve fps but keep a balance of beauty is going to be done. (Better hardware to improve fps while trying to keep AA/AF or HDR at a maximum.)

      The last thing a hardcore gamer is going to do is get an OS that eats up processor ticks in the background when we want the game to be the sole user of the processor. (I know, it's over-simplifying the entire issue.) Moving to DirectX 10, which means moving to a resource hungry OS, when very few games support it is really silly. Oblivion still has a hard time crunching the data is some areas on my PC. (E6600 Intel, 2GB OCX RAM, nVidia 7900GS OC'd, 19" widescreen at 1440x900, HDR and distant rendering on)

      /What is it with red that makes a game slow to a crawl?
    4. Re:Wait... by MBCook · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Did MS care to explain what kind of undocumented,hidden quantum computing (!) routines in Vista needed for DX 10 running?

      I can explain that one. I read a post a while back where someone who was in the know explained it (it was on one of the Microsoft blogs, I think). DX 10 contained virtualized graphics memory (that may not be the right term). Like system memory, each program would get it's own addresses and you could page in and out graphics data. This is a big feature. It also required kernel and GDI changes. This is why DX 10 could only run on Vista.

      Someone (I think it was NVidia), couldn't get it done in time.

      So it ended up optional in the spec (or moved out completely, I don't remember). The people who did do it (ATI, I think) got an unfair shake. Now without that feature, there is no technical reason DX 10 can't be run on XP without a few small innocuous changes. But they don't have time at this point (or a business reason).

      DX 10 being only on Vista was based on a very valid techical reason... that they gave up on and removed.

      --
      Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
    5. Re:Wait... by fastest+fascist · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Honestly, I just don't see Microsoft's OS monopoly falling until something disruptive enough comes along to fundamentally change consumer computing altogether. Something that does away with the desktop, maybe.

    6. Re:Wait... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful



      ... they had to release Vista before it was ready primarily to stop Linux.

      This is the reason why many people don't take Linux seriously, because so many of you actually believe this.



    7. Re:Wait... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The big bonus to DirectX is that it is an almost all inclusive solution. DirectX does not compare to OpenGL. Direct3D perhaps, but DirectX also covers inputs, sound, networking, etc. Despite this more people supporting OpenGL seems like a good thing. Perhaps we will see the rise of OpenInput, OpenNetwork, etc. libraries to go together with OpenGL and OpenAL

    8. Re:Wait... by Sark666 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I've posted it before, but never really got a response. So here goes. My take is we have to look back at history. Some will argue that the reason they choose directx today is, supposedly, some things are easier vs opengl.

      But way back when, I always wondered why a company like valve took an opengl engine and ported it to directx (for hl1) when no one would argue that directx was better then. Hell, carmack had his famous open letter to microsoft to ensure support for opengl. Microsoft saw how big gaming was becoming, and the best way to tie your users to one platform was to tie the developers to one platform. If hl1 was opengl only when it exploded, maybe companies like ati would have got in gear and developed better (i.e. not shit) opengl drivers. Either that or miss on out the huge hit that was/is counterstrike. I'm not saying valve was the lynchpin in how things ended up. But if big players like them stuck to opengl, more companies might be willing to port as their games would be opengl based anyway.

      So why valve did that at that time I'll never understand, but microsoft understood the market in this case, all too well.

      Why aren't there more game developers like id software who actually care? Carmack has said in the past he tries to keep everything crossplatform not because it's necessarily the profitable move, but because 'it's a good thing'.

    9. Re:Wait... by blahplusplus · · Score: 3, Informative

      Mr. Carmack has said the later versions of DX (specifically 9) are just as good if not better then OpenGL, OpenGL no longer has anything serious on Direct X. Direct X is no longer the crap it once was.

      Here's Johns 2007 Keynote from Quakecon(?) I believe.

      http://www.3ddownloads.com/Action/Rage/Movies/john _carmack-quakecon-keynote-2007.mp3

    10. Re:Wait... by TheNetAvenger · · Score: 2, Informative

      All serious gamers are happily running Windows XP with latest service pack. I have not yet seen a single gamer liking Vista unless he/she got a true monster machine which you can't tell difference whatever you do. Some game companies have guts to say "We do NOT support Vista at least until SP1 ships".

      Actually this is changing with the drivers from NVidia and ATI from the past few months. The Vista gaming performance even at launch with CRAP drivers was only doing about 3-6fps slower than XP, and when you are running 30-60fps, the difference is NOT noticeable.

      However with the current generation of drivers, Vista is out performing XP in gaming, not only in Video performance but in load times, etc.

      And this is JUST NOT people with monster systems. We have test 'gaming' machines here that our techs use that have everything from Athlon +2000 and an NVidia Geforce 6600 that conquers all of today's games with acceptable performance. And YES faster in Vista with better overall performance than running XP on the same system.

      The only catch to good gaming results in Vista is 1GB of RAM, and since MOST gamers already have 1GB, this is not a big requirement.

      As for newer systems and higher end GPUs, the results are even more dramatic, as Vista utilizing dual-cores more efficiently and RAM more efficiently to cut down the Hard Drive and other bottlenecks, the games not only perform but load and 'instance' at 5 to 10x as fast as they do on XP with the same hardware.

      I am actually kind of tired of the Gamers hate Vista Myth, as it is a bunch of crap. And 99% of the gamers that continue this myth, have never used Vista to even know what the hell they are talking about.

      Considering that the entire Vista video subsystem is NEW, it is quite astounding that games and applications run as seamless as they do in comparison to XP, and then add on the fact it has more features, and gives users better quality in games and now is giving them better performance with the latest drivers.

      (Yes I am specifically talking about DX7-9 and OpenGL games here, this doesn't even bring into account what DX10 will bring to games for more performance and quality.)

      This also doesn't even factor in some of the things Vista can do with games that are impossible on XP or other OSes, since it pre-emptively multi-tasks the GPU and does do VRAM Virtualization.

      On a Vista machine you can open a high performance OpenGL game (in a window) and a couple of DX8 or DX9 games in a Window as well, and they will all run side by side with virtually less than 2% FPS drop in all games because of Vista flipping GPU control between the games and even the Aero desktop. You can even Flip3D the games and not lose FPS while they are running in a perspective Window in Flip3D mode on Aero.

      You can also do other 'cute' tricks, like grab a tranparency utility and set the game's Window Transparency to 75% and see the desktop and other games running behind while you are actively playing, again without FPS loss in the game.

      Our techs even leave a 1080HD wallpaper running on the desktop while doing this with games that are set to 75% transparent, and neither the games nor the desktop Video wallpaper glitch or lose performance. And again this is possible even on medium end systems like a system with 2GB of RAM a 3Ghz processor P4 and an NVidia 6800 GPU. (Oh and have Windows Media Center playing a Show or Movie on the other monitor at the same time.)

      Vista is actually a gamer's dream architecture, especially if you run multiple instances of a MMO or run in a Window so you can use Vent and Messenger, etc while playing. It also rocks for single player games like Oblivion that is damn demanding on a system.

    11. Re:Wait... by jiushao · · Score: 2, Informative

      Not only does Windows 2000 have DirectX 9.0c (the latest and greatest before DirectX 10), but even Windows 98 does. In fact, up to and including DirectX 8.0a Windows 95 was still dragged along. So this being some standard Microsoft tactic, having been used to try to sell XP, is just plain false.

    12. Re:Wait... by seaturnip · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Direct3D is the only part of DirectX that matters. Developers don't give a shit about DirectInput, DirectSound and DirectPlay. That stuff doesn't cause major programming difficulties and in any case third-party libraries (such as Miles in the case of sound) do it better and are more portable than Microsoft's stuff.

    13. Re: Wait... by jeffbax · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Well, with Valve... they are a shop who a large chunk of people used to work at Microsoft (including Gabe Newell) so they have a lot of experience with using Microsoft technology for one... in fact I would say that everything they do is just "Knee Deep in the"... Windows API ;) Which sucks cause I'm a recent (~3 years) Mac convert and froth at the idea of having Steam and Half-Life 2 native on the Mac. Valve aren't even touching the PS3 port of Half-Life 2 Orange Box... only the Xbox 360 one where they are still in the DirectX Realm... the PS3 versions is being outsourced.

    14. Re:Wait... by GreggBz · · Score: 2, Informative

      The performance and features may be about equal, but if you're writing just Windows games, I'm sorry, DirectX is a better choice, for lots of other reasons. First, you don't just get a graphics API, you get DirectSound DirectPlay DirectInput and DirectDraw(the depreciated version), rolled into one. That makes things much, much easier. With OpenGL you can use SDL, or a hybrid DirectInput, OpenGL type thing, maybe OpenGLUT or something, it's somewhat ickey... I've done some OpenGL work in Linux with SDL, and thought, I'll use VS, thanks.

      As someone who has actually used both, I prefer the DirectX.

      And lastly, say what you will about Microsoft, but their DirectX development tools and help are unmatched. Right now, you can get the express edition of Visual Studio, the latest Directx SDK, and write awesome games, for $0.

  3. Where is OpenGL when we need it? by imbaczek · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This seems like a window of opportunity for a new OpenGL standard. Anybody knows when it's due?

    1. Re:Where is OpenGL when we need it? by MrCoke · · Score: 5, Informative

      OpenGL 3 is announced recently: http://www.opengl.org/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?u bb=get_topic;f=3;t=015351;p=0/.

    2. Re:Where is OpenGL when we need it? by baadger · · Score: 3, Informative
      According to the OpenGL homepage...

      The OpenGL 3 specification is on track to be finalized at the next face-to-face meeting of the OpenGL ARB, at the end of August
    3. Re:Where is OpenGL when we need it? by Ilgaz · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No, nothing can be obsolete on open industry standards like OpenGL. At last resort, your OpenGL layer would "software render" the OpenGL 3 content instead of telling GPU to draw it. It would be dead slow but still work. Same goes for backwards compatibility. I actually have a game coded in OpenGL 1.1 ages running on my Quad G5 having OpenGL 2 specs.

      Nobody would dare claim "Upgrade your OS so you can run OpenGL 3 on your compliant hardware".

      MS spent billions to DirectX and converting some naive/beginner developers exactly for this reason. To control. Companies/Developers like ID Software, Blizzard spent extra millions as an answer. They are using OpenGL and OpenAL not because "they are 133t", they use it to minimise effects of such crap by MS. They don't want MS dictating users which OS to run using their millions of man hours as excuse.

      This should be a clue for those .NET and upcoming SilverLight lovers too.

      The extra price of OpenGL and OpenAL comes from the fact that they are intended for real developers, not some people pointing and clicking in Visual Studio and claim they are game developers.

    4. Re:Where is OpenGL when we need it? by QunaLop · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I think what you say makes a lot of sense, except the last phrase. If games are easier to write (skipping over the effectiveness/perceived effectiveness of any 'platform'), then there are more people writing games and becoming developers, which would make the game market more competitive, and thusly we would have better games!

      I can't see any reason why game development should not be point and click, if they made something like OpenGL easier to write for, I think it would be a positive for the game market, and might bring a viable alternative to Microsoft

    5. Re:Where is OpenGL when we need it? by Ilgaz · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I think what you say makes a lot of sense, except the last phrase. If games are easier to write (skipping over the effectiveness/perceived effectiveness of any 'platform'), then there are more people writing games and becoming developers, which would make the game market more competitive, and thusly we would have better games!



      I can't see any reason why game development should not be point and click, if they made something like OpenGL easier to write for, I think it would be a positive for the game market, and might bring a viable alternative to Microsoft

      Open Standards has some side effects. MS can do everything "click and run" but OpenGL ARB can't do it since it may also end up in some military planes screen. MS can say "Lets drop this, it makes coding complex, nobody would use it in game" but OpenGL can't since it could be in use. Even some high end phones run a stripped version of OpenGL.

      I think a developer coding for multiple platforms using open standards must be far more complex/trained/advanced than a guy firing up Visual Studio and run some "Wizards" so he/she actually deserves the extra money. I heard OpenGL is called "expensive" many places so I was trying to explain why.

      MS Windows only developers, game developers are already politely bribed by MS. Making OpenGL the easiest to code technology ever won't change their Direct3d obsession or they won't magically ship a native OS X/Linux game as result.

    6. Re:Where is OpenGL when we need it? by jeevesbond · · Score: 4, Insightful

      SDL is not comparable to DirectX in any way

      From the SDL website:

      Simple DirectMedia Layer is a cross-platform multimedia library designed to provide low level access to audio, keyboard, mouse, joystick, 3D hardware via OpenGL, and 2D video framebuffer.

      From http://www.gamesforwindows.com/en-US/AboutGFW/Page s/DirectX10.aspx :

      DirectX® APIs gives multimedia applications access to the advanced features of high-performance hardware such as three-dimensional (3-D) graphics acceleration chips and sound cards. They control low- level functions, including two- dimensional (2-D) graphics acceleration; support for input devices such as joysticks, keyboards, and mice; and control of sound mixing and sound output.

      No, it is not a joke. Yes, they are comparable.

      --
      I'm going to transform myself into a mighty hawk. Either that or I'll just go and work at Dixons, haven't decided yet.
    7. Re:Where is OpenGL when we need it? by ricegf · · Score: 4, Funny

      @llgaz: "No, nothing can be obsolete on open industry standards like OpenGL. At last resort, your OpenGL layer would "software render" the OpenGL 3 content instead of telling GPU to draw it."

      Yes, well I remember setting up my first Linux install on an old and ludicrously underpowered machine, and immediately launching (naturally) TuxRacer.

      First image: Tux happily sitting on sled at top of hill.

      Second image (10 seconds later): Tux careening wildly out of control down the hill.

      Third image (10 seconds later): Tux's terror-striken face as he flails through the air toward a stand of trees.

      Fourth image (10 seconds later): "Game over."

    8. Re:Where is OpenGL when we need it? by harlows_monkeys · · Score: 2, Informative

      No, it is not a joke. Yes, they are comparable

      No, they are not comparable. On all platforms that it supports, SDL is a layer built on top of that platform's sound and graphics and input device services.

      On Windows, SDL uses DirectDraw for graphics, DirectSound for sound. On Linux, it uses X11 for graphics and OSS for sound.

    9. Re:Where is OpenGL when we need it? by the_greywolf · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Some clarification: Doom 3/Quake 4 is an OpenGL title. They use DirectX for the DirectInput and DirectSound APIs, I believe. Doom 3 had to use EAX for sound output, I'm sure - I'm just not familiar with it. WoW is a DirectX title with an OpenGL engine (like War3): It uses DirctX for graphics by default, but with the -opengl switch, it uses OpenGL for graphics, which works better for NVIDIA and Wine users and is a carryover from Mac OS X support.

      --
      grey wolf
      LET FORTRAN DIE!
    10. Re:Where is OpenGL when we need it? by jeevesbond · · Score: 2, Insightful

      On Linux, it uses X11 for graphics and OSS for sound.

      Only indirectly. It sits on top of OpenGL. They are comparable in that--as the descriptions of both show--they do almost exactly the same thing, but SDL is cross-platform. Seems to me that you're being exceptionally pedantic, if they do the same thing then they are comparable, how they do it is irrelevant.

      How's about a car analogy? An electric car and a petrol car are comparable, they are both cars even though the way they work is completely different. SDL and DirectX are comparable because they both provide an abstraction layer to low-level 3D/2D graphics, input devices and sound.

      --
      I'm going to transform myself into a mighty hawk. Either that or I'll just go and work at Dixons, haven't decided yet.
    11. Re:Where is OpenGL when we need it? by returnofjdub · · Score: 4, Informative

      I hate to gripe, but there are a few glaring misconceptions that need to be addressed in your post. Mainly this claim that DirectX/Direct3D is "pointing and clicking in Visual Studio." You're probably thinking more along the lines of XNA, but core Direct3D is a pretty basic interface to the graphics hardware (you're dealing with vertex buffers, texture objects, vertex/pixel shaders and their associated inputs, and a number of state parameters). Functionality wise it offers essentially what OpenGL does, except wrapped up in a platform-specific COM interface. There is a higher level library called D3DX that adds some helper functions for loading textures and meshes and doing vector and matrix math, but even that's quite a ways from the "pointing and clicking in Visual Studio" you mentioned.

      DirectX isn't "easier" than OpenGL/OpenAL (in fact, OpenAL is higher level than DirectSound or XAudio, if you've ever used any of those APIs). The extra price of OpenGL comes not from "the fact they are intended for real developers" (whatever that means), but rather from the fact that it's not exactly the cleanest API at the moment (but that will change in a few months when OpenGL 3.0 finally hits). In combing through this thread I'm surprised I haven't seen mentioned that one big reason Direct3D took off over OpenGL on Windows is because OpenGL is notoriously difficult to write stable, performant drivers for. An article in issue #2 of the OpenGL newsletter mentioned how the old object model caused unnecessary driver overhead, for instance: http://www.opengl.org/pipeline/article/vol002_3/

      Back in the late 90's when all this stuff was taking off, major games like Half-Life, Quake 2, and Unreal had several graphics renderers encapsulated in DLLs. Half-Life had software, OpenGL, and Direct3D. Quake 2 had software, OpenGL, and I think PowerVR or something. Unreal had a heck of a lot of different renderers, I know software, D3D, Glide, and OpenGL were among them. They did this because driver performance and compatibility was such a big issue back then, by writing to more than one API they could cover all the bases (card X doesn't run GL well but does run D3D well? Then we support that scenario. Card Y runs D3D poorly but does GL well? We support that, too). At the end of the day, the major graphics vendors ended up putting out really excellent D3D drivers and that helped the API out significantly. D3D was the only hardware-agnostic solution back then aside from OpenGL (ATI wasn't implementing Glide), and the API mapped to the general hardware case well enough that it was relatively easy for most vendors to write good drivers for.

      Like pretty much everyone else who isn't a Microsoft employee, I do wish Microsoft would have adopted OpenGL as the sole hardware graphics standard instead of running off and creating their own thing and creating yet another obstacle to porting games over to different platforms (and to be clear, there are MANY more issues to porting games to different platforms than I/O APIs, for some reason I'll never understand that point is lost on a lot of people), but painting game developers who use DirectX as corporate Microsoft shills isn't the most honest or productive characterization of why things are the way they are. What is productive is looking at the technical flaws present in OpenGL and rectifying them, which is something the Khronos ARB Working Group has done an excellent job of.

      As far as id is concerned, Carmack is using the Direct3D-only Xbox 360 as his benchmark development platform at the moment (you can go back to his Quakecon 2005 speech for a reference on that). That doesn't mean he's turned into a D3D fanboy, the Windows version of Rage is still going to be OpenGL. What it does mean is, these days he's probably more concerned with things like efficient multicore utilization, robust and productive content developer toolsets, and having a nice stable platform with excellent developer support as a testbed (something Mic

  4. Such a disappointment by zdude255 · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm sure the two developers using DX10 are gonna be pissed.

    1. Re:Such a disappointment by harry666t · · Score: 5, Funny

      > I'm sure the two developers using DX10 are gonna be pissed.

      I have dissociative identity disorder, you insensitive clod!

  5. Minor version change by Z00L00K · · Score: 2, Insightful
    and major requirement change - so why not call it DirectX 11 instead? Or maybe that's X11?

    Anyway - the whole business here seems to be to force hardware upgrades by one hand and software upgrades with the other just to be sure that the flow of money is ensured. How long will it take until video drivers are Vista Only - just to force an upgrade to Vista?

    --
    If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
  6. Once again, early adopters take it in the shorts.. by tech10171968 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The article makes it seem as if Microsoft rushed DX10 out before it was truly ready; when you consider that this is what they often seem to do with their OS's, this should probably come as no surprise. Of course, we're seeing this news on the Inquirer, often considered to be a slightly less-than-reliable source of tech news. Maybe I'll reserve judgement until I hear another explanation from some other source.

    --
    This space for rent!
  7. Since when is DirectX a standard? by Dracos · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Once again, those seven little letters get left out of a "standards" article: d-e f-a-c-t-o.

    1. Re:Since when is DirectX a standard? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      DirectX is a standard and de facto standards are a subset of standards: the minority that are actually used.

      A standard is just a set of rules. If I wrote a blog article "Rules for wiping ones arse" that would be a standard. In the unlikely event it became widely accepted it would be a de facto standard. If the international community became concerned about global arse-wiping inconsistency it could ultimately become an ISO standard.

  8. Why by Unixfreak31 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Why this sudden change dx 10 has not even caught on in the hardcore gamers let alone even the above mainstream. Is MS going to make dx 10.2 or 11 radical to where devolpers have no options as well? If so I think its time to move back to OpenGL. No freedom for devlopers. And I want to be able to set my own AA levels.

  9. Catchy title but... by Taagehornet · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Now" is probably an exaggeration, considering that we're talking about Vista SP1.

    "Obsolete" ...I guess my DX9 card has been obsolete for a few years now, it still ticks on nicely though. Heck, all my hardware is probably obsolete.

    You could sum up TFA in a single line: "Microsoft discusses future extensions to the DirectX API. The current generation of hardware won't support those."

    Are anyone really surprised? Newsworthy?

    1. Re:Catchy title but... by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You hear about it for a few reasons:

      1) Some people (like many on Slashdot) hate MS and want them to fail, thus look for anything that makes them look bad and make sure it gets page time.

      2) For some reason, some people had the perception that because DX10 was launched with Vista, that made it special and thus it wouldn't be changed for a long time. Never mind that MS has released a version of DirectX that has added a significant feature (as in something that needs more hardware) every 1-2 years in the past.

      3) Perhaps because of this many people bought in to the DX10 cards expecting them to be "futureproof". Again no idea why anyone would think that given graphics cards are the things that evolve the fastest and thus obsolete the fastest.

      Also I'm not so sure they said it wouldn't support it. Maybe I misread their slides, but all I saw was they said that "upcoming hardware" will support it. That statement doesn't mean that current hardware won't.

      Either way, much ado about nothing. Games will continue to be made to support whatever hardware is common on the market. Game companies love all the flashy new toys, but they are in bussiness to make money and you do that by selling games that run on the actual systems that are out there. That means so long as most peopel don't have cards capable of using a new standard, they won't require it (though they may support it to give mroe eye candy to the eairly adopters).

      Heck, right now you'll discover that a great number of games require nothing more than a DirectX 8 accelerator. That's a card like a GeForce 4 Ti fore example. Basically that means shader model 1.1 hardware. While many games support 2.0 and 3.0 (DX 9.0 and 9.0c respectively) you'll find that a good number don't require 2.0, and very few require 3.0. The reason is that there are still a lot of people using older cards. Not every one upgrades every year. Thus game makers have to take that in to account.

      It's not like the second 10.1 comes out developers are going to say "Ok, everyone better upgrade because this is all we support!" They could try, and they'd just go out of business and other, smarter, developers would support the hardware that more people have.

      Heck it is a pretty recent phenomena that developers have stopped supporting Windows ME for games, and some still do. Why? Enough people still used it.

  10. Pierre Bernard says by jadin · · Score: 3, Funny

    Conan - Are you comfortable and angry Pierre?

    Pierre - Comfortable and furious Conan.

    Conan - So what are you upset about today?

    Pierre - I've been a fan PC Games for ages Conan. To play the latest and greatest games requires me to continually upgrade my computer. Recently I upgraded to Windows Vista by Microsoft in order to play their newest game "Shadowrun". My PC could handle it although there wasn't much benefit over using Windows XP. It, however, required a lot more RAM and faster CPU in order to run smoothly. The game itself required the best video card I could afford. This was a serious investment, the video card alone put me back about the price of a new "non-gaming" PC. All this new hardware also required a bigger power supply, which wound up adding to my expenses. I wound up replacing my entire PC in order to save money. And since I was only upgrading for one game only it was difficult to upgrade for that alone, but I did so knowing my investment would last a year or two. Now Microsoft has announced DirectX 10.1 which makes all hardware for DirectX 10 obsolete. This made my previous investment from a month ago already worthless. To add salt to my wounds most of the features of 10.1 were optional and did nothing to improve the product. PC Gaming is an enjoyable experience, although an expensive one. Hardware should last a minimum of 6 months cutting edge, and about a year for not-the-best but playable.

    Bottom line America? Microsoft needs to realize that features need to be worthwhile and should always be optional. If they are truly worth it, they will be adopted as standard by the general public very quickly.

    Conan - Thank you Pierre, I'm sure two or three people across America know exactly what you're feeling like.

  11. So DX10.0 Hardware doesnt support 10.1? by Val314 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    How can this be surprising?

    You have 10.0 hardware and want it to support 10.1?

    Please stop posting such nonsense, or would you cry foul if your SSE3 CPU doesnt support SSE4 when its available?

  12. Oh no! by mikkelm · · Score: 4, Informative

    Is that.. is that progress? New technology requiring new hardware?! BURN IT! BURN THE WITCH!

    I didn't think I'd live to see the day where new technology would be unwelcome to the slashdot crowd. I guess it isn't surprising, though, it being a Microsoft product, and slashdot degenerating into a zealot sandbox.

    DirectX 10.1 is going to be released about a year after DirectX 10. DirectX 9.0c was released about a year after DirectX 9.0b, and DirectX 9.0b hardware was also incompatible with DirectX 9.0c spec. That didn't create a whole lot of mainstream uproar, as people are generally positive towards new technology. I guess this being Vista and all, people can ignore pesky facts like those and continue their circle jerking unabated.

    1. Re:Oh no! by ardor · · Score: 2, Informative

      The point is that D3D10.1 mainly just enforces stuff that was optional in 10.0. There are no new killer features. So a game requiring 10.1 will make your shine new 8800 obsolete with absolutely no gain. 9.0b->9.0c saw the addition of stream frequencies among others, which is essential for instancing (D3D10 redesigned the entire instancing thing again). Also, 9.0c was largely compatible with 9.0b. It was mostly a bugfix release with added samples and a couple of new features (which were optional).

      --
      This sig does not contain any SCO code.
    2. Re:Oh no! by DrEldarion · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I didn't think I'd live to see the day where new technology would be unwelcome to the slashdot crowd. That's the general trend of Slashdot nowadays. The realization hit me when everyone started bashing the PS3, which contains a very impressive processor, allows installation of linux, has built-in media streaming, uses standard USB and Bluetooth hardware, runs folding@home, upscales DVDs and old games, etc. etc. All anyone here says, though, is "OMG SONY I BET THERE'S A ROOTKIT ON IT LOL".

      This isn't a tech site anymore, it's a political site. Witness all the anti-RIAA/MPAA stories, global warming stories, election stories...
    3. Re:Oh no! by marcello_dl · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I don't buy a PS3 exactly because of the rootkit. But I criticized the PS3 mainly because Linux has not access to the whole hardware, the lack of ram expansion options, the braindead HD partition scheme. If new tech is crippled because of corporate strategies don't expect techies (either on slashdot or elsewhere) to like it.

      --
      ---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
  13. Is the developers tipping point reached? by bomanbot · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Developers already have difficulties justifiying DirectX 10 support because Vista marketshare is still so low and most gamers are perfectly fine with XP and DirectX 9. Also, DirectX 10 lacks the backwards compatibilty of the older versions.

    But at least the new Unified Shaders seemed to be useful for developers, so at least they had advantages to it. But now, DirectX 10.1 only seems to make certain features compulsory, thus removing choice for the developers and also does not add new features to make it compelling to use.

    So when do developers say "Screw this, DirectX 9 will suffice for the immediate future and works well, we will eschew DirectX 10 and beyond, serve our XP-using customers and use OpenGL for future development"? Especially if the big advantage DirectX had (until version 9), the universal availability on the Windows platform is gone now with DirectX 10 and beyond?

    1. Re:Is the developers tipping point reached? by ardor · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yes, game developers are getting conservative nowadays, and always have been regarding support of new APIs. So many studios will continue using D3D9. But for the same reason many studios still wont switch to OpenGL. In both cases (D3D9->D3D10, D3D9->OpenGL 2.x or even the coming 3.x) the codebase has to be largely rewritten, so when studios MUST upgrade, they will probably prefer OpenGL this time...

      --
      This sig does not contain any SCO code.
  14. Re:Buy a Mac by Dogtanian · · Score: 3, Informative

    Seriously.. the new iMac is fun to use an you can put behind Microsoft's psychotic mood swings on its standards forever. Well, you entirely missed the point... DirectX is primarily a games-oriented technology, and the graphics cards this issue affects will be mostly expensive, leading-edge ones. The type that will be mainly purchased by "hardcore" gamers.

    Macs may be nice machines in many respects, but let's be honest- the range and quality of Mac games is poor in comparison with that available for Windows PCs. And then to imagine that hardcore gamers are going to replace their massively-powered PCs and $600 graphics cards with an off-the-shelf iMac and be happy with its performance...?

    Seriously, get real. Nice computers, but no-one ever bought a Mac as a games machine.
    --
    "Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
  15. Re:I'm not really sure this matters all that much by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Wow, what a load of FUD. OpenGL is completely supported under Vista and is in no way routed through DX:

    http://www.opengl.org/pipeline/article/vol003_9/

  16. Re:Are they TRYING to shoot themselves in the foot by Macthorpe · · Score: 4, Informative
    The summary and the Inquirer article are, well, wrong.

    Microsoft announced 10.1 as a side-by-side update - DirectX 10 is not obsolete, they are both fully supported. Developers and manufacturers have the option of coding for 10.1 or sticking with 10. The real quote:

    Direct3D 10.1 is an incremental, side-by-side update to Direct3D 10.0 that provides a series of new rendering features that will be available in an upcoming generation of graphics hardware.
    --
    "It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - Tolkien
  17. Re:Are they TRYING to shoot themselves in the foot by somersault · · Score: 2, Funny

    But it's NEW man! NEW!!! YOU MUST SUPPORT THE NEW!!! :o EVERYONE GO OUT AND BUY VISTA AND DX10.1 COMPATIBLE GRAPHICS CARDS... NEW!!! Everyone is obsolete!1 The world will soon be out of date ._.

    --
    which is totally what she said
  18. A Bit Late To Notice? by Zephiris · · Score: 5, Informative

    That DirectX 10.1 is incompatible with 10.0 (along with new WDDM interface) has been known for at least a year now. It's a bit late for people to be in shock about it.

    Slashdot even covered it before.

    Just because Microsoft officially announced it at a conference doesn't *exactly* make it new news, since they made it very clear on roadmaps and everything else exactly what was going to happen, and why it wasn't the best idea ever to adopt DirectX 10.0 hardware, rather than hardware capable of 10.1 (or 10.2) and whatever the new superset of OpenGL happened to be (3.0 as it turns out).

    Also, the reason to bother with DirectX 10.1 isn't so much that it offers "brand new super features" to games, but the WDDM 2.1 bits, which would allow for far finer-grained context switching and task management. Being able to immediately switch from rendering one small bit, to starting to render something else, which would theorhetically make all of the compiz/Aero type stuff be able to run much more smoothly in conjunction with real 3D rendering (ie, games, CAD).

    It all seems an exercise in futility to me, as far as the "DirectX 10" hardware goes. I like faster, I like more features, but there just seems no real reason to upgrade beyond my Geforce 6800 for the price point (which I got 18 months ago). Not to a 7800-series or comparable, and certainly not to an 8x00 or upcoming 9x00 Geforce, unless driver stability improves dramatically, and they can add more real-world-useful features, particularly without the need for Windows Vista. I'm back using WinXP "for a while" again, but I generally won't buy hardware anymore unless it's a notable and drastic improvement in Windows, Linux, and FreeBSD.

    I digress, but the point is, the news has already been covered before. If it apparently wasn't that attention-worthy a year ago, is it now? New DirectX versions *always* require brand new hardware, whereas most minor OpenGL revisions have almost always included new features that also work on old hardware (OpenGL 1.5's Vertex Buffer Objects humming along happily on a Geforce 256, for instance), and while full compliance is the best, all you really need to care about is if something implements certain clearly defined extensions, rather than wondering if Nvidia or ATI have 'misinterpreted' specifications over DirectX. Both have been panned in the past for 'creative' adoption of pixel shader standards and bizarre interpretations of DirectX 9.

    I'd just hope that eventually, there's more actual competition again, and both companies (and new companies) actually respect and care about standards compliance and that both they and the standards bodies start to care about what customers actually doing with their hardware.

    --

    "A Goddess rarely smiles for she is forced by others to be an island unto herself." - Zephiris
  19. You can tell Microsoft is ignoring customers.... by erareno · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Have they EVER heard of http://netpromoter.com/ Net Promoter Scores? I don't think they have.
    Microsoft must be too busy counting their cash to be considering consumer satisfaction right now.
    All they're doing right now is getting everyone who uses DirectX to hate them with a passion right now.

    I wonder if they've realized what they've done?

  20. M$ fractures the DX10 community! by someone1234 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Yeah, this move surely fractured the DX10 developer community.

    --
    Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
  21. Re:Mandatory 4xAA is this a joke? by Aladrin · · Score: 4, Informative

    You're reading it wrong. The -games- aren't required to support 4xAA, the -hardware- is. It's great that you hate AA and all, but there are plenty of others that insist on it. By requiring the hardware to support to be '10.1 compatible' they are merely pandering to the majority of gamers out there.

    They haven't forced you to do anything, and they haven't forced developers either.

    --
    "If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
  22. Re:I'm not really sure this matters all that much by Macthorpe · · Score: 2, Informative

    since M$ said OpenGL would not be supported under Vista. That's odd, seeing as I just finished a fairly long game of City of Heroes on Vista Home Premium.
    --
    "It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - Tolkien
  23. Known Roadmap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It's funny watching everyone who is shocked. Those are the people who have no idea what DirectX 10 is and why the model has shifted so much from OpenGL and earlier versions of DirectX.

    DirectX 10 and up is not just an accelerated video API but it is also a standard. Microsoft has completely eliminated the capability bits, or "capbits", concept in order to ensure to developers that if they program a specific version of the standard that all of the functionality mandatory by that standard will be supported by the graphics hardware. No longer will a developer target DirectX9 or OpenGL2 and have to ask the hardware whether or not it supports a plethora of options and then have to completely branch their development umpteen ways to support different varieties. If a game targets DirectX10.1 then 4xAA is guaranteed to be there, period. If a game does not require 4xAA then it doesn't have to target DirectX10.1.

    So get used to it otherwise you'll be shitting yourself for every single DirectX release going forward. This is how it works now.

  24. This is one deluded discussion... by arse+maker · · Score: 5, Insightful

    First off.. technology is made obsolete??? no shit! Its hard to imagine the slashdot crowd finding this to be news. This doesn't mean your dx10 card doesn't work anymore, you don't install SP1 and your PC wont boot with DX10 hardware. If you get upset every time people make revisions and improvements to software and hardware, I suggest you packup your computer and return it to avoid further heart ache. If you are an early adopter of the latest hardware and don't read any reviews (which all from memory said it will be some time before dx10 is going to matter) then thats your fault. Microsoft have explained in numerous interveiws (and documentation of course) how DX 10 will work, they even suggested 10.1 would be out BEFORE vista shipped. Graphics card features change ALL THE TIME, you have to write miles of CAPS checking code and render paths to support the zoo of cards and features. Now with DX10 they roll all the features up and any DX 10.x card will support the featuers, even if you write a DX 10.0 and DX 10.1 path, its only two options you have to support. You didn't see "ATI MAKES LAST CARD OBSOLETE BY INTRODUCING NEW PRODUCT", even though those changes could be far, far more difficult to develop for by having a bunch of changed caps and maybe even a few new proprietary ones. A fixed feature set is what allows developers to squeze out every drop of performance from PS2 hardware to make amazing looking graphics, even though your mobile phone might have more processing power available to it. And lastly.. people who mock the, apparent, modest real world improvments dx10 is offering.. what is your point? Intel brings out a new processor every x months with ~1-3% improvements, by your logic they should just stop bothering making new processors. Of course thats stupid, you wait till the improvment is enough for you to find it compelling.

  25. DX != OGL by Midnight+Thunder · · Score: 2, Insightful

    From talking with games developers DX and OGL aren't quite the same beast, in terms of functionality. OGL provides the raw basics of graphics, be it 2D or 3D, while Direct-X can be thought of as OGL bundled with APIs that help reduce doing some of the common stuff. OpenGL does not provide what is needed to create spheres and other 'complex' objects, so you are left doing this on your own.

    I would love to see more PC games developers target OpenGL, but for that to happen the little things that make DirectX attractive need to either be brought to OpenGL or to an open support API that accompanies OpenGL.

    BTW There are companies that have attempted to port DX to other platforms, but they never seem to go anywhere and games companies who developer for DX don't usually seem to care about other platforms anyhow.

    --
    Jumpstart the tartan drive.
  26. For the extra features, I'm guessing by Moraelin · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Mind you, it's been almost a decade since last I had anything to do with game development, so take this with a grain of salt. Or to put it otherwise, major talking out the arse follows.

    That said, AFAIK DirectX offers more features than just rendering. If you'll run "dxdiag", you'll see that it has more tabs and more DLLs listed than just Direct3D and DirectDraw. There's also stuff like DirectSound, DirectInput, DirectPlay, and a bunch of other stuff.

    So if you want to make your game portable by not using any DirectX stuff, well, you'll have to write your own equivalent for that other stuff. That translates directly into higher development costs, plus God knows if your own stuff will work as well, and what bugs will it have.

    (We all like to pretend that we can write better code in one afternoon than MS in 10 years, but that's actually hardly ever the case. That's more usually just a mixture of hubris and an excuse to write one's own code instead of learning how to use a library. The former is simply more fun than the latter. Don't get me wrong, there _is_ stuff out there that does work better than MS's stuff, but that one too wasn't written in a day or two.)

    You also face the issue that, traditionally, most graphics cards have been optimized for DirectX, since that's what the lion's share of the market uses. Traditionally, Nvidia tends to do well in OpenGL too, ATI less so. (Plus, if you actually plan to port it to Linux, there ATI's drivers traditionally are an inside joke. Not a funny one, either.) So the choice to go OpenGL instead of Direct3D also means that a bunch of gamers will post "OMG, your game has crap frame rates" or "OMG, your game doesn't work on my computer." And be quite justified in doing so, btw.

    So, there you go. As long as 99% of the PC gamers are running Windows, it makes no sense to annoy those to appease the fragmented rest of the market.

    Being able to emulate or dual-boot Windows... well, takes even more out of the motivation there. Windows compatibility is how OS/2 committed seppuku, after all. If OS/2 people can just emulate your program, well, there's no reason for you to put any effort and money into porting it. The same applies to the Mac and Linux market currently, to some extent.

    --
    A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
    1. Re:For the extra features, I'm guessing by seaturnip · · Score: 4, Informative
      You missed the root cause of DirectX's success, which is that Microsoft has been a lot more quickly responsive and to the concerns of developers and hardware designers. They listen to the API fixes and new features that game developers ask them for, and they work with graphics card manufacturers to expose new capabilities as soon as they are available, and release new DirectX SDKs every few months. Meanwhile OpenGL's committee decisions are always a step behind.

      So if you want to make your game portable by not using any DirectX stuff, well, you'll have to write your own equivalent for that other stuff. That translates directly into higher development costs, plus God knows if your own stuff will work as well, and what bugs will it have.

      Nah there are excellent portable third-party libraries for this stuff now, such as Miles (sound), Bink (video), DemonWare (networking). The components of DirectX that are not Direct3D are pretty much irrelevant today.

    2. Re:For the extra features, I'm guessing by Devistater · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I hope you realize that directsound hardware support was thrown over the side for Vista. Now its something totally differant. Which is why a lot of older titles have issues in the software emulation version of directsound in Vista. Things such as no surround support, only stereo, sound not working properly, etc.
      OpenAL titles work fine though.
      And... oddly enough... the thing MS changed to in Vista for the sound was what xbox is using... thus making it easier to port back and forth.
      Now surely, SURELY, MS didn't toss out a many years standard just to make it easier for themselves to port sound.
      Surely they aren't THAT evil.

  27. I don't know why everyone is getting worked up. by Charcharodon · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Video games fall under the 2 year rule. What comes out tomorrow will not show up in games for at least two years. If you buy into all the BS marketing and buying the latest and the greatest you are going to be in a constant state of dissappointment since nothing can live up to the hype and nothing is ever ready to go at launch.

    DirectX 10 other than a few limp patches and demos does not exist, hardware accelerated physics nope not yet, SLI or Dual and Quad GPU's hardly give a return on the investment unless you are running multiple monitors, etc etc etc. None of this is worth getting worked up about. Unplug out brain from the marketing driven fanboy/hater game and just enjoy ride. Graphics and computing power is fabulous compared to what it was just a few years ago, and the fact that MS has set an actual standard is kick ass so that when you go out and buy a card and game that says DX10 on the side you can actually count on it being exactly what it says it is. That beats the "good ol" days before DirectX where you had to wait for your graphic card manufacturer or the game publisher to come out with a patch so that your graphics card would be supported and when they didn't you were just shit out of luck.

  28. DX 10.1 is more about Sound than Graphics... by TheNetAvenger · · Score: 2, Informative

    One thing that 10.1 DX addresses is the Sound APIs that developers felt lost without, MS's Sound technology that is used on the Xbox 360 is being added into 10.1 DX, and this is more of what DX 10.1 is about than anything else.

    Sadly though, sound is one area Vista gets no credit, yet is one of the best selling points of Vista.

    With the new Audio subsystem in Vista, if you are running 5.1 or higher you can turn on your Mic and it will auto tune the speakers and environment sounds for an outstanding experience.

    Another great thing about Sound in Vista is that even with an old AC'97 sound card and just stereo speakers on a desktop or laptop, the sound fidelity is significantly better than XP or OS X by several factors. For example a Wav,mp3,wma played on the same hardware and same speakers will sound incredibly more rich and defined on Vista than when you are playing it in XP. Even putting the same speakers on a Mac and 'trying' get the fidelity up, the sound quality was NOT even close to what Vista was doing with an old sound card.

    And DX10.1 adds back in DirectX level APIs for game developers.

    If anyone really wants to understand the Audio in Vista, do a search on Vista Audio Subsystem, or Sonar Vista. There are great technical pieces on why Vista redid the Audio system and also some good examples of why developers of audio products like Sonar continue to choose MS and Vista as their platform of choice for high quality production.

  29. Let's hope it doesn't come to that by Weaselmancer · · Score: 3, Funny

    If the international community became concerned about global arse-wiping inconsistency it could ultimately become an ISO standard.

    I'm imagining the worst ISO audit ever.

    --
    Weaselmancer
    rediculous.