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AMD Says There Will Be No DirectX 12 — Ever
mikejuk writes "This is a strange story. AMD Vice President of Global Channel Sales Roy Taylor has said there will be no DirectX12 at any time in the future. In an interview with German magazine Heise.de, Taylor discussed the new trend for graphics card manufacturers to release top quality game bundles registered to the serial number of the card. One of the reasons for this, he said, is that the DirectX update cycle is no longer driving the market. 'There will be no DirectX 12. That's it.' (Google translation of German original.) Last January there was another hint that things weren't fine with DirectX when Microsoft sent an email to its MVPs saying, 'DirectX is no longer evolving as a technology.' That statement was quickly corrected, but without mentioning any prospect of DirectX 12. So, is this just another error or rumor? Can we dismiss something AMD is basing its future strategy on?"
... it only goes to 11
We did it everyone! OpenGL won, good job everybody. Highest of fives all 'round.
July, 2013: AMD Says 'Okay, There Will Be A DirectX 12, But We're Not Supporting It'
September, 2013: AMD Says DirectX 12 Support By Next Year
March, 2014: New AMD Cards' Poor DirectX 12 Performance Disappointing
May, 2014: AMD Boss Complains About Being 'Left Out' Of DirectX 12 Development
August, 2014: Struggling AMD Says 'Just Wait For DirectX 13!'
Use OpenGL. It's the platform of every rising device. Furthermore you can get the benefits of open source.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
There's still stuff left to do, access to things that programmers want. If Microsoft wants to stop its API development, and give up the ghost of it's Microsoft only policy, leaving OpenGl and the Khronos group to do all the advancement, then maybe that's a good thing. While Microsoft and DirectX overtook OpenGl in terms of what the API could do since around DX10, it did so at the cost of being locked into Microsoft stuff if you wanted to use it. But if things go a little slower now in order to have only one, open API advancing then maybe that's a good thing.
So what, are they going to skip 12 and go to 13? They've done it before, with DirectX 4, so it's not a new idea. Maybe 12 turned out to be a huge mess.
I don't see DirectX being discontinued in favor of OpenGL/OpenAL/etc, since the GUIs in their latest products and frameworks all seem to use DirectX to some extent.
(asbestos underpants on) Or maybe they switched to FOSS-style versioning, and just don't see anything new that would demand a major version number. We're going to see abominations like DirectX 11.1.25.4-r6.3 for the rest of time.
If memory serves this was also linked in the related article above. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee663275.aspx
DirectX is just becoming part of the Windows 8 SDK. Then presumably the Windows 9, etc, SDKs as well. On until death.
For every benefit you receive a tax is levied. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
You're clearly not making the market. DirectX has been the "talking to the graphics card" layer for years. I think the summary is actually right in that the past 5-10 years, developing your own graphical/physics engine is dead. Unreal, unity, havok, source, whatever, it's all cheaper than developing something from scratch and building in the DirectX/openGL core features of the latest generation.
Yeah, you still write shaders, do optimization, whatever, but how you do that will depend on what Unreal supports, not on what bleeding edge directx features are.
I am sure 10 years ago someone could have easily said there would never be an OS 11.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
I've never written to the API, but from a user persepective the only thing I found annoying about DirectX was every game on the planet wanted to distribute its own copy/version of it. Which I never did understand, as far as I can tell its the one API that M$ took great pains to keep backward compatible, so why couldn't all these games simply use the version that was installed (unless it was too old.) Other than that, I never had a problem with it, it worked fine, and in some cases appeared to be superior to OpenGL, until lately. Certainly OGL has made some great strides and really is the defacto gfx library for everyone else, Windows machines can even use the Win32/64 port if the user choose. Still, I have to wonder what the big problem for AMD/Microsoft. No longer an evolving technology? Are they planning on dumping it for something new in the works? Have they decided they can't compete with OGL? Smells to me like another sign (as I've been talking about) that Microsoft is NOT as innvative as they were, or thought they were. And AMD? Christ, might as well put a fork in it.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
I think you misunderstand what that means. It means directX has moved from a versioned API with new features all the time, to a stable API that they feel safe tying to the OS and pushing updates for through windows update. It's like when an open source project has reached the point where its no longer worth it to pull the latest from git. It's "done".
On the contrary, DirectX10 had the best improvement of all versions. It changed everything. They ditched the fixed pipeline, ditched old "backward-compatibility" that was clobbering the system, connected directly to the Windows hardware layer, support multithreading, etc.
Every graphic card released since about 10 years are fixed to a DirectX version. Every commercial games released wince about 10 years are fixed to a DirectX version. In which world are you living in?
What exactly does "top quality game bundles registered to the serial number of the card" mean? Have I missed something else in this conversation?
Taylor discussed the new trend for graphics card manufacturers to release top quality game bundles registered to the serial number of the card.
Are they already doing this with their current bundles? I just recently bought a Radeon 7770, but wasn't particularly interested in the Far Cry 3 game that came with it, was was planning to sell the coupon to someone who could make better use of it.
The vast majority of PC games use DirectX. DirectX has more than driven the market for the past decade, it's defined it. All major GPUs' feature set were defined by DirectX, with OpenGL largely trailing behind. OGL is catching up these days, but most games are still focused exclusively for DirectX.
Does anything besides Direct3D change with new versions anymore? It's not as if there are groundbreaking developments in XInput or DirectSound, and things like DirectShow have been depreciated for other Windows methods.
developing your own graphical/physics engine is dead
Interesting. So I should stop coding this new OGL-based engine from scratch because it's easier to use a pre-made engine? Because you think it's 'dead'? Let alone your coding ability going down the toilet because all you do is drag-and-drop 'component blocks' in your engine of choice, what do you do when you hit the looming brick wall that is the engine's limitations?
"Hey guys, let's pack it up. This random dude on the 'net says the custom and one-off engines we've been making for years are dead, and we should just use Unity or Unreal."
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
First the "silly point" to confuse people: ;-)
"Since X only went only to version 11, I don't see how they could make a DirectX12 without making X12 first."
Then the second more serious point:
I still remember the "Sound-card upgrade cycle" back in the 1990s, where gamers were also were after the newest developments there to get a better gaming experience. But for the last decade or so there were no basically no "new sound features" that were added to improve the sound, since sound is "good enough" for basically everything that needs sound.
At some time graphics cards will reach (or perhaps are reaching now) the point where that is true for graphics also.
The vast majority of PC games use DirectX. DirectX has more than driven the market for the past decade, it's defined it. All major GPUs' feature set were defined by DirectX, with OpenGL largely trailing behind. OGL is catching up these days, but most games are still focused exclusively for DirectX.
maybe the market is changing... steam wants to embrace the linux community with its steam-for-linux move. maybe they are betting on the OGL-trail for future games, and the more rapid development through the demand from linux users and hopefully OGL developers to make this the standard and forget about further developing directx for games and grafic cards altogether... maybe steam knows things about the directx development we're only becoming aware of.
memento mori
Just deal with it.
The thing is, DirectX didn't simply dictate. The API was the result of discussions between Microsoft and graphics card manufacturers. Primarily it was the hardware driving the API.
Microsoft was smart enough to form a good working relationship with the major vendors, but also had the clout to have the final say on exactly what the API was. But if nVidia or ATI requested a feature, you could be sure it would be in the next version of DirectX, and that version of DirectX would be available before the hardware.
OpenGL was multithreading capable from the get go. DirectX until 11.2 was single threaded only.
DirectX uses a very different object graph proposition that puts the scene as the major component and for most indoor FPS, that is an easier concept, but those choices mean taking it outside where the scene (in a 3D construction context) is not the primary container for the "world" realised, you've got a much worse system to program. OGL was much better at the open world 3D and a little worse at the enclosed box-room preferred for early FPSs.
DirectX development was only slightly easier, and only for a small segment of what is being done.
The thing with Valve is that they are not exactly an unbiased source. For one, their engine is pretty outdated. They are all DX9 stuff in their games. Now fair enough from a market point of view (though there are been more than a couple very successful DX10+ only titles) but talking technically that is looking at things in a rather outdated fashion. DX10 changed the way you deal with graphics cards and most developers seem to think quite a bit for the better.
Also there's the fact that they are pushing Linux because they are really worried about the future of Steam. Valve makes stupid amounts of money doing very little with Steam. However if the Windows store takes off (something that is not at all certain, but could happen) their money pit dries up. Hence they are looking at bringing Steam to a new platform, that bring Linux.
Finally note that their criticism was that Windows is becoming "not open". Now maybe that will end up being the case, but it is not at this point. Steam still works real well for Windows, as do all other stores. That aside they weren't saying Linux was technically superior, at least not in that talk, they were saying that it had what they needed on a technical side.
I think it drove it for high end cards. That's a very tiny market niche, but probably with fat margins. There used to be some games that would only work with the latest DX versions and that drove sales of cards; even as late as DX 10 there were games that supported DX 10 (but were still perfectly good in DX 9) that caused some people to upgrade. DX 10 actually caused some people to upgrade to Vista or W7. DX 11 didn't cause as much interest though I think, though probably the guys with a $2000 gaming rig may have gotten new cards for it.
I know this news comes in the context of gaming, but DirectX has other uses, including audio & video editing. I've recently been thinking of upgrading to a new version of Sony Vegas (video editing) and notice that since the last time I bought it (~5 y.a.) they have stopped shipping it with DirectX effects (though they still support them) and are bundling OpenFX plugins instead.
Then you're massively out of touch with PC gaming. Almost every game out there uses DirectX and your DirectX performance is your gaming performance. Now, some use openGL, but most definitely use DirectX.
GCS/MU/P d- s:- a-- C++++$ UL++ P+ L++ E+ W++ N o K- w--- O M+ V- PS+++ PE Y+ PGP t+ 5- X R++ tv+ b++ DI++ D++ G+ e++ h-
Why is heise.de no hyperlink, slashdot?
Agreed. I too build my own OpenGL engines. I've built engines for D3D / DrirectX too, but OpenGL is easier. Things like texture memory management is done for you. With DirectX I spent half the time building fucking memory managers for things (which wind up exactly the same as everyone else's). The whole "Direct to the graphics cart" shit is retarding. The per card tweaks yield no real net benefit. IMO, it's just laziness on MS's part -- "Let's make them lock and release memory mapped objects because you know what engine devs love? Creating Memory Managers!" Ugh.
You probably never worried about it because every developer supported it and every video card driver set supported it. You never had to worry about it because the support was implied. You would have had to go a long way out of your way to find a card that was not DirectX compatible, if such a beast even exists.
DirectX is not going away, Microsoft are just moving it into Windows and no longer supplying updates separately. This is just a dirty marketing strategy to force gamers and other users to now have to buy/downgrade to the latest Windows OS (which to many of the more consumer-minded, translates into buying a whole new PC) if they want the latest graphics API.
I guess this really just translates into yet another reason/opportunity for Linux to take over the PC gaming market from Windows.
In my experience with games that have both DX10 and DX11 renderers, DX11 doesn't look any nicer than DX10, but it's much faster.
This does sometimes let a game have a few more visual gewgaws in DX11 because they'd be too much of a performance hit in DX10, but mostly DX11 mode looks the same but with a higher framerate.
So basically it will be point increases of DX11 forever? Example: DirectX11.2.04g
I still only use at most DX9.0c as I am loving my XP experience until they unfuck newer editions of Windows.
Classic Shell mostly unfucks Windows 8, I'm told.
Finally note that their criticism was that Windows is becoming "not open". Now maybe that will end up being the case, but it is not at this point. Steam still works real well for Windows, as do all other stores.
Steam doesn't work on Windows RT. As on Windows 8, only Windows Store applications run in the "immersive" environment of Windows RT. But unlike on Windows 8, only IE and Office run in Windows RT's desktop. Perhaps Valve is trying to extrapolate Microsoft's direction from the policies that Microsoft enforces on the owner of a Windows RT device.
What, you're skipping all the twos for Ryu?
SF2 iterated through SF2, Champion, Turbo, Super, then settled on Super Turbo. ("Turbo", "Hyper", and "Special Champion" referred to the same iteration.) Then Capcom went and made the Alpha series as prequels to SF2 before SF3.
But Valve fell into the same trap as Capcom: One, two, two episode one, two episode two, portal one, portal two, team fortress one, team fortress two. Valve had an opportunity to make "no threes" official (Left 4 Dead, Left 5 Dead) but left it on the table.
There is a time and a place for GC. If you don't understand BOTH the Pros AND Cons you really don't understand a subject in detail.
i.e.
_IF_ one could specify the maximum milliseconds allowed the GC is allowed to run (i.e. 2 ms) per frame THEN it would be acceptable for game development. Currently GC has no place at run-time DUE to its non-deterministic nature.
Relying on GC is like relying on the compiler to guarantee safe array access. Sure it works but one must always remember the cardinal rule:
TINSTAAFL, that is, There Is No Such Thing As A Free Lunch
And gives a better development pipeline. It's not all about money, OpenGL was always available on Windows. Developers made the choice to use the cleaner and easier to work with API.
But there will surely be a Direct3D 12 inside the Windows Platform SDK.
Microsoft is basically removing the individual "DirectX" brand and absorbing it into the platform SDK. Now Direct3D is just another Windows component like GDI. The idea that there will never be an update beyond what we have now is positively absurd and I feel he was either misunderstood or the translation is inaccurate.
The Tesla cards were never video cards though. They were just for computing, so there wasn't a reason for them to support DirectX. The Titans on the other hand are amazing cards.
But that's because it got absorbed into Direct3D. Probably the same thing going on here.
Hm, all those XNA and Unity based games that I've tried - all written using C# and therefore garbage collected - perform very smoothly here. OK, this is anecdotal evidence, but C# is so widely used in game development now that I have to assume that it really works. Otherwise, the engine makers would have changed programming language in an instant.
http://www.moonlight3d.eu/
It generally works for Indie level games as they don't usually push the hardware to its limits when compared to games like Crysis.
Yep, and Unreal Engine also manages most of its memory using its own garbage collector that runs every 30 seconds. GC is a good solution if you know what you're doing and understand its limitations.
Bwawawawawawa!!!! That was funny. The only reason why there is so much DirectX out there is the same reason why there are so many MFC applications out there. It came with the installation of Visual Studio. Sadly there are very few developers out there that are able to think outside of the MS/Visual Studio box. If you said XNA was cleaner and easier way to work with, then granted I would have given you credit. But that is comparing apples and oranges. But API wise openGL and DirectX are very similar, both have their good bits and bad bits, the difference being that openGL is backwards compatible and MS breaks something each release.