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DirectX 12 Lies Dormant Within Microsoft's Recent Windows 10 Update

Posted by timothy on from the until-activated-by-a-trigger-word dept.

MojoKid writes After last Wednesday's Windows 10 event, early adopters and IT types were probably anxious for Microsoft to release the next preview build. Fortunately, it didn't take long as it came out on Friday, and it's safe to say that it introduced even more than many were anticipating (but still no Spartan browser). However, in case you missed it, DirectX 12 is actually enabled in this Windows 10 release, though unfortunately we'll need to wait for graphics drivers and apps that support it, to take advantage of DX 12 features and performance enhancements.

135 comments

  1. DirectX is obsolete by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    DirectX is obsolete. In today's multiplatform world only OpenGL matters.

    1. Re:DirectX is obsolete by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Last time I heard that statement was during DirectX vs. OpenGL battles in the late 1990's. Any halfway decent video card today can support both with all the bells and whistles. I can't remember the last time I had to pick one over the other.

    2. Re:DirectX is obsolete by wierd_w · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Microsoft WANTS directX to remain relevant in the modern multiplatform environment. That's why they are bending over backwards trying to get people to buy windows phones.

      Sadly for them, Android beat them to the punch for "Affordable smartphone OS", while apple beat them to the punch for "Luxury smartphone OS". This leaves microsoft scrambling for marketshare in the smartphone space.

      MS keeps trying to reinvent windows "For a new era", but keeps failing miserably.

      MS needs to realize that PCs arent the preferred gateways for social media like they used to be, (Phones have mostly replaced home computers for this) so social media integration with the OS on a PC is just stupidness. No reason why social media cant use web apps tailored for home PCs of course, but OS integration is not required nor desired. PCs have a pretty stable market niche if microsoft would stop trying to be idiots and realize that Peak PC is long passed.

      PCs have 2 major remaining market niches:

      1) Enterprise(/educational) workstations (Like, for doing WORK on.)
      2) PC Gaming

      Microsoft is still zealously trying to pretend that it owns the whole online media consumption experience, and keeps trying to integrate unwanted features into their OS to make it "Easier" to do social networking and other non-productive tasks which are better accomplished with a smartphone or tablet. This is to the detriment of the first market niche they currently hold; enterprise/educational workstations. Allowing users to more easily waste time on facebook is not a value-add for corporations looking to upgrade their installed workstation bases.

      Really, I have to wonder what Microsoft is thinking these days.

    3. Re:DirectX is obsolete by bloodhawk · · Score: 4, Insightful

      did we just jump into an alternate reality where suddenly MS no longer has 90%+ of the desktop gaming market? OpenGL supporters have been saying DX is obsolete for over a decade and if anything they have lost market share during that time.

    4. Re:DirectX is obsolete by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have to pick one over the other when I implement stuff that uses them.

    5. Re:DirectX is obsolete by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The developer has to support one or both. Most users don't care as long as everything works.

    6. Re:DirectX is obsolete by bondsbw · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Really, I have to wonder what Microsoft is thinking these days.

      Maybe they want to win back the consumer market they lost? Perhaps diversify a bit?

      I just appreciate that they need to compete, and they are forcing their major competitors to bring new things to the table. Otherwise we might be looking at a repeat of mid-2000s, with stagnation like happened in Windows XP and IE 6... just with Apple or Google at the helm this time.

      --
      All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
    7. Re:DirectX is obsolete by wierd_w · · Score: 4, Interesting

      OpenGL (or rather, some variants thereof) is the leading API for use on portable devices.

      OpenGL lives more places than DirectX does. DirectX is very much a microsoft platform only technology. Granted, it does a bang up job there, but it does not have the "total" market penetration that OpenGL does. An OpenGL based project can be more easily ported to more disparate devices with less trouble than a DirectX based project can.

      I dont mind DirectX, in fact, I think it has a great niche for the PC gaming niche that windows PCs still hold title to. The problem is that Microsoft keeps trying to shoehorn their windows OS onto those other disparate device platforms. (Windows tablets and phones)

      Rather than just accept that the market has changed, microsoft desperately wants to remain "The" gatekeeper for all things digital, and it just wont happen. They should just accept that Enterprise PCs and PC gaming are their bitches, and social media and mobile computing are Apple's and Google's bitches, and just focus on what's in their box to make it the best possible offering in those categories.

      Instead, they keep trying to force this vision of "microsoft everywhere", and it's destroying them.

    8. Re:DirectX is obsolete by bloodhawk · · Score: 2

      high performance gaming where all these expensive gaming cards are made for does not happen on portal devices, it happens on desktops. You can't just say look a variant of OpenGL runs here here and here and claim it is now dominating, the truth is it hasn't made any significant inroads in the desktop gaming area. On the desktop it isn't even a close race, MS completely and utterly dominate the space. As long as they have a strangehold on the desktop then DX will not be obsolete or even close to it, it is even looking like it will be jumping ahead again with performance which will probably increase its market share even more.

    9. Re:DirectX is obsolete by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There can be serious issues trying to use OpenGL on Windows. Generally they are not with Microsoft itself, but with the card / driver vendors. They come up with half baked crappy support for OpenGL in their Windows drivers. At work, we generally cringe when any of the apps our seismic people use are OpenGL because it will be hit or miss what devices and drivers they can actually use them on without crashes, rendering issues, etc. If the driver vendors fix this, I have nothing inherently against OpenGL. But at this point the Windows drivers are borked for it.

    10. Re: DirectX is obsolete by Billly+Gates · · Score: 0

      Wow right back in 2001 again.

      John Carmack conceded directx 9 is superior. I can't think of a single game today that uses opengl. Why is that?

      You must live in alternative universe as developers prefer to develop for consoles first with direct x then back port it to pc if piracy concerns are not to bad.

      --
      http://saveie6.com/
    11. Re: DirectX is obsolete by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I had no idea all the games for the PS4 and Wii U used DirectX.

      Oh wait, they use OpenGL.

    12. Re:DirectX is obsolete by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Stop using the drivers that come in via Windows Update, or stop using Intel graphics hardware. Those are the only two instances you'll have "half baked crappy support".

    13. Re:DirectX is obsolete by Kjella · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The developer has to support one or both. Most users don't care as long as everything works.

      And the developer generally means game engine developer, not game developer. If you want to write your own engine that's a pretty big job by itself.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    14. Re: DirectX is obsolete by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

      They use neither. Directx is on the Xbox so the pc gets a lousy Xbox port. Opengl has not been used in games for a long time now.

      Exception is Wow for the mac

      --
      http://saveie6.com/
    15. Re:DirectX is obsolete by rl117 · · Score: 1

      I'd argue that the issues are still with Microsoft. They could (and previously did, up to OpenGL 1.4) support OpenGL natively as they do with DirectX today. The hardware vendor shouldn't have to implement and provide a complete GL implementation, but they do have to, and this is one reason why GL implementation quality varies so widely. It could have been a very different story if they weren't a bunch of manipulative control freaks.

      If Microsoft provided a fully-featured GL implementation and let vendors provide a much lower-level driver to do hardware abstraction only, the experience would be much better. This would be akin to Mesa, where the hardware drivers target Gallium and not the high-level GL/state machine side of things. A single GL implementation with multiple backend drivers (OK, I know it's not that simple in Mesa-land, but I hope it makes the point).

    16. Re:DirectX is obsolete by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      people write high end AAA games for windows desktops, on windows desktops DX is still by far and away the best choice for developers even without the coming performance improvements in DX 12. OpenGL has dodgy driver and vendor support, is more complex to program for and doesn't integrate all the controller and sound input as well as MS does. OpenGL has been subpar on windows for nearly a decade now and until they put some real effort into fixing that then DX will remain the dominate gaming platform that devs target. It doesn't matter what runs on Android or Apple or Linux or a mainframe for that matter, what matters is what runs on the platform people use high res gaming on.

    17. Re:DirectX is obsolete by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Desktop gaming revenue is a drop in the bucket compared to mobile. Mobile devices vastly outnumber the number of desktop machines. And almost every one of those devices can run games. Games that were developed using OpenGL.

      Yes, you're right that Microsoft will keep their little niche in desktop gaming through DirectX. But OpenGL has won the war for I-don't-care-about-the-platform gaming. Where it used to be that the beancounters would push for DX development only, now it's just the opposite. Not developing for the OpenGL market is a dealbreaker.

      The proof is in the number of 9-figure grossing games on iOS alone; Kardashian, Candy Crush, Clash of Clans, etc. None of them would have come close to those figures if DirectX only on any Windows platform.

    18. Re:DirectX is obsolete by Shaman · · Score: 1

      This is not true. Or it's only true if the drivers and game procedures are specifically optimised for DirectX.

      --
      ...Steve
    19. Re: DirectX is obsolete by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The Wii U most certainly does use OpenGL. Every PC game that runs on Linux (a slowly growing number, but still a growing number) uses OpenGL. Minecraft uses OpenGL. I didn't know today was a long time ago.

    20. Re: DirectX is obsolete by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

      Wii has open hardware access to the primitives where developers writell their own direct access according to a past story here. PS is the same. Console makers hate opengl as it encourages portability to other consoles

      --
      http://saveie6.com/
    21. Re:DirectX is obsolete by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1

      > OpenGL (or rather, some variants thereof) is the leading API for use on portable devices.

      That is Open GL ES 2.x now 3.x. Even on the -desktop- we have WebGL which is basically OpenGL ES inside a browser.

      For the MS fan-boys, let me know when I can write and run shaders in a browser.

      I *love* ShaderToy. It is awesome for prototyping.

    22. Re: DirectX is obsolete by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 5, Informative

      > I can't think of a single game today that uses OpenGL.

      Uh, HELLO McFly; Minecraft. That "insignificant" game that "only" sold 54+ million copies. ~18 MILLION on PC.

      > Why is that?

      Because you didn't even be bothered to spend 2 seconds to look

      Gee, what is Valve using on OSX, and Linux !?!? ... It sure as hell isn't Microsoft's Not-Inventered-Here RenderMorph's Reality Lab which they renamed to Direct3D

    23. Re:DirectX is obsolete by Wootery · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Microsoft WANTS directX to remain relevant in the modern multiplatform environment.

      PCs have 2 major remaining market niches:

      1) Enterprise(/educational) workstations (Like, for doing WORK on.)

      2) PC Gaming

      Those 2 count for quite a lot, though. I don't think Microsoft are too worried about Mac and Linux supplanting Windows for gaming. It could happen, but that's been the case for years now. The same goes for workstations.

    24. Re:DirectX is obsolete by bloodhawk · · Score: 3, Interesting

      PC gaming is currently over 20 Billion and is still growing (though slowly), Mobile gaming is around 20-25 billion as well, how the fuck do you turn a 50% market share into a drop in the bucket? Regardless they are two separate markets. You can't compare mobile games to desktop games, of course those games would never do as well on a desktop, how would COD, Halo, Far Cry do on a mobile device?

    25. Re:DirectX is obsolete by FatdogHaiku · · Score: 2

      ...Android beat them to the punch for "Affordable smartphone OS", while apple beat them to the punch for "Luxury smartphone OS".

      ...Really, I have to wonder what Microsoft is thinking these days.

      They are thinking that there is a total vacuum in the "Magical Smart Phone OS" category...

      --
      You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
    26. Re: DirectX is obsolete by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You aren't seriously trying to claim that direct x is still based on that ancient middleware are you? Dx2.0 might have used it as a starting point for direct3d but by the time we hit dx5 all of it had be rewritten.

      Why did Microsoft buy that company? It wasn't because they couldn't do it themselves. It was because there was a serious issue getting games running in windows easily and instead of making their user base wait a year or 2 for a single api set that would work for everything they bought a company and folded their work in. If they hadn't done that gaming on PC would have remained in DOS for at least another year and the advancement of visuals in PC games would have been stagnant.

      Forgetting all of that for a moment... Who cares? Every big company buys smaller companies to absord interesting technology. EVERY SINGLE ONE. So it's suddenly bad when Microsoft does it? Let's harp on them for doing something that benefited their consumer base...how awful of them to ensure games just worked.

    27. Re:DirectX is obsolete by GoodNewsJimDotCom · · Score: 1

      What would make me actually like Windows would be if its operating system was virus resistant so I could download any .exe I wanted and have it run in a sandbox.

      --
      God spoke to me
    28. Re:DirectX is obsolete by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What would make me actually like Windows would be if its operating system was virus resistant ...

      An old chestnut.

      By the way, is OSX / Android / Linux "virus resistant"?

      Yes, I didn't think so.

    29. Re:DirectX is obsolete by wierd_w · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Windows is surprisingly resistant in the recent versions. The problem is that it is a complex piece of software with many parts, and no software is perfect.

      Microsoft is the dominant player in the corporate workstation world, so it makes sense to target their platform for corporate and state espionage, and to zombify them for various other purposes that need a fleet of drone computers to perform.

      This means that Windows has a large attack surface on both fronts, so it is aggressively being pummeled with attacks.

      It is impossible to make the OS completely hackproof (due to issues related to the halting problem), which is why viruses are still a thing. They are getting more and more sophisticated as Microsoft makes it harder to do virus-like-things in their OS.

      (The nastiest ones use the OS's own security model against the user. Nasty stuff there.)

      Asking for perfect virus protection is like asking for perfect birth control. It does not exist, and the "best" solution is abstinence. (In this case, Not running every EXE you find on the internet.) As they say in the medical profession, "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." Same way in preventing viral infections for PCs.

      All wrapping each process inside a sandbox would do, is move the focus of the virus programmers to breaking the sandbox, and getting control of the hypervisor. Trust me, the motivation would be there (both mental and monetary), and it would eventually happen. Sandboxing isnt a silver bullet.

      The problem I have with modern windows is not what is under the hood-- it's what they are doing with the userspace. The UI is horrible! It's like Microsoft is taking every "popular" thing, and gluing it to the UI like a tawdry bauble. "let's stick twitter integration icons EVERYWHERE! Facebook too! You know what, let's display thumbnails of our news service's top story every time you click the start button!" and all that shit.

      No. How about "I want to do my work now, go away." eh microsoft?

      There's nothing wrong with providing the OPTION to have that level of deep hentai tentacle penetration with social networking if the user really wants that-- but it should not be a mainlined feature that is assumed to be on.

      I dont have a problem with windows concerning what's under the hood. I have issues with how they are trying to engineer user experience and user consumption. They are trying to dictate. They confuse that with "Leading." It is NOT the same thing. It will continue to kill them until they learn their error.

    30. Re:DirectX is obsolete by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ummmm perhaps you want to join the present instead of living 5 years in the past. Direct X 11 has been available in browser since around 2010 and is used for a lot of browser based games.

    31. Re:DirectX is obsolete by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Shaders are programs that run on your GPU at kernel level with full DMA access to your computer. Be careful what you wish for when you're talking about allowing this code from websites to be running on your GPU. There is work being done to allow GPUs to honor protected mode, but it's not quite ready yet and it's a hardware feature, so you need a new GPU.

    32. Re:DirectX is obsolete by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Really, I have to wonder what Microsoft is thinking these days.

      Microsoft is just really jealous of Apple and Google. Microsoft made some really snarky ads attacking Apple and Google (go look for them on the interwebs).

      Essentially, Microsoft wants to lock you down into its ecosystem (Bing, Skype, Onedrive, IE), then getting a cut of the cash from the Windows App Store.

      What better way to do this than to leverage on its huge desktop market share to further advance its touch/mobile ambitions? Hence Windows 8 was born.

      Microsoft apologists will insist that Windows 10 will put things right. Or a third-party app such as Classic Shell will satisfy the luddites who refuse to embrace change. I think Windows 10 will be a flop... insofar as advancing Microsoft's touch/mobile ambitions. It will make modest gains from the desktop folks who were holding onto Windows XP and Windows 7 (first year free upgrade, just like the first hit of a drug is always free).

    33. Re:DirectX is obsolete by dbIII · · Score: 1

      If it's so slow, why was it on the original Nintendo DS? Hardware has got a bit more capable since then.

    34. Re:DirectX is obsolete by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      You're basically an idiot. Windows Phone has nothing to do with advancing some kind of DirectX agenda. Windows Phone is about trying to remain relevant in a very important market segment. It's not doing that good of a job competing, but we're discussing the *purpose* of WP, not its success / failure.

      "MS keeps trying to reinvent windows "For a new era", but keeps failing miserably."

      The fuck is that even supposed to mean? Should MS *stop* improving Windows -- should Microsoft *not* develop improvements like DirectX 12? Because if that's what you mean, then it's the stupidest fucking thing I've read all day. And I've been reading the Internet all day, so that's saying something.

    35. Re:DirectX is obsolete by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So because Microsoft provide the same level of support as other OS's it is MS's fault for not nursing the competing technology to make it better? REally?

    36. Re:DirectX is obsolete by PopeRatzo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      PCs have 2 major remaining market niches:

      1) Enterprise(/educational) workstations (Like, for doing WORK on.)
      2) PC Gaming)

      What does it say about us that we now consider "doing work" to be a niche?

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    37. Re:DirectX is obsolete by unixisc · · Score: 1

      Looks like a good solution for this would be for Microsoft to port DirectX either directly to Android/iOS, or indirectly to Linux/FreeBSD. That way, signal developers that if they develop to DirectX (which has the audio advantage over OpenGL, where OpenAL is something that has to be separately supported) they'd be supported on all 3 platforms. While the Windows version could remain proprietary, they could release these 2 versions as a dual license of GPLv3 and either BSDL/Apache.

    38. Re: DirectX is obsolete by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Neither the PS4 or the Wii U use OpenGL.

    39. Re:DirectX is obsolete by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is not true. Or it's only true if the drivers and game procedures are specifically optimised for DirectX.

      And that really is the crux of the problem, the drivers ARE optimized for Direct X with mostly half arsed implementations for OpenGL. OpenGL is only as good as the entire stack lets it be and at the moment that puts it at a disadvantage, a disadvantage that has been going on for a long long time now and it isn't looking like changing anytime soon.

    40. Re: DirectX is obsolete by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >Minecraft
      then why is the FPS so piss poor on Linux? same computer running windows 8.1 is 3-4 times faster. switch to ubuntu or debian and it stutters.

    41. Re: DirectX is obsolete by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      minecraft...

      that microsoft just bought.

      how long do you think it's going to be using opengl?

    42. Re:DirectX is obsolete by Blaskowicz · · Score: 1

      The DS doesn't have to care about compatibility, has a weird GPU with some limitations and shortcuts and the CPU does fixed point math but not floats.
      I suppose it uses a subset, and would thus be like 3dfx Glide rather than full desktop OpenGL. It's easy to get fixed function rendering fast too, there's no shader compiler or advanced features. Quake 1/2/3 and Half-Life gave us some nice 60fps gaming or faster in the late 90s and early 00s.

    43. Re:DirectX is obsolete by Blaskowicz · · Score: 1

      In particular Intel GPUs support older version i.e. Sandy Bridge supports OpenGL 3.1, Ivy Bridge supports OpenGL 3.3 and I don't know what Haswell supports.
      These days you can make a DX11-only game (with or without a path for DX10.x feature level but still on DX11) but if you make an OpenGL 4.3 game you will support less hardware! Use OpenGL 4.4 or 4.5 and that shrinks again until vendors eventually catch up to these. So it is portable, except when it's not.

      If some developers want to make games on the Quake 2 engine I'll like it though, I like the look, stability and the crazy performance on old hardware.

    44. Re:DirectX is obsolete by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

      Microsoft has basically run out of solutions. Their best strategy now is to sink as slowly as possible.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    45. Re:DirectX is obsolete by krkhan · · Score: 0

      It does not exist, and the "best" solution is abstinence. (In this case, Not running every EXE you find on the internet.)

      Actually, the equivalent analogy would be to just not go on the Internet. Even then you run the risk of getting infected with something like Stuxnet. The real "abstinence" would be to not interact with any external/untrusted data at all.

    46. Re:DirectX is obsolete by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Proof? At least I haven't heard about anything like that.

    47. Re:DirectX is obsolete by jones_supa · · Score: 1

      Is there really such a security risk? I thought one would first upload buffers to the GPU memory and then shaders would then access those buffers.

    48. Re:DirectX is obsolete by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Besides, most mobile games cost less than $10 and the vast majority of games over $50 are on the PC platform. It's not just about the raw number of devices, but the revenue made on those devices.

    49. Re:DirectX is obsolete by A+Friendly+Troll · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Sadly for them, Android beat them to the punch for "Affordable smartphone OS", while apple beat them to the punch for "Luxury smartphone OS". This leaves microsoft scrambling for marketshare in the smartphone space.

      So what's going to happen when WP hits 30% in Asia and South America? It's on its way there. In several European countries, WP is at ~12-14%. Windows 10 is going to make central phone management easier; want to guess what's going to happen with tens of millions of various employees being issued official company phones?

      WP is going to continue to grow, and iOS is going to continue to fall, until it becomes an irrelevant quirk.

      Having a US-centric view on reality isn't a very good thing.

    50. Re:DirectX is obsolete by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bollocks. The official Nvidia and AMD drivers direct from their respective websites are substandard for OpenGL. And where do you think the ones on Windows Update come from? They're official Nvidia and AMD drivers (which may be a few months out of date). If being a few months out of date makes that much of a difference, then clearly the drivers aren't in a stable state.

    51. Re: DirectX is obsolete by LLKrisJ · · Score: 1

      All the recent versions of OSX feature social media integration right into the OS so your whole point is moot.

      Get over your baseless MS hate.

      Win 7 and 8 are both rock solid OSes that support a ton of HW out of the box (try that linux) all without flinching (my osx Yosemite machine crashes more often not to mention the suckfests that are Finder and Spotlight.

    52. Re: DirectX is obsolete by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

      Opengl has not been used in games for a long time now.

      That is wildly wrong. One billion Android handsets running OpenGL ES make you are about as wrong as it gets.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    53. Re:DirectX is obsolete by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually given that there are plenty of Bluetooth controllers AND mobile fps's (mostly by gameloft but that's immaterial) yeah Halo(s) and CoD(s) do pretty well on mobile devices.

      And the sheer quantity of mobile gamers vs pc gamers is so staggering (google it) that yup it is a drop in a very big bucket.

    54. Re:DirectX is obsolete by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ahhhh so now we are changing definition, PC Games are less important because they don't make as many new games as mobile even though they make as much money in total and far more per game. It doesn't matter to you that 95% of mobile games are complete shit and fail to sell more than a handful of copies, quantity is what matters, gotcha!

    55. Re: DirectX is obsolete by donaldm · · Score: 1

      They use neither. Directx is on the Xbox so the pc gets a lousy Xbox port. Opengl has not been used in games for a long time now.

      Exception is Wow for the mac

      The PS3 and PS4 both use OpenGL as does the Wii and the WiiU and yet we continue to see new games. Of course so does IOX and Android and we all know how small those markets are :-)

      --
      There ain't no such thing as proprietary standards only proprietary formats. Standards are by definition open.
    56. Re:DirectX is obsolete by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

      If you write a game that uses Direct3D, you can easily target Windows, XBox, and Windows Phone. If you write a game that uses OpenGL, then you can easily target all of the major desktop, mobile, and console platforms. If your game runs on a generation-old console, then it will run on current-generation mobiles as well. This gives you three markets: First release for high-end PCs, second for consoles, third for mobiles. You can get a solid revenue stream out of each one. You don't lose the Windows marked by choosing OpenGL, but you do lose every other market by using Direct3D.

      That said, the APIs are so similar these days that you'll typically use some middleware to provide the abstraction. All of the important code is written in the shaders and these are much easier to port between GLSL and HLSL than they are to port between different GPUs and maintain performance.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    57. Re:DirectX is obsolete by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

      Your typical GPU driver is about 10MB of object code. It contains a complex optimising compiler and controls a device that has complete DMA access to your computer. It is written with speed as the only significant goal. Making a GPU driver 1% faster contributes enough to sales to pay the salaries of several driver developers. Making the GPU driver more secure generates zero additional sales.

      The shader code that's fed into this stack from WebGL is sanitised and is completely safe to run, assuming that your driver stack is 100% bug free. Still feel safe?

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    58. Re: DirectX is obsolete by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

      Actually, a lot of these games just use WINE's implementation of DirectX. This either translates the calls to OpenGL or implements a DirectX state tracker directly if you have Gallium drivers configured correctly. The same is true of a lot of Mac games. Good luck getting WINE to run on a console though...

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    59. Re:DirectX is obsolete by citizenr · · Score: 0

      Yes, phone platform with NO API for backing up sms messages will win the market!

      " Cliff Simpkins (Sr Product Manager, Windows Developer) responded

      Currently, the platform provides a number of SMS Access from a system eventing perspective (as of Windows Phone 8.1), and Windows Phone supports sms backup/restore for consumers as part of the base OS (Settings Backup). What we don’t provide is a backup API."

      Currently there is NO WAY of exporting stored messages away from M$ proprietary 3% of the market crap.

      --
      Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
    60. Re:DirectX is obsolete by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I see you are attached the "myth" that consoles run OpenGL, hint it is a myth. It is a major task to port a game from a PC using OpenGL to either a Wii U or a PS4. They both may have had some origins in OpenGL in the dim dark distant past but that is about it, it is a big job to move to those environments. As such most game devs choose to target DX on windows as it runs best on windows, then port to those other platforms, there is little to no benefit in targeting OpenGL only.

    61. Re:DirectX is obsolete by Richard_at_work · · Score: 1

      A "sink" where they actually grew in revenue and profits is quite a feat for a company that has "basically run out of solutions"...

      http://www.microsoft.com/inves...

    62. Re:DirectX is obsolete by Richard_at_work · · Score: 1

      Did they fix that on Apple iOS then? I had a serious ball ache of a time backing up my SMS messages separately from my system - infact, it involved digging around in the system backup, extracting a binary file, running it through a conversion process and then saving the results into a csv. This was back in 2011/12

      So it certainly seems like a phone platform with "NO API for backing up sms messages" certainly did win the market.

    63. Re:DirectX is obsolete by jones_supa · · Score: 1

      Now you expanded the discussion to the GPU driver running on the CPU. The original claim was that "shaders are programs that run on your GPU at kernel level with full DMA access to your computer". But other than that, sure, I agree with you: the OpenGL stack and the GPU driver are a potential minefield.

    64. Re:DirectX is obsolete by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Linux fans have been singing that tune for over a decade now, in that time they have more than tripled revenue and profit, they have maintained market dominance in the desktop and have succeeded in entering various enterprise markets. If that is how you run out of solutions, then more companies would be scrambling to run out of solutions.

    65. Re:DirectX is obsolete by wildstoo · · Score: 1

      The problem I have with modern windows is not what is under the hood-- it's what they are doing with the userspace. The UI is horrible! It's like Microsoft is taking every "popular" thing, and gluing it to the UI like a tawdry bauble. "let's stick twitter integration icons EVERYWHERE! Facebook too! You know what, let's display thumbnails of our news service's top story every time you click the start button!" and all that shit.

      Yep, it's just like the crapware that HP/Dell/etc. used to (and to some extent still do) preinstall on their consumer-grade PCs and laptops, only this time it's actually baked into the damn OS.

    66. Re:DirectX is obsolete by wildstoo · · Score: 1

      I've played a bunch of the mobile FPS games and none of them are worth a damn, and the mobile gaming "market" might be huge in terms of population but it's also fragmented to hell, absolutely filled with garbage, and only a tiny number of games make any kind of decent return while the rest instantly become indistinguishable from background noise in the appstore cosmos.

      Don't even get me started on the "freemium" thing.

    67. Re:DirectX is obsolete by Sin2x · · Score: 1

      OpenGL nowadays performs similarly to DirectX and has a comparable feature set. Just run the Unigine benchmarks. They are well-optimized and are available in both OpenGL and DirectX.

      --
      Waka Waka!
    68. Re:DirectX is obsolete by Sin2x · · Score: 1

      > Ivy Bridge supports OpenGL 3.3 Not true. Ivy and up support OpenGL 4. See there: http://www.intel.com/support/g...

      --
      Waka Waka!
    69. Re: DirectX is obsolete by dunkelfalke · · Score: 1

      And all of them are used for 3d games? I don't think so.
      I own four Android phones. Not a single one is used for gaming in any way.

      --
      "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
    70. Re:DirectX is obsolete by dennison_uy · · Score: 1

      Really, I have to wonder what Microsoft is thinking these days.

      I'd like to think they are aiming for a jack-of-all trades solution, a unified OS for both desktop and mobile.

      Why carry two devices (a laptop and a smartphone) when you can accomplish everything with one (smartphone/laptop hybrid)?

      --
      Take off every 'sig'!
      All your 'sig' are belong to us!
    71. Re:DirectX is obsolete by CronoCloud · · Score: 2

      Because most home use of PC's is for NOT doing work? The Internet made PC's desirable for those who before the Internet, didn't have them.

      Sure there's always a few garage developers/wanna-be entrepreneurs/SOHO users, but they're a niche.

    72. Re: DirectX is obsolete by CronoCloud · · Score: 1

      That's incorrect. Sony maintains a OpenGL variant called PSGL, it's OpenGL 4.3 plus extensions.

    73. Re:DirectX is obsolete by Cro+Magnon · · Score: 1

      It's not just "doing work". To me, getting onto my favorite forum and telling someone, in great detail, why they are wrong is much easier on my PC than on a phone/tablet.

      --
      Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
    74. Re:DirectX is obsolete by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Unfortunately for stupid statements like that, today's multiplatform world includes X360 and XBone, both of which require DirectX. Every game that runs on those platforms uses DirectX. Maybe you should look up the word "obsolete", I don't think it means what you think it means.

    75. Re:DirectX is obsolete by dimeglio · · Score: 1

      I don't think it's about improvement but rather staying relevant in an world where your entire ecosystem is what defines you, not individual products.

      --
      Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the author.
    76. Re: DirectX is obsolete by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ALL Android 3d games

    77. Re:DirectX is obsolete by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Kantar World Panel (http://www.kantarworldpanel.com/global/smartphone-os-market-share/) numbers (they have been reported a couple of times on this site before, personally I would not consider them to be the absolute truth, but you have to work with the numbers you can get)

      For some countries november 2014 is the latest, for other countries a previous month is the latest. Furthermore this is the marketshare for items sold in that month in particular.

      Numbers in [] is from 1 year before.

      Asian countries:
      China (november 2014)
      Android - 80.4% [78.6%]
      iOS - 18.1% [17%]
      Windows - 0.6% [2.7%]
      BlackBerry - 0% [0%]
      Other - 0.9% [1.6%]

      Japan (november 2014)
      Android - 42.4% [30%]
      iOS - 53.8% [69.1%]
      Windows - 0.4% [0%]
      BlackBerry - 0.2% [0.1%]
      Other - 3.2% [0.8%]

      South-american countries:
      Argentina (october 2014)
      Android - 82.6% [76.7%]
      iOS - 0% [1%]
      Windows - 10.5% [7.3%]
      BlackBerry - 4.7% [9.4%]
      Other - 2.2% [5.7%]

      Brazil (august 2014)
      Android - 89.1% [82.7%]
      iOS - 5.2% [3.7%]
      Windows - 3.8% [4.1%]
      BlackBerry - 0.8% [1.2%]
      Other - 1.1% [8.3%]

      European countries:
      Italy (november 2014)
      Android - 68% [67.9%]
      iOS - 17% [11%]
      Windows - 12.7% [16%]
      BlackBerry - 1.1% [1.9%]
      Other - 1.2% [3.3%]

      France (november 2014)
      Android - 68.3% [65.5%]
      iOS - 20.8% [18.6%]
      Windows - 9.8% [12.9%]
      BlackBerry - 0.5% [2.2%]
      Other - 0.6% [0.5%]

      Germany (november 2014)
      Android - 70.1% [74.7%]
      iOS - 21.4% [17.3%]
      Windows - 7.1% [5.7%]
      BlackBerry - 0.6% [0.8%]
      Other - 0.7% [1.5%]

      United Kingdom (november 2014)
      Android - 49.7% [55.7%]
      iOS - 42.5% [30.6%]
      Windows - 7% [10.8%]
      BlackBerry - 0.6% [2.4%]
      Other - 0.2% [0.5%]

      Spain (november 2014)
      Android - 85.9% [87.3%]
      iOS - 9.7% [6.3%]
      Windows - 4.1% [4.8%]
      BlackBerry - 0% [0.2%]
      Other - 0.3% [1.4%]

      Could be you please cite a source for your claim that Windows Phone is at 12~14 in several European countries, because I cannot see that from Kantars figures - and from the numbers for each month, there only appears to be a slight uptick in the demand for Windows phones in some months in some european countries, sometimes topping 10%, other times dipping below 5%. In the asian countries where China would probably be considered the most interesting market, besides Japan, there appears to be waning interest in Windows phones. Furthermore, it appears that the introduction of the larger sized iPhones had a notable impact on iOS market share in several countries.

      (CAPTCHA: revolve)

    78. Re: DirectX is obsolete by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

      You have a kid? Your phones are used for gaming. You never ever play a game yourself? You're the only one. I suppose you never email or browse with them either :)

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    79. Re:DirectX is obsolete by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      Sure there's always a few garage developers/wanna-be entrepreneurs/SOHO users, but they're a niche.

      But certainly, you don't consider all the people who have PCs on their desks at work to be a "niche", do you?

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    80. Re: DirectX is obsolete by Spaseboy · · Score: 1

      PC gamers like to spend time mess with hardware, not software. And that one thing is what limits both Mac and PC gaming: Linux because of driver issues, Macs because of platform expansion restrictions. You can't even upgrade RAM anymore on any Macs except the outrageously priced Pro mini towers, which themselves have very limited expansion.

      Until you can put X amount of graphics cards into a Mac or Linux box and they just work, and work together, PC gaming is never going away.

      --
      "I don't want more choice, I just want nicer things!"
      -Jennifer Saunders as Edina Monsoon
    81. Re:DirectX is obsolete by Moondevil · · Score: 1

      DirectX is obsolete. In today's multiplatform world only OpenGL matters.

      Funny, last time I checked OpenGL wasn't supported in any games console.

      Even the half baked version available on the PS3 was barely used.

    82. Re:DirectX is obsolete by Moondevil · · Score: 1

      They already have to do it for every games console anyway.

      Forget this urban myth that games consoles support OpenGL.

    83. Re: DirectX is obsolete by Moondevil · · Score: 1

      No they don't.

      PS 3 - Hardly anyone used PSGL, rather LibCGM

      PS 4 - http://develop.scee.net/files/presentations/gceurope2013/ParisGC2013Final.pdf

      Wii U uses GX

    84. Re: DirectX is obsolete by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1

      Great PS4 Link !

      I shipped a few games on Wii; wrote an OpenGL implementation for it layering it on top of GX. Interesting that Wii U still uses GX !

    85. Re:DirectX is obsolete by A+Friendly+Troll · · Score: 1

      "Europe" isn't just five countries, just as "Asia" isn't China and Japan only. India is having a really big WP surge, Brazil (listed above at 3.8% WP) too; carriers are currently pushing it like crazy, and if you were at the World Cup, you could have seen a lot of Lumias around, nowhere near what the data is suggesting. Their largest bank just released a WP app, due to a big uptick in WP sales. Similar in Argentina, if a couple friends are to be trusted - a lot of people are switching from low-end Androids to low-end Windows Phones.

      The problem with various marketshare figures is that it often uses data from US services, mostly ad companies.

    86. Re: DirectX is obsolete by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Really?

    87. Re: DirectX is obsolete by dunkelfalke · · Score: 1

      I do play games - sometimes - Deus Ex 3 right now. But never on the phone - it is just not comfortable for that. Emails and the browser are different, been using these on my phone ever since Windows Mobile 2003.

      --
      "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
    88. Re:DirectX is obsolete by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, you are exactly right, Europe is not "just" five countries - there are several more - there is Denmark (where I am from), Sweden, Finland, Luxembourg, Lichtenstein, Austria and so on, but together those five countries make up a large portion of the European population.

      According to the danish parliament site (http://www.euo.dk/spsv/off/alle/113/) on the population count in the EU (that is not the entire Europe) the population was estimated at 503 millions citizens in 2012, and the total for UK, Germany, Spain, Italy and France is 316 million. If you ask Google the European population is about 742 million. So even if you take all the countries considered European, those five countries from before make up just below half the European population. I am not saying that the other countries can not diverge from the trends in those five countries, but you have to present a little more evidence than just saying that there are more than 5 five countries for me to believe it. I agree with you, that iOS seems to be a non-contender in Argentina. But at the same time both Android and Windows Phone is on the rise in Argentina.

      In what way is your market share figures superior to the market share figures from the US services? Do you have any numbers for the other countries that you mention, otherwise what you are presenting is basically anecdotes - how do you know that what you are being told is not confirmation bias? With regards to to India - can you perhaps show us the numbers or cite a source?

    89. Re:DirectX is obsolete by CronoCloud · · Score: 1

      That is correct, I don't. The niche is people doing "work" on their computing devices at home.

      I've always believed that the old distinction between "business computers" and "home computers" was a good one, and that the Microsoft/Intel/IBM hegemony that said to home users that they needed a "Business computer" at home (and the computer reviewers/pundits who also encouraged going MIcrosoft/Intel/IBM platform for home users) was a bad thing.

    90. Re: DirectX is obsolete by Wootery · · Score: 1

      That seems a reasonable analysis.

      A small nitpick: let's not confuse 'PC gaming' with 'gaming on Windows'.

    91. Re:DirectX is obsolete by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      OK, I see what you're saying. That there's really little reason for the operating system on a home computer to look and work exactly like the one at work.

      I agree. I think as computer users, we're mature enough not to need this level of familiarity. This is one reason that at some point down the road, I hope to be able to use both Windows for my digital audio workstation in my home studio, and some form of "SteamOS" for playing games. Of course, with companies like EA/Origin and Ubisoft using their own game store platforms, I don't see all PC games being compatible with a SteamOS for some time to come.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    92. Re:DirectX is obsolete by CronoCloud · · Score: 1

      That there's really little reason for the operating system on a home computer to look and work exactly like the one at work.

      Yep, that's how it was, and how I think it ought to be again.

      This is one reason that at some point down the road, I hope to be able to use both Windows for my digital audio workstation in my home studio, and some form of "SteamOS" for playing games.

      I run Linux on the desktop, but my game machines run BSD based operating systems.

      Of course, with companies like EA/Origin and Ubisoft using their own game store platforms, I don't see all PC games being compatible with a SteamOS for some time to come.

      Yep, I personally think SteamOS is really going nowhere. You're better off going BSD, because while EA/Origin and Ubisoft don't do games for SteamOS....they DO release them for BSD. Admittedly those BSD machines are PlayStations. But essentially PS3's/PS4's were Steam Machines before Gabe Newell decided to make them. Gabe hates walled gardens...except Valve's of course.

    93. Re: DirectX is obsolete by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

      You may be just a bit old, but you will come around :)

      One day when you're cooling your heels in the proverbial doctor's office and you already read all your mail and can't be bothered with any of the facebook stuff and nobody wants to chat with you, you will remember that the phone also plays games.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    94. Re: DirectX is obsolete by Radster51 · · Score: 1

      Windows haters of the world unite. Actually Microsoft has been consolidating and planning entry into ALL computing. After years and years of having google as my homepage due to its simplicity and function I now have two. Google and MSN.com. With a Windows live account I can have my stuff anywhere I can get to the internet including office, searches, email and cloud storage. PCs are still far ahead of any other platform in usability. Bing works fine just like Google. Easy to use as an alternative. Where ever everyone else is going I believe that MS is already there.

  2. DirectX 12 cards are here... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 2

    Newegg has 120 DirectX video cards available. So what's the hold up on drivers?

    1. Re:DirectX 12 cards are here... by Narishma · · Score: 2

      DX12 is a major rewrite and a departure from the old bloated APIs, so drivers will probably need to be re-written from scratch. Though since it's a pretty thin API, it shouldn't take very long.

      --
      Mada mada dane.
  3. Ehh... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I don't like what they did to the start menu in the latest build... I don't need those massive letters to tell me where I am in the damn All App list... Also how they decided to separate Desktop and Tablet mode entirely, so the Touch Keyboard no longer popups automatically when in "desktop mode", you have to be in "tablet mode".. which is highly limited in the fact that everything is fullscreen, cannot touch any icons on the desktop... Previous build was great on my tablet, they had to ruin it. If I wanted everything in fullscreen I'd use an Android or iOS tablet

  4. If DX 12 is "Enabled" then by SeaFox · · Score: 2

    I don't think it would be right to call it "dormant" in the OS.
    If the code is there, but not available to call to, that would be dormant.

  5. Beta it burns by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It still tastes like vomit, only for the eyes.

  6. Windows 10 by ArcadeMan · · Score: 1

    Microsoft still hasn't announced how much a Windows 10 license will cost. And don't reply with "it's free" because not everyone runs Windows Vista, Windows 7 or Windows 8/8.1.

    --
    Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
    1. Re:Windows 10 by Mashiki · · Score: 1, Informative

      I'd hazard a guess that it'll be priced like all the previous versions. $49-99 for an upgrade copy, and $79-129(oem) and $129-199 for retail.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    2. Re:Windows 10 by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      If your computer is old enough that it doesn't even run vista (Jan. 2007), it's probably time to buy a new computer (1/4 the price, 4x the specs) and run your copy of xp in a vm.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    3. Re:Windows 10 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's Microsoft's version of open source... You're free to buy it. Besides, if they tell you how much it will cost you will just whine.

    4. Re: Windows 10 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Doesn't run vista, etc. is not the same as CAN'T run vista, etc.

    5. Re:Windows 10 by Espectr0 · · Score: 1

      moot point. it will probably cost you nothing, because if you are running XP, you aren't buying this. If you are running XP, then you are buying a new machine and chances are it will come with either a recent OS or 10 itself.

      People with old machines building their own new machines and getting 10 will be in the minority. Tip: get a cheap 7/8.1 license to upgrade for free to 10.

      --
      Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
    6. Re:Windows 10 by bloodhawk · · Score: 3, Informative

      NO, they stated it is free if you upgrade in the first year. After that time if you want to upgrade you pay normal upgrade price. There is no expiry or only good for a year.

    7. Re:Windows 10 by ArcadeMan · · Score: 1

      I'm running XP on a new computer that I built myself about six months ago. I installed XP because it's the only Windows license I have.

      And there's no such thing as a "cheap" Windows 7/8 license, it's still 130$CAD everywhere. I'm not paying 130$ for the OS of my gaming PC, my CPU and GPU combined didn't even cost that much,

      --
      Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
    8. Re:Windows 10 by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

      I find that very hard to believe as driver support for XP has gone away since 2011 except for a few business oriented systems and now even they do not have Xp drivers.

      This must have been used.

      --
      http://saveie6.com/
    9. Re:Windows 10 by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

      Wow buy a new one if the old one works just fine and is better (no cell phone on the desktop)?

      True as a gamer an old system is pretty useless unless you run older games from that era in which it came from.

      XP is still insanely popular and I will bet you money in 2020 when Windows 7 goes EOL XP will still have marketshare of active computer users. Small but still significant to be counted. It works and users like it because it is familiar to them.

      I still see no reason to leave Windows 7. I just wonder what it will break now? Windows 8.1 BSOD on both an ATI and NVidia cards in youtube which I find very strange. No problem at all in Windows 7. DirectX 12 adds more complexity of things it can fuck up.

      Oh and my Asus board probably won't have drivers as it is in their financial interests for me to throw it all away and buy another one right? I had a room mate who stayed on XP for a long long time as he thought Windows 7 was a buggy POS. It always BSOD because Dell wanted him to throw it away and buy a new one rather than release a driver that went thru QA?

      Just my gripe.

      --
      http://saveie6.com/
    10. Re:Windows 10 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's not even free in that case, it's only free for the first year in which microsoft will then jump in and charge you out the wazoo to continue.

    11. Re:Windows 10 by Blaskowicz · · Score: 1

      Is that a non-networked box?
      How do you get data in and out? I'd be wary of even USB, so I'd use CD/DVD and plugging in trusted hard drives on SATA, IDE or Firewire with all USB controllers disabled in BIOS. Or a null-modem cable.

    12. Re:Windows 10 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      yeah, they have already stated that this will be a rent-to-own copy, good for a year.

      It is funny how easily one can create an alternate reality like this. Slashdot ran with the only story coming out of the Windows 10 announcement that contained this misunderstanding, and even editorialized it in the summary to further drive home the point (that was completely wrong). Even though the comments to that story was full of people quoting the actual Microsoft announcement as saying the complete opposite, in no uncertain terms, people here still believe they stated the opposite of what they actually did.

    13. Re:Windows 10 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You know about PC component suppliers but you've never seen an OEM Win 7 license? Something smells fishy here. You can get an OEM license for Win 7 for around 60$CAD. Then you can install up-to-date drivers on that "gaming PC" (what do you play, DOOM?)

    14. Re:Windows 10 by ArcadeMan · · Score: 1

      I wrote in my previous message that I build it myself and that's it's a new computer. It's parts I bought from NewEgg, which are not used.

      --
      Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
    15. Re:Windows 10 by ArcadeMan · · Score: 1

      Show me where I can get Windows 7 for 60$CAD on NewEgg.ca

      And I play Blizzard and Steam games. Not everyone needs to play games on a 4K monitor at 200FPS with the maximum settings.

      --
      Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
    16. Re:Windows 10 by Mashiki · · Score: 1

      I have to ask, did you read the original question?

      Microsoft still hasn't announced how much a Windows 10 license will cost. And don't reply with "it's free" because not everyone runs Windows Vista, Windows 7 or Windows 8/8.1.

      How your post got to informative, I have no idea.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
  7. Re:How do I install DirectX on Linux? by ChunderDownunder · · Score: 1

    Gallium3D (used by nouveau and others) includes a 'state tracker' for Direct3D. So in theory its possible to port Windows games across.

    That's xorg only - I believe Android has a custom NiH framebuffery GL ES approach.

  8. No Mantle for hobbyist by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That is why I am looking forward to DirectX 12.

  9. I don't get why but some people hate VMs by dbIII · · Score: 1

    Sadly there's still a pile of stuff that won't run on Win7 or later, while the newest MS Office runs on XP, so more reasons against than for in some cases.
    Also for some odd reason many users seem to hate mucking about with a VM - their nice seamless desktop paradigm gets broken by it or something, so some refuse to use it if there is an alternative. I've had to run an old version of AutoCAD (with the old interface the user likes) on WINE on a linux box and export it via X to the users Win7 box to make them happy - icon launch or nothing for that person and forget about a VM. The user already had X for some scientific software so it was doable.

    If there was a way to launch the MS Windows application from an icon without presenting the user with an extra desktop that would make a difference. Trivial in X circa 1990 or later but for all the bleatings about revisions to remote desktop I just cannot see a way to get a remote or VM app exported from an MS system to act like a local application.

    1. Re:I don't get why but some people hate VMs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I honestly couldn't tell you how I did it, but I accidentally got a single app exported via RDP just the other day. MS has been doing it for years, Citrix for even longer.

      With RDP your remote app has access to your local drives, USB sticks, printers, smart card, and even audio devices (microphone/speakers). X gives you just the display. You're on your own for printing, audio, files, and so on. I'll take RDP over X any day.

      dom

    2. Re:I don't get why but some people hate VMs by Blaskowicz · · Score: 1

      Indeed there's that but you'll need a Windows Server license and CAL and a specific remote user license, like a grand on software.
      In that situation though, the need for outdated Windows prevents doing it directly unless there's XP mode in 2008 R2.

    3. Re:I don't get why but some people hate VMs by dave420 · · Score: 1

      You mean Windows XP mode? It gives you a (usually-invisible) VM, and you can export apps from that VM to your desktop, so they run in their own windows. I've used it and it's absolutely genius.

    4. Re:I don't get why but some people hate VMs by CronoCloud · · Score: 1

      X gives you just the display.

      You can also forward the audio, that's what Pulseaudio is for.

    5. Re:I don't get why but some people hate VMs by dbIII · · Score: 1

      It's always been full screen for me and pissed people off. I'll have to look at it again and see if I can get it running that way. Of course that still doesn't help with the stuff that still needs 16bit (AutoCAD), but I can see a use with a whole lot of label printing abandonware etc.

  10. May be not. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    DX 12, just like DX10 and DX11 can be used to "encourage" people to upgrade in this case from Win7 to Win10. Additionally if I am not mistaken WINE still supports only up to DX10. Considering Microsoft has XBOX which does not allows developers to write OpenGL applications, we see a very clear picture where MS ensures at least some of market share by forcing developers who want to port games to PC to use DX and consequently Windows. This leaves any other OS out of the picture as far as latest generation XBOX ports go, and imo it is still a relevant barrier for adaptation of Linux for gaming. This seams to becomes less of a problem as Steam pushes for their own solution.

    I am interested to see how they are going to lock down market with their new augmented reality headset and relevant IP. Anyone want to bet it will run anything that uses something other than DX12 applications and holographic processor for no apparent reason? (which is probably a moded GPU with drivers designed to screw everyone else)

    Same old, same old.

  11. Ship of Theseus by abies · · Score: 2

    Minecraft is written in java. How many usable DirectX bindings do you know for java?
    Of course, they can as well rewrite Minecraft from the scratch in C++ or C# and port it to DirectX at same time. And maybe change the name. And gameplay. And developer team. And make it runnable only on Windows.
    At this point, discussion stops to be technical and starts to be philosophical - if they rewrite every single part of it, is it still same game?

    1. Re:Ship of Theseus by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1

      > How many usable DirectX bindings do you know for Java?
      1. And who's job is that to support DirectX?
      2. If Microsoft was _serious_ about DirectX they would add D3D bindings to Java.

      > they can as well rewrite Minecraft from the scratch in C++
      That was _already_ done for the PS3 and XBox360 versions.

  12. Uh... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Werent we still waiting for DX 11 app support?

  13. valentine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    http://www.happyvalentinesdaysmsquotespics.com/

  14. Who else is annoyed... by vanners · · Score: 1

    ... that we get a technical topic to discuss, but instead all we get is YAGS (Yet Another Gripe Session). This is supposed to be a forum for geeks, yet it sounds more like a knitting club for old women (no offence to old women, but there is a caricature portrayed in "The Music Man" of older women coming together to gossip and gripe about the local town that seems fitting to my point).

    If we aren't going to chat about the technical issues surrounding DX12, what it has to offer, what cards are likely to implement it, then who will? Tom's Hardware, Anandtech, and half a dozen other places allow chats of reviews, but they don't cover all the geek stuff so that leaves us here where we prefer to relive some real or imagined slight, bicker over preferred widgets etc.

    so sad...