AMD: No DirectX 12, Microsoft: Hold on a minute

[ViRGE]

Not at all, there really was no technical reason why MS's old OSes couldn't be upgraded to use the newer DX stuff.
If the devs used openGL instead, they could enable the exact same feature set that DX 11+ has, and it still would work fine on XP or higher.

It really is just a way to force people to upgrade.
For each version of DX, there is a library(dll) that takes care of the calls, there really is no upkeep involved besides shipping the OS with those dlls. Sure, you can code those libs to take some advantage of the newer kernel, but, it really isn't required. That is MS's choice.

This falsehood has been around for ages, and quite frankly I'm getting sick and tired of it. So once more (and in brief), why you can't do DX10 on WinXP.

DX10 wasn't just a bunch of new API commands, but it was a massive restructuring of Windows and how it interacts with GPUs. Microsoft needed to completely overhaul the driver architecture to support things such as sane preemption (to share the GPU), GPU error detection & recovery, GPU memory management, etc. Direct3D uses these features and so the underlying OS needs to support them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Display_Driver_Model

In theory MS could have backported these to XP, but at that point it would have no longer been Windows XP (it would have been Windows Vista, whether you liked it or not).

 

[cmdrdredd]

This falsehood has been around for ages, and quite frankly I'm getting sick and tired of it. So once more (and in brief), why you can't do DX10 on WinXP.

DX10 wasn't just a bunch of new API commands, but it was a massive restructuring of Windows and how it interacts with GPUs. Microsoft needed to completely overhaul the driver architecture to support things such as sane preemption (to share the GPU), GPU error detection & recovery, GPU memory management, etc. Direct3D uses these features and so the underlying OS needs to support them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Display_Driver_Model

In theory MS could have backported these to XP, but at that point it would have no longer been Windows XP (it would have been Windows Vista, whether you liked it or not).

Thanks for that little explanation. Now I can explain to my friends who want to play games on PC but won't upgrade the OS, why they need to.

I always knew there was something deep in the OS that changed too.

 

[Madpacket]

What we need is higher polygon counts and the hardware to push them. You could take a super high poly count model on 1080p and it would look tons better than playing Far Cry 3 for example on 4k resolutions.

I don't think we necessarily need a new DX at all at this point in time. Just need better ways of using current tech. Most games probably don't even use every available feature because of hardware constraints.

This x10. We need higher poly counts to give better definition for worlds and characters. Currently we are held back by this in games, plus animation still mostly sucks in video games.

 

[Madpacket]

This falsehood has been around for ages, and quite frankly I'm getting sick and tired of it. So once more (and in brief), why you can't do DX10 on WinXP.

DX10 wasn't just a bunch of new API commands, but it was a massive restructuring of Windows and how it interacts with GPUs. Microsoft needed to completely overhaul the driver architecture to support things such as sane preemption (to share the GPU), GPU error detection & recovery, GPU memory management, etc. Direct3D uses these features and so the underlying OS needs to support them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Display_Driver_Model

In theory MS could have backported these to XP, but at that point it would have no longer been Windows XP (it would have been Windows Vista, whether you liked it or not).

Umm they could have implemented DX11 without restructuring the OS. Just because they chose a new driver display model does not mean you nee to restructure the entire OS., they could have implemented it but it would have been a large effort and considering Microsoft only makes money if you upgrade it was in their best interest for you to upgrade.

 

[ViRGE]

Umm they could have implemented DX11 without restructuring the OS. Just because they chose a new driver display model does not mean you nee to restructure the entire OS., they could have implemented it but it would have been a large effort and considering Microsoft only makes money if you upgrade it was in their best interest for you to upgrade.

No, that's exactly what it means. You couldn't have DX10 without WDDM. And you can't have WDDM without restructuring large parts of the OS to accommodate it. WDDM touches everything; it's the mechanism through which the GPU was promoted from a peripheral to another processor within Windows.

 

[futurefields]

I don't think we necessarily need a new DX at all at this point in time. Just need better ways of using current tech. Most games probably don't even use every available feature because of hardware constraints.

"Are you insane? We are trying to sell new video cards, and operating systems here. F your optimizations. Optimizations are the enemy!"

- Unfiltered response from corporate ceo cerebral cortex

 

[Homeles]

Lets hope no dx12 for a long time cos dx11 isnt even being fully used now.

So you want progress to slow further?

 

[Rifter]

Considering Direct X compatibility is literally the only reason I have upgraded windows ever I don't see Microsoft stopping that now, they will release DX 12 and it wont be compatible with windows 7 so will force people to upgrade to win8 or newer.

Microsoft isn't going to stop the cash cow now that would be a poor business decision.

 

[grimpr]

AMD means that DX11 is the end of the road for fixed function graphics interfaces and APIs, the future of computer graphics is not Microsofts DirectX but AMDs HSA.

 

[Bateluer]

DX12 will be introduced with Windows 8.1 in an attempt to generate sales for Windows 8.x

 

[-Slacker-]

Then microsoft's nextgen console would be obsolete months before release...

 

[ShintaiDK]

DX12 will be introduced with Windows 8.1 in an attempt to generate sales for Windows 8.x

Windows Blue aka 8.1 is DX11.1. However Windows 9 is most likely DX12 or 11.2.

 

[ViRGE]

DX12 will be introduced with Windows 8.1 in an attempt to generate sales for Windows 8.x

Again, the only time MS hasn't backported DX changes is when new functionality requires WDDM changes. D3D10 required moving from XPDM to WDDM, and D3D11.1 required WDDM 1.2. And then just to prove how evil they really are, everything from D3D11.1 that MS could port to Win7 without WDDM 1.2 they did in the Win7 platform update.

 

[Anarchist420]

DX always was for amateur programmers and 75% of Microsoft's profits come from IP.

Microsoft is probably the worst company in the world and shame on nv and AMD for following them for so long.

That said, I really wish DX11.1 would be the last version of DX and that the market could be free enough for microsoft to go out of business.

 

[ShintaiDK]

DX always was for amateur programmers and 75% of Microsoft's profits come from IP.

Microsoft is probably the worst company in the world and shame on nv and AMD for following them for so long.

That said, I really wish DX11.1 would be the last version of DX and that the market could be free enough for microsoft to go out of business.

DX is free. And a "free standard" like OpenGL only showed to be a huge disaster.

DX is a blessing to gaming.

 

[Ibra]

Of course AMD doesn't want DX12. AMD suck on tessellation, so imagine if DX12 brings something new and AMD will be behind again.

 

[grimpr]

DX always was for amateur programmers and 75% of Microsoft's profits come from IP.

Microsoft is probably the worst company in the world and shame on nv and AMD for following them for so long.

That said, I really wish DX11.1 would be the last version of DX and that the market could be free enough for microsoft to go out of business.

With AMDs HSA the DirectX layer & API becomes irrelevant, everyone could program its own graphics pipeline, this is what the gaming industry wants and will get with the HSA enabled APUs on the PS4 and the 720.

 

[Olikan]

DX is free. And a "free standard" like OpenGL only showed to be a huge disaster.

DX is a blessing to gaming.

OpenCL as a "free standard" is getting a huge momentum, while direct compute, never had one...and cuda is losing ground fast

i am under impression, that OpenGL and Linux, where just inferior...actually still are :\

 

[cmdrdredd]

"Are you insane? We are trying to sell new video cards, and operating systems here. F your optimizations. Optimizations are the enemy!"

- Unfiltered response from corporate ceo cerebral cortex

Your new GPU is relevant when the UE4 tech demo is running in surround at 60fps on a single GPU. Lol

 

[cmdrdredd]

So you want progress to slow further?

When nobody is putting the full capabilities of current DX versions to use why do we need another one? We need the hardware to keep up with the programming. We don't have it yet.

 

[Homeles]

When nobody is putting the full capabilities of current DX versions to use why do we need another one? We need the hardware to keep up with the programming. We don't have it yet.

Newer hardware and DirectX standards entice people to upgrade. When people upgrade, a larger number of people are using newer hardware, which provides incentive for software developers to target that hardware.

The only reason why someone would not want a new DirectX version is because they are too insecure and/or gullible and have to have the latest and greatest.

You don't slow down hardware progress just because software can't keep up. That's utterly ridiculous.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Newer hardware and DirectX standards entice people to upgrade. When people upgrade, a larger number of people are using newer hardware, which provides incentive for software developers to target that hardware.

The only reason why someone would not want a new DirectX version is because they are too insecure and/or gullible and have to have the latest and greatest.

You don't slow down hardware progress just because software can't keep up. That's utterly ridiculous.

Hardware isn't tied to what version of DX is available. Nvidia didn't hold the GTX Titan back because there was no DX12.

You're thinking is incorrect. We need hardware to push more polygons, richer environments with more realistic lighting, and higher resolution textures. This does not require a new version of DX.

Look at Epic's UE4 demo for example. Using DX11 on a GTX 680. Give better hardware and the quality can go up more.

 

[Homeles]

Hardware isn't tied to what version of DX is available. Nvidia didn't hold the GTX Titan back because there was no DX12.

Are you joking? DirectX versions and hardware are actually pretty strongly intertwined.

Nvidia didn't do that with the Titan because they're not a bunch of morons. I'm not even sure how you even came up with such a ridiculous example.

You're thinking is incorrect. We need hardware to push more polygons, richer environments with more realistic lighting, and higher resolution textures. This does not require a new version of DX.

No, your thinking is what's incorrect. You need to think in line with the masses.

DirectX versions are a pretty big deal. Plenty of games offer differing levels of detail based on what kind of DirectX capability you've got. Higher levels of DirectX are also more efficient.

It's seen as a performance and graphic capability measuring stick. Do you not consider Sandy Bridge's lack of DX11 support as a sign of weakness? Likewise, do you not see Haswell's DX11.1 support as a sign that Intel's getting their things together?

Look at Epic's UE4 demo for example. Using DX11 on a GTX 680. Give better hardware and the quality can go up more.

And give it a better, more efficient API, and you can render even higher quality frames without needing more robust hardware.

 

[Elixer]

This falsehood has been around for ages, and quite frankly I'm getting sick and tired of it. So once more (and in brief), why you can't do DX10 on WinXP.

DX10 wasn't just a bunch of new API commands, but it was a massive restructuring of Windows and how it interacts with GPUs. Microsoft needed to completely overhaul the driver architecture to support things such as sane preemption (to share the GPU), GPU error detection & recovery, GPU memory management, etc. Direct3D uses these features and so the underlying OS needs to support them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Display_Driver_Model

In theory MS could have backported these to XP, but at that point it would have no longer been Windows XP (it would have been Windows Vista, whether you liked it or not).

Not exactly...
It was MS's *choice* to do it that way, there are many ways to skin a cat.
Like I said, openGL offers pretty much everything that DX offers, and you can get all the DX 11 features on XP *now*, if you would just use the correct openGL calls, and they could have just went through with the similar type of changes, but, since they were changing things under the hood (kernel) for the next OS (to make things more robust), they deemed it that it wasn't economically feasible to support the old OS.

They could have been able to do a emulation layer, and sure, there most likely would be some kind of a performance hit, depending on how they handled it, but it could have been done.

Yeah, I know all about TDR, and the rest, but the main point I was making is, if they really wanted to make DX 10/11/whatever available, it could be done.

 

[Pottuvoi]

Hardware isn't tied to what version of DX is available. Nvidia didn't hold the GTX Titan back because there was no DX12.

When they launched Fermi, they knew that Maxwell would be the card they would push for a 'dx12'.
In terms of pure programmability, especially in graphics pipeline, ROPs etc.. all Kepler cards were pure upgrade / refresh cards.

They have been working with Microsoft for a long time to create new standard and you can be sure that AMD and Intel has done the same.
MS doesn't just invent things in last couple of months for their next API.