DirectX 10 Compatibility for Windows XP

[nullpointerus]

What do you think?

http://www.majorgeeks.com/DirectX_10_Compatibility_Libraries_d5615.html

These libraries allow the use of DirectX 10 games on platforms other than Microsoft Vista, and increase hardware compatibility even on Vista, by compiling Geometry Shaders down to native machine code for execution where hardware isn't capable of running it. No longer will you have to upgrade your OS and video card(s) to play the latest games.

It's only a *preview*, meaning that it just runs a few DX10 SDK examples.

I'm skeptical that this will work with decent performance for DX10 games, even it's worked on solidly for the next few months.

 

[zephyrprime]

But aren't geometry shaders compiled into machine code anyway by the video card drivers?

 

[nullpointerus]

Are there DX10 drivers for Windows XP?

I mean, the code could just be in the XP drivers but disabled; however, if I were writing a DX10 compatibility layer, I wouldn't make the whole thing dependent upon nVidia's XP drivers containing disabled DX10 code.

Or did you take the project description to mean it would enable Vista/DX10 drivers to be run on XP?

The authors of these libraries really aren't being very clear.

Because they mentioned not needing to upgrade video cards, I took it to mean that the GPU shader code was being recompiled to CPU machine code--that way, those of us without DX10 hardware could play the games.

Making these libraries work for a few SDK samples and making them work for full-blown DX10 games at decent frame rates are two very different things...

 

[Nightmare225]

Originally posted by: nullpointerus
What do you think?

http://www.majorgeeks.com/DirectX_10_Compatibility_Libraries_d5615.html

These libraries allow the use of DirectX 10 games on platforms other than Microsoft Vista, and increase hardware compatibility even on Vista, by compiling Geometry Shaders down to native machine code for execution where hardware isn't capable of running it. No longer will you have to upgrade your OS and video card(s) to play the latest games.

It's only a *preview*, meaning that it just runs a few DX10 SDK examples.

I'm skeptical that this will work with decent performance for DX10 games, even it's worked on solidly for the next few months.

Meh, useless. They would probably have to rewrite a rewrite a huge amount of code each time MS releases one of their "monthly" updates.

However, this is quite a interesting undertaking, and I fully support any efforts to combat Microsoft's monopolizing of new OSs when customers don't want or need them.

 

[Raider1284]

seriously this would be AMAZING if they could enable DX10 cards at near full speed for windows XP. I personally am in no hurry to "upgrade" to vista and will only do so if i am FORCED to do so, and this could make it possible to delay my "upgrade" even longer.

Props to these guys!

 

[BFG10K]

Are there DX10 drivers for Windows XP?

It doesn't matter - the libraries could be a wrapper that maps DX10 calls to DX9 ones and then passes them to the driver.

Much like a Glide wrapper or Creative's Alchemy project for example.

 

[Ulfhednar]

This will be emulation at best, and it will run like a three-legged dog.

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by: BFG10K

Are there DX10 drivers for Windows XP?

It doesn't matter - the libraries could be a wrapper that maps DX10 calls to DX9 ones and then passes them to the driver.

Much like a Glide wrapper or Creative's Alchemy project for example.

Actually, it would more than likely be a wrapper that maps D3D10 to OpenGL. Given OpenGL's extensible architecture, it's far more simple to map an equivalent D3D10 call to a GL_EXT or GL_ARB call than it is to rewrite code from scratch to map to D3D9.

 

[PingSpike]

Perhaps it works in the same way that Wine/cedega do for current directx9 games.

 

[bigsnyder]

Is Vista really that much different under the hood than XP? I am sure DX10 on XP is realistic, though it will probably
never be official.

 

[Falloutboy]

there is nothing stoping microsoft from bring dx10 to xp besides marketing

 

[aka1nas]

Dx10 requires WDDM to function. These guys are essentially just translating Dx10 calls into Dx9 or OpenGL function calls. This is pretty pointless as it will be several years before games that are exclusively Dx10 come out and the performance with translation will be too low to actually play those games.

 

[BFG10K]

Actually, it would more than likely be a wrapper that maps D3D10 to OpenGL.

It's possible but unlikely.

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: Ulfhednar
This will be emulation at best, and it will run like a three-legged dog.

I agree,just buy Vista when you need to game in DX10.

 

[yacoub]

I thought the only reason DX10 was being kept to Vista was to try to help Vista, not any actual limitation of XP. Is that true?

 

[aka1nas]

MS would have had to port the new WDDM driver model over to XP most likely to get DX10 working on it. This would have required pretty major changes to the kernel and would most propbably break compatability in many cases. If they had released an XP SP3 with DX10 and WDDM, I'm sure there would plenty of people whining on the forum about how MS broke compatability with game XYZ. MS is kind of screwed either way.

 

[Aberforth]

DX 10 makes use of memory scheduler and other features of Vista..I'm very much sure XP cannot cope with it

 

[PingSpike]

The only people that have said DX10 was impossible in XP, that I've seen, were from Microsoft.

John Carmack has stated the limitation is artifical for the purposes of pushing vista.

 

[Aikouka]

Originally posted by: bigsnyder
Is Vista really that much different under the hood than XP? I am sure DX10 on XP is realistic, though it will probably
never be official.

That's the one upgrade people tend to forget about Vista, almost every subsystem has been redesigned (not just Graphics).

As for DirectX10 without WDDM.. I don't know how it will support every feature such as multiple DirectX instances being updated at once (or something to that effect, I can't remember the exact wording)... akin to the reason why Trillian doesn't shut Aero off on my main PC (that has an 8800GTX) but it would on my secondary PC (that has a 7600GS). This is purely a DirectX 10 feature that I believe is related to the WDDM, but I don't know how they'll do some of these.

Originally posted by: PingSpike
The only people that have said DX10 was impossible in XP were from Microsoft.

I don't think Microsoft believes it's impossible. I believe Microsoft thinks it's not worthwhile to port a lot of the Vista changes to XP to support DX10. The old graphic driver model has existed for quite awhile and notice that all DirectX versions were ported backward (as long as support for the OS still existed). Using software exclusives isn't new, so why would Microsoft start doing it now?

 

[Matthias99]

Having a way to expose DX10 shaders in WinXP is probably doable (I'm sure OpenGL will offer it at some point via extensions).

Supporting everything from DX10 will be hard, because some of the new features depend largely on the new driver model and will be difficult or impossible to emulate on top of DX9.

The "Vista only" restriction is somewhat artificial, as they could reasonably provide parts of DX10 on top of WinXP. But there are some fairly significant changes to how programs interface with the 3D hardware/drivers at a low level, and those are really not easy at all to provide.

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: Ulfhednar
This will be emulation at best, and it will run like a three-legged dog.

You never know...wine (with other open source modifications) runs DX9 pretty well.

 

[nullpointerus]

Originally posted by: xtknight

Originally posted by: Ulfhednar
This will be emulation at best, and it will run like a three-legged dog.

You never know...wine (with other open source modifications) runs DX9 pretty well.

Ah, but Wine Is Not an Emulator.

Seriously, what would have to be done to get DX10 features working in hardware on Linux?

 

[I4AT]

Originally posted by: PingSpike
The only people that have said DX10 was impossible in XP, that I've seen, were from Microsoft.

John Carmack has stated the limitation is artifical for the purposes of pushing vista.

If Carmack said it, it is so. Link?

 

[fierydemise]

Yeah Microsoft could port DX10 to XP but it would take a number of very significant changes to XP that would make the change impractical especially when Microsoft is focused on Vista

 

[PingSpike]

Originally posted by: I4AT

Originally posted by: PingSpike
The only people that have said DX10 was impossible in XP, that I've seen, were from Microsoft.

John Carmack has stated the limitation is artifical for the purposes of pushing vista.

If Carmack said it, it is so. Link?

Text