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DirectX 10

I

ikickpigeons

Senior member
Whats the deal with directx 10? Ive been reading some stuff about the new new ATi GPU. Another thing about ...Longhorn??? Sorry for asking these questions its because Ive been away from a computer for quite some time. Also any info about Unreal Engine 3 would be nice because it looks like a monster.
*EDIT*
 
Unreal Engine 3 is not Unreal 3.

Unreal 3 will be based on a modified UT2004 engine.

Unreal engine 3 is over a year to go in development still.
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Direct X 10 will be released with windows longhorn in mid-late 2006.

There will be no cards supporting DX10 fully before that time, as the APIs standards wont even be finalized until shortly before release.
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All signs point to the R500 and NV50 being DirectX 9.0C GPUs.
 
Originally posted by: Acanthus
Unreal Engine 3 is not Unreal 3.

Unreal 3 will be based on a modified UT2004 engine.

Unreal engine 3 is over a year to go in development still.
-------------------------
Direct X 10 will be released with windows longhorn in mid-late 2006.

There will be no cards supporting DX10 fully before that time, as the APIs standards wont even be finalized until shortly before release.
-------------------------

All signs point to the R500 and NV50 being DirectX 9.0C GPUs.
Click to expand...

I agree 100%
 
Yes its still to e3arly to tell but neither ATI nor Nvidia are stupid enough to release a new technology 18months before it is supported at all.

-Kevin
 
Originally posted by: Gamingphreek
Yes its still to e3arly to tell but neither ATI nor Nvidia are stupid enough to release a new technology 18months before it is supported at all.

-Kevin
Click to expand...

This is the logic speaking. Most likely they will be faster DX9.0c gpus with 512mb ram.
But if R500 will be the core for Xbox2 then at least ATI could proceed with a move like this.
 
R500 was originally named R400 and has been aiming for DX10 compliance from the onset of development. It may not fully comply due to the delays, but I'm 100% certain that it will have a plethora of features that go above and beyond DX9.0c.

R500 is really the product to be watching for in the graphics world; R420 was a reactionary move on ATi's part. Its development was started maybe a year ago, whereas the R500 has been in development since before the R300 was released.

Even though DX10 is not out yet, ATi and nVidia have a very good understanding of what it is going to entail, you can be certain of that. They can design their next GPUs based on preliminary specs at the very least. There have been a bunch of articles lately which detail DX10 so I'm sure there is alot that is known about it at this point.
 
Originally posted by: ikickpigeons
so is longhorn going to be the new windows OS? anybody know what features are going to be in direct x 10.
Click to expand...

Yes, but it won't be called "Longhorn" then. MS has codenames for each version of Windows during development. XP was known as "Whistler" before it came out.
 
Seems Ati working with Xbox2 may have a heardstart on all the new info coming with Xbox 2 and DX.

I am confused about Longhorn as well. I had thought that XP 64 was what Longhorn was going to be but obviously I am mistaken. So honestly not sure what all it will include.
 
Originally posted by: SickBeast
Even though DX10 is not out yet, ATi and nVidia have a very good understanding of what it is going to entail, you can be certain of that. They can design their next GPUs based on preliminary specs at the very least. There have been a bunch of articles lately which detail DX10 so I'm sure there is alot that is known about it at this point.
Click to expand...
Spot on. MS is talking with all of the vendors that are involved and has been. The advanced mode (AeroGlass) of the desktop in Longhorn will be enabled with DX10 cards. It does not require 512MB of mem. In fact, the DX10 card's GPU is used to render things that are currently being rendered in the CPU, such as font components. The timeline for that functionality was post Beta 1 according to the WinHEC talks about Avalon (the engine) and Aero (the desktop). PS2 will be required for all of the Avalon and Aero functionality. You may need a new monitor too. The minimum will probably be 200+ dots per inch.
 
Jeff, sorry very tired when I wrote that. Just was meaning with all the new Dx info. Just seems Ati will have a head start on it compared to say Nvidia because of the relationship with Ati and M$. At least as it relates to the Xbox 2.
 
I think eventually we'll reach a point where lots of video RAM isn't necessary... advanced pixel shading techniques will be use to create textures on the fly. The game won't have stored textures that get sent to the video card, it'll just have code that tells it how to create the texture to display it. But then you'll get to a point where you need more RAM for all that code...
 
Originally posted by: gsellis
Originally posted by: Jeff7181
I think eventually we'll reach a point where lots of video RAM isn't necessary...
Click to expand...
Are you kidding? 😉 Build it and they will code.
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I'd be surprised to see more than 1 GB onboard before pre-made textures are phased out in favor of shaders.
 
But consider things like fonts will go through composite, filter, blend, and render through the GPU in Longhorn with the pixel shader. Not using too much memory, but you know how that starts... 😉 Then everyone will start doing it. Soon, video mem will need to exceed system mem (bet there are folks out there running 256 cards on their 128MB machines now 🙂 ). They will keep adding memory because MS will have a VM for the GPU, so to use less system mem (swap), add more video mem. Oh, the vicious cycle starts. 😀
 
Originally posted by: Jeff7181
I think eventually we'll reach a point where lots of video RAM isn't necessary... advanced pixel shading techniques will be use to create textures on the fly. The game won't have stored textures that get sent to the video card, it'll just have code that tells it how to create the texture to display it. But then you'll get to a point where you need more RAM for all that code...
Click to expand...

"Creating textures on the fly" is likely to require processing power that would cost a LOT more than the extra RAM would. For the moment, at least, it would be much easier to put 512MB (or probably even 1GB) of RAM on a video card than to double or quadruple shader power (assuming that would be enough for this sort of thing). However, you can use pixel and vertex shader techniques such as bump, normal, and displacement mapping to reduce the amount of triangle/texture detail you need on objects, or to vary such detail on the fly.

I do think we're going to see more and more things done with shaders, especially in a few years once we get DX10 (which will require a much more CPU-like GPU). But the end of stored/precomputed textures is a long ways off.
 
Originally posted by: Matthias99
Originally posted by: Jeff7181
I think eventually we'll reach a point where lots of video RAM isn't necessary... advanced pixel shading techniques will be use to create textures on the fly. The game won't have stored textures that get sent to the video card, it'll just have code that tells it how to create the texture to display it. But then you'll get to a point where you need more RAM for all that code...
Click to expand...

"Creating textures on the fly" is likely to require processing power that would cost a LOT more than the extra RAM would.
Click to expand...

Well lets see... we'll have 5ghz CPUs in late 2005. 2007-2008 our CPUs will be 10ghz, and 2010 we'll be approaching 20ghz. Question is, will even 20ghz be enough? What i do know though, if memory size keeps increasing as they have, 1 or even 2gb of video memory, 2-4gb of system memory, and 20ghz CPUs will give us some amazing games.
 
Originally posted by: Matthias99
Originally posted by: Jeff7181
I think eventually we'll reach a point where lots of video RAM isn't necessary... advanced pixel shading techniques will be use to create textures on the fly. The game won't have stored textures that get sent to the video card, it'll just have code that tells it how to create the texture to display it. But then you'll get to a point where you need more RAM for all that code...
Click to expand...

"Creating textures on the fly" is likely to require processing power that would cost a LOT more than the extra RAM would. For the moment, at least, it would be much easier to put 512MB (or probably even 1GB) of RAM on a video card than to double or quadruple shader power (assuming that would be enough for this sort of thing). However, you can use pixel and vertex shader techniques such as bump, normal, and displacement mapping to reduce the amount of triangle/texture detail you need on objects, or to vary such detail on the fly.

I do think we're going to see more and more things done with shaders, especially in a few years once we get DX10 (which will require a much more CPU-like GPU). But the end of stored/precomputed textures is a long ways off.
Click to expand...

Well I said eventually, not a week from Saturday... of course it'll take a lot of processing power, but with the way GPU's are becoming more CPU-like, I think that'll be the next big step in how graphics are rendered.
 
Originally posted by: gsellis
You may need a new monitor too. The minimum will probably be 200+ dots per inch.
Click to expand...
This is the most exciting part of your whole post. It's about time we start seeing some truly high-res displays for home use. Even a 20" 16x12 is only ~100dpi; 200dpi should yield some amazingly crisp text. A 15" uxga lcd aleady looks fantastic with cleartype at 133dpi, so 200dpi should be incredible.
 
Some of the high-res monitors were at WinHEC both this year and last. Gotta get me some! With the fonts technology and the monitor, the print was "print" quality on screen. It was wow. They was also a technology demonstrator from Japan that had a hugh gamut. It was awesome on the detail fo color it did.
 
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