There's actually a critical mass slowly moving to both Linux and the Mac platform. Vista has not been well-accepted (although I do run it myself). I'm thinking either a new UI will come out, or else things will move to OpenGL. I suppose the third option is that the industry will use DX9 for 3-5 more years until most people have Vista. I would simply be surprised to see them deal with such old technology for so long.
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Gabe Newell hates DX10
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I'm yet to be impressed by anything DX10 related. I haven't even seen an impressive tech demo that runs in real-time on current hardware. Heck, I haven't seen ANY tech demoes AT ALL that have impressed me!
I've read all the rhetoric stating that it's more efficient, blah blah. Until I see a concrete example of its usefulness, I will hate on DX10. I hate DX10. :thumbsdown:
I've read all the rhetoric stating that it's more efficient, blah blah. Until I see a concrete example of its usefulness, I will hate on DX10. I hate DX10. :thumbsdown:
Arkaign
Lifer
Show me *any* game/demo that runs faster in DX10 vs the DX9 mode.
I like Vista alright, I think it will become the defacto standard due more to increasing ram requirements than anything else. 4GB is becoming low-end pretty fast.
I think it hurt pretty much everyone for Microsoft to flat refuse to support DX10 in any form, even limited, for XP. The game developers probably grind their teeth spending $$$ for a platform with such limited exposure (ie; % of gamers with both decent DX10 hardware AND Vista). I mean, the average gamer is running something in the range of a 6600GT, and XP has a truly massive installed user base. Things will get better, but it's still going to suck for awhile, with half-ass DX10 features instead of games designed to utilize the whole gamut of real and potential advantages.
cmdrdredd
Lifer
MS is killing XP off just like they did to Win98. People tried to keep Win98 for a long time too and lost that battle. Same thing here only much more quickly. DX10 will run native DX9 code faster than DX9 can, but as of yet no developer has even touched the surface of what DX10 can do. Wait and see.
I've said it time and time again. It's not up to MS to make developers write code properly.
OneOfTheseDays
Diamond Member
Wait and see guys. The majority of PC gamers don't have DX10 hardware, hence no real DX10 games. Once games start really utilizing DX10 (i.e. built from the ground up to support DX10), your opinions will change.
Arkaign
Lifer
Well, from what I can see, DX10 is more evolutionary than revolutionary, and certainly not as big a deal as say, DX7 to DX8. It would have helped the developers IMMENSELY to be able to make games DX10-centric and not lose the huge XP install base.
If I had a company, and $10 million to develop a PC game, would I invest that money in something that most of the gamers can't even run? No, I'd do what most of them are doing :
Make a DX9 game, with a DX10 patch that adds some lame effects.
Sad but true.
nitromullet
Diamond Member
That is not the point... No one is denying that DX10 is the future. The issue that Newell has is that DX10 should have been supported in XP as well. He's saying that it's not realistic to expect the average gamer to buy both a new video card AND a new OS simply to play DX10 games. Based on the 2% Vista/DX10 showing in the Steam user hardware survey, I think he has a point.
Not for gaming they're not... I bet Bioshock runs like serious ass (if at all) on Transgaming's Cider. There aren't even any OS X drivers for the 8-seres cards, period. There are guys out there with $4k Power Macs with 8800GTXes that won't boot into OS X. I was just recently considering buying a Power Mac as my main rig (Boot Camp + Vista), but the ridiculous price tag and lack of modern video card support on an Intel platform is a deal breaker...
Regs
Lifer
I'll get Vista in a year maybe. When 64 bit programming becomes a reality, and some how MS makes a way that only Vista can take advantage of quad cores when multi-core optimization actually makes a difference in performance. Yes, I hope Alan Wake will open up Pandora's box as well.
Other than having to be forced to reformat my system drive because of a mobo upgrade or system crash/instability issues, I don't see myself upgrading until next year.
Away from my own personal dilemma, all Gabe does is complain. I don't know why, because any respectable game designer should be excited about a new frontier. Maybe he does it because it's the only way he can sell his game engines that come out years late.
Have you seen the HL2 engine used recently? I only wonder how EP2 will do. Hopefully it will use SM 3.0 with dynamic lighting.
Other than having to be forced to reformat my system drive because of a mobo upgrade or system crash/instability issues, I don't see myself upgrading until next year.
Away from my own personal dilemma, all Gabe does is complain. I don't know why, because any respectable game designer should be excited about a new frontier. Maybe he does it because it's the only way he can sell his game engines that come out years late.
Have you seen the HL2 engine used recently? I only wonder how EP2 will do. Hopefully it will use SM 3.0 with dynamic lighting.
imported_thefonz
Senior member
I'll give my thoughts on this.
To be honest I think this is really about killing off PC gaming , frustrating developers and consumers into not using the PC as a gaming platform. Sales drop for the PC market, Sales for consoles go up, Microsoft benefits on all levels really. If you get sick of this run around that Vista and DX10 is then you buy a 360 and some games, They Win. If you decide to go along with this clusterfvck that they have created with DX10, you pay 200 for an O/S. They make money either way, but I'm guessing they are trying hard for you too pick the first option.
That is unless you buy a Wii or PS3.
To be honest I am content with my DX9/XP experience and I refuse to upgrade to Vista until absolutely necessary. I also Have a Wii and PS3 🙂
To be honest I think this is really about killing off PC gaming , frustrating developers and consumers into not using the PC as a gaming platform. Sales drop for the PC market, Sales for consoles go up, Microsoft benefits on all levels really. If you get sick of this run around that Vista and DX10 is then you buy a 360 and some games, They Win. If you decide to go along with this clusterfvck that they have created with DX10, you pay 200 for an O/S. They make money either way, but I'm guessing they are trying hard for you too pick the first option.
That is unless you buy a Wii or PS3.
To be honest I am content with my DX9/XP experience and I refuse to upgrade to Vista until absolutely necessary. I also Have a Wii and PS3 🙂
Bateluer
Lifer
Valve's hardware survey is always amusing to look at. Its depressing when you realize that the average CSS player is running with something in the 5200 to 6600GT range. Ironically, its usually these people who claim that console games are graphically superior to their PC counterparts. Always gives me a laugh, anyway.
Several people in here are dead right now. With such small penetration of DX10 hardware, there isn't much point to code from the ground up for a DX10 engine yet. This will change without a doubt and in a few short years, DX10 will be the dominant API.
I would like to see more development in OGL though. Its free. Its cross platform. I would definitely love to see more games being released with Linux versions. Even if you have to buy the Windows version, then mail a card to the publisher to get the native linux version, its still a step in the right direction.
Several people in here are dead right now. With such small penetration of DX10 hardware, there isn't much point to code from the ground up for a DX10 engine yet. This will change without a doubt and in a few short years, DX10 will be the dominant API.
I would like to see more development in OGL though. Its free. Its cross platform. I would definitely love to see more games being released with Linux versions. Even if you have to buy the Windows version, then mail a card to the publisher to get the native linux version, its still a step in the right direction.
RussianSensation
Elite Member
Per valve stream survey only about 2.31% of users have a combination of a DirectX 10 GPU and Windows Vista.
If you are in business to make $$$, you'd want to minimize your developer/programming costs. Considering that all DX10 hardware today is too slow in the non-native DX10 games that have DX10 features, it simply makes no sense at all to even bother with DX10 at this point for the above noted reasons. The argument that DX10 will run more efficient is a wash since game complexity (shaders and textures) will more than offset any advantage if offers.
But this isn't anything new. First DX generation cards are never good enough. Also, it's not like adoption to DX8 or DX9 was overnight. It won't be until GF10 until DX10 is mainstream. Considering DX10 has so far shown very unconvincing image quality improvements and unacceptable performance loss (sometimes 50%), I don't see why current DX10 owners are complaining so much about lack of support for DX10 games. GeForce 8 was made for DX9 games because it simply won't handle DX10 games with higher textures and number of shaders.
This is like someone complaining in 2001, in the world of $10,000 plasmas, that there aren't enough HD channels or someone today complaining at lack of natively coded Quad core games. An early adopter knows it takes software time to catch up, but if they can afford and want the hardware, then they buy anyway. If you don't like that, don't be an early adopter.
If you are in business to make $$$, you'd want to minimize your developer/programming costs. Considering that all DX10 hardware today is too slow in the non-native DX10 games that have DX10 features, it simply makes no sense at all to even bother with DX10 at this point for the above noted reasons. The argument that DX10 will run more efficient is a wash since game complexity (shaders and textures) will more than offset any advantage if offers.
But this isn't anything new. First DX generation cards are never good enough. Also, it's not like adoption to DX8 or DX9 was overnight. It won't be until GF10 until DX10 is mainstream. Considering DX10 has so far shown very unconvincing image quality improvements and unacceptable performance loss (sometimes 50%), I don't see why current DX10 owners are complaining so much about lack of support for DX10 games. GeForce 8 was made for DX9 games because it simply won't handle DX10 games with higher textures and number of shaders.
This is like someone complaining in 2001, in the world of $10,000 plasmas, that there aren't enough HD channels or someone today complaining at lack of natively coded Quad core games. An early adopter knows it takes software time to catch up, but if they can afford and want the hardware, then they buy anyway. If you don't like that, don't be an early adopter.
Gabe Newell is a whiney baby. He cried about DX9, he cried about Nvidia, and I believe he also cried about supporting dual core processors and now DX10.
From what I can tell this guy couldnt be more happy if we were suspended in 2002 with DX8.1 and a GF4 or R300 as the top end card.
From what I can tell this guy couldnt be more happy if we were suspended in 2002 with DX8.1 and a GF4 or R300 as the top end card.
If DX10 is as tied to the driver model as MS claims and people have said on teh internets. Then I think the best you will see is some kind of emulation within WinXP which will be god awful slow and not worth anybodys time to develope. Like AGP to PCI-E, it is time to let her go and move on.
btw I think DX10 adoption will be way slower than DX9 due to the change in operating systems and the billions of WinXP machines out there.
Did he cry about DX9?
You left out the fact that he cried when Valve got hacked and they stole the HL2 source code. 😀
I'm pretty sure he cried again because the hackers got to indroduce 'Alyx' to the world.
I'm sure he cried when he was born. :light:
Babies that cry alot are well-fed. :beer:
Not for gaming, but the installed base is there, along with the option for the gaming world to move over to the platform.
I'm personally still not satisfied with the level of driver quality on Linux. I also have had issues with the driver update part of Ubuntu; it borked my install completely.
That said, the OS is absolutely amazing for its efficiency (and price).
BTW I'm not talking about emulating games on Linux...I mean that people should just run them directly in OpenGL. Quake 3 and a few other games work that way. :light:
Using a cross-platform API would certainly benefit consumers, all other things being equal.
The advantage to platform-specific APIs is, in some sense, their ability to push the boundaries faster. After all, they have only one line of code to develop and maintain, not several (this is an exaggeration, even the DX API has multiple 'lines', e.g. '8', '9' and, now, '10' but these are developmental iterations of the same 'family' as opposed to OpenGL being forced to maintain family lines for different native operating systems).
The pace of graphics innovation is moving quickly enough (on both a hardware and software front) that multi-platform APIs are probably less nimble, but this is only my conjecture.
On the general-purpose processing side, the various needs/requirements/demands of business use has eventually led to the development of virtualization technologies (hardware and software) that can effectively function despite increased overhead. Mostly this is due to the stability of the x86 architecture and the availability of hardware that can reach desired levels of software performance, despite software being used in virtualized environments.
Eventually (and I stress eventually) graphics processing might go this route. I don't see it happening until the pace of hardware innovation slows down, or solidifies upon a distinct type of architecture (if it ever does).
Once performance capability begins to outstrip performance requirements, then additional levels of overhead can be introduced to the equation.
Why do we think Microsoft is constantly trying to create their own extensions to platform-independent technologies (HTML, Java, etc.) or simply create their own platform-dependent ones (DirectX)? Because platform independence is not in their best interests. Platform dependence is.
Right now, in the graphics market, the consumer is probably better off with platform-dependence, because it can bring features and performance to market more quickly in a hardware-limited environment. Once that changes (as it has, by and large, in the general computing environment) then platform-independence will be of far greater value.
I'll get off my soapbox now... ;-)
The advantage to platform-specific APIs is, in some sense, their ability to push the boundaries faster. After all, they have only one line of code to develop and maintain, not several (this is an exaggeration, even the DX API has multiple 'lines', e.g. '8', '9' and, now, '10' but these are developmental iterations of the same 'family' as opposed to OpenGL being forced to maintain family lines for different native operating systems).
The pace of graphics innovation is moving quickly enough (on both a hardware and software front) that multi-platform APIs are probably less nimble, but this is only my conjecture.
On the general-purpose processing side, the various needs/requirements/demands of business use has eventually led to the development of virtualization technologies (hardware and software) that can effectively function despite increased overhead. Mostly this is due to the stability of the x86 architecture and the availability of hardware that can reach desired levels of software performance, despite software being used in virtualized environments.
Eventually (and I stress eventually) graphics processing might go this route. I don't see it happening until the pace of hardware innovation slows down, or solidifies upon a distinct type of architecture (if it ever does).
Once performance capability begins to outstrip performance requirements, then additional levels of overhead can be introduced to the equation.
Why do we think Microsoft is constantly trying to create their own extensions to platform-independent technologies (HTML, Java, etc.) or simply create their own platform-dependent ones (DirectX)? Because platform independence is not in their best interests. Platform dependence is.
Right now, in the graphics market, the consumer is probably better off with platform-dependence, because it can bring features and performance to market more quickly in a hardware-limited environment. Once that changes (as it has, by and large, in the general computing environment) then platform-independence will be of far greater value.
I'll get off my soapbox now... ;-)
Modelworks
Lifer
They all took the money when MS offered incentives years ago to get them using directx over opengl and now they want to whine about there choice.
They chose the Dx path and now are regretting it.
Its always bad to have a closed standard, especially when it involves programming.
They should have stayed with opengl, where anyone with a a great idea can request and even add to it as it evolves.
Thankfully, id software was smart enough to see things in the long run and are still using opengl in current and future titles.
They chose the Dx path and now are regretting it.
Its always bad to have a closed standard, especially when it involves programming.
They should have stayed with opengl, where anyone with a a great idea can request and even add to it as it evolves.
Thankfully, id software was smart enough to see things in the long run and are still using opengl in current and future titles.
Actually Carmack said that his next engine won't be OpenGL. He didn't say it would be DirectX either. Perhaps he's moving exclusively to consoles, or else maybe there's a new API coming out that we don't know about yet.
I didn't realize that Microsoft paid people to use DirectX. I just remember OpenGL games always having better graphics until DX8 came out. Even at that point, I wouldn't really call DX graphics 'better'. It took until DX9 for that to happen.
*edit* Actually, his new engine IS OpenGL. This interview is a great read and shows just how terrible the PS3 is. Carmack says that its system software eats up 96mb of its paltry 256mb of system memory, and that they are having to pare down the effects to compensate.
Modelworks
Lifer
Carmacks next engine is Id tech 5 .
Its designed in a way that lets the client run on each platform and then the data needed for the game runs on that platform without having to make any changes.
http://www.gametrailers.com/game/4440.html
Watch the 4 tech5 videos there and he goes in depth about how the engine works.
Its defenitely opengl, theres no other graphics library that can do what he shows.
MS didn't hand out cash to developers but they did it by incentives.
Things like , inviting game programming teams to vacation spots, free hardware for development, fully paid conference "trips".
Reminds me a lot of how people influence congressmen and senators without actually giving them cash.
Its designed in a way that lets the client run on each platform and then the data needed for the game runs on that platform without having to make any changes.
http://www.gametrailers.com/game/4440.html
Watch the 4 tech5 videos there and he goes in depth about how the engine works.
Its defenitely opengl, theres no other graphics library that can do what he shows.
MS didn't hand out cash to developers but they did it by incentives.
Things like , inviting game programming teams to vacation spots, free hardware for development, fully paid conference "trips".
Reminds me a lot of how people influence congressmen and senators without actually giving them cash.
nitromullet
Diamond Member
Exactly, a "few" games... Doom3 ran great on my gentoo box. However, by and large the driver support isn't there and the games aren't there. I agree that it would be nice if developers coded games in OpenGL and they were all ported to OS X and Linux, but they are not doing that. So, Linux and OS X are simply not viable options for gamers.
ConstipatedVigilante
Diamond Member
I still just don't get why developers don't dump DX and its idiocy for OpenGL. id and John Carmack (bless his nerdy voice) have shown it to be extremely capable as a graphics API, not only in delivering beautiful effects, but great performance. id is best known for cleanly-coded and smooth-running games with cutting-edge graphics. As advances are made, there's no need to program for new APIs and platforms - you just adopt the same code for all platforms. In contrast, almost all DX games out today run like crap and are filled with graphical bugs.
In conclusion, I hate microsoft.
In conclusion, I hate microsoft.
first off I installed bioshock on both XP and Vista and I did in fact like the look better on Vista. The Filtering looked nicer, although I have to say that the particle effect differences in DX9 compared to DX10 weren't huge, but they were a lot more seamless under DX10. Performance wise it was waaaay better under xp which is why I installed it on both rather than run it in compatability mode under vista.
Next up, I'm guessing everyone has heard that DX10.1 is coming out around the same time as SP1 for Vista some time around March? Apparantly it will require all new hardware... well I'm sorry, I'm not buying it... they make a minor change to Direct X and I'm supposed to by a couple of new GPUS? I don't think so.
Next up, I'm guessing everyone has heard that DX10.1 is coming out around the same time as SP1 for Vista some time around March? Apparantly it will require all new hardware... well I'm sorry, I'm not buying it... they make a minor change to Direct X and I'm supposed to by a couple of new GPUS? I don't think so.
nemesismk2
Diamond Member
I also installed Bioshock on both XP and Vista, I have to admit that Vista looked better with my Sapphire Radeon x1950 Pro lol! 😉
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