Gabe Newell hates DX10

[SickBeast]

Teh Inquirer linq

It makes sense to me that the gaming industry and perhaps even ATI/Nvidia are in kahoots to make DX10 look bad. According to Steam only 2% of the world has DX10 capable hardware and Vista. Vista and DX10 appear to be the worst things that have ever happened to PC gaming.

IMO someone needs to develop a good frontend for OpenGL which would make it as easy to deal with as DX is.

 

[ArchAngel777]

Transition periods are always very painful for everyone involved... It will probably be a good 2 years before we reach 50% saturation of DX10 dedicated cards...

Yeah, it might have been the worst thing for gamers right now, but in the future it may well pay off.

 

[Keysplayr]

Some developers just kick and scream when it comes to changing the way they do things. It just means more work to do, when all they really wanna do is eat donuts.

 

[Noema]

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003
Some developers just kick and scream when it comes to changing the way they do things. It just means more work to do, when all they really wanna do is eat donuts.

And in the case of Gabe, well that's a lot of donuts.

 

[n7]

Gabe whines too much.

He was screaming & crying about optimizing for multicore processing too when dual cores came out.

Boohoo, wah, blah blah.

 

[Keysplayr]

Jurassic Park computer programmer comes to mind. The whiney one.

 

[nitromullet]

So, you guys think that it's a good thing that a Vista upgrade is required for DX10 compatibility? I can see the difficulties for the developers here, since now they have to write a game for Xbox 360, PC DX9, and PC DX10. Given the fact the the DX10 version is going to encompass the smallest possible market, it gets the least attention. This is doubly bad because the people running DX10 spent the most on their systems out of the three categories and kind of have a right to demand that their stuff works as advertised. This wouldn't be the case if XP also supported DX10. I can see that XP shouldn't necessarily support all future versions of DX, but really to make XP 'obsolete' simply by releasing Vista really hurts Vista adopters because the XP install base is much larger.

 

[Arkaign]

Bleh. I'm becoming less and less amiable towards DX10 every day. I've yet to see anything that makes DX10 look anywhere near 'next-gen', that can't be accountable by higher-end hardware. Yes, I've seen Crysis screens and vids, but it all looks to me like things that could have been done with OGL or DX9 + high end hardware.

And OpenGL is less platform-specific by a long shot.

 

[chizow]

Much of the problem lies in the PC gaming development cycle compared to console games. PC games often take a LONG time to develop, often 2-3 years before they're released. Unlike consoles, Devs don't usually have target hardware and new APIs to work with looking forward, so they can't be over-ambitious with visuals/requirements or they risk alienating the majority of their potential customer base. Games that look forward too much or don't run well on available hardware tend to suffer, greatly. STALKER comes to mind, but there's definitely others.

Consoles on the other hand, have targetted specs, performance guidelines and programming tools/APIs from the start. Even if there isn't target hardware to work with, the hardware is designed to meet or exceed the performance guidelines given to developers.

DX10 isn't much different in that sense from DX9. It'll take a while for Devs to make the change, based more on their game development cycles than any demand for it from the PC gaming community. Personally I think the push towards x64 will have the greatest impact on DX10 adoption more than anything else, even if the benefits of DX10 aren't fully realized for some years once games and hardware are able to run under DX10 acceptably. Until then, Devs and hardware companys who can't/don't want to support DX10 are going to downplay the importance of DX10, while the ones who can are going to trump it up and wear the DX10 badge proudly (even if it provides very little visual benefit at the expense of decreased performance).

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003
Jurassic Park computer programmer comes to mind. The whiney one.

Isn't that Newman from Seinfeld? :Q

 

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: chizow
Much of the problem lies in the PC gaming development cycle compared to console games. PC games often take a LONG time to develop, often 2-3 years before they're released. Unlike consoles, Devs don't usually have target hardware and new APIs to work with looking forward, so they can't be over-ambitious with visuals/requirements or they risk alienating the majority of their potential customer base. Games that look forward too much or don't run well on available hardware tend to suffer, greatly. STALKER comes to mind, but there's definitely others.

Consoles on the other hand, have targetted specs, performance guidelines and programming tools/APIs from the start. Even if there isn't target hardware to work with, the hardware is designed to meet or exceed the performance guidelines given to developers.

DX10 isn't much different in that sense from DX9. It'll take a while for Devs to make the change, based more on their game development cycles than any demand for it from the PC gaming community. Personally I think the push towards x64 will have the greatest impact on DX10 adoption more than anything else, even if the benefits of DX10 aren't fully realized for some years once games and hardware are able to run under DX10 acceptably. Until then, Devs and hardware companys who can't/don't want to support DX10 are going to downplay the importance of DX10, while the ones who can are going to trump it up and wear the DX10 badge proudly (even if it provides very little visual benefit at the expense of decreased performance).

This is all true, but I don't think that is really Newell's point.. The difference in coding for consoles and PC's has always been there, and the devs have just had to adjust to it. I think Gabe's main point is that only a very small fraction of the gamers out there are able to take advantage of DX10 because none of the consoles support it and it requires an expensive OS and hardware upgrade. At least if XP had DX10 support, gamers would only have to buy a new video card (like they did from DX8 to DX9) in order to be able to take advantage of the new API.

You have to hate if for the devs... DX10 is all the buzz, so any AAA title is going to HAVE to have a DX10 path to make it remotely marketable. However, they know that all the time spent on DX10 code is pretty much only going to be accessible to the smallest portion of the market.

On the flip side, the fact that we are a small customer base, really gives those of us who do have DX10 capable systems crappy implementations of games that have LESS eye candy features than the DX9 games. You don't think I'm just a tad bit annoyed to know that I could have kept XP and my 7900GTX from last year and I would have been able to play Bioshock with AA? As it is now, AA is not an option for me, since even forcing the DX9 patch results in instability. Basically, I paid more and got less...

 

[Polish3d]

Originally posted by: nitromullet

Originally posted by: chizow
Much of the problem lies in the PC gaming development cycle compared to console games. PC games often take a LONG time to develop, often 2-3 years before they're released. Unlike consoles, Devs don't usually have target hardware and new APIs to work with looking forward, so they can't be over-ambitious with visuals/requirements or they risk alienating the majority of their potential customer base. Games that look forward too much or don't run well on available hardware tend to suffer, greatly. STALKER comes to mind, but there's definitely others.

Consoles on the other hand, have targetted specs, performance guidelines and programming tools/APIs from the start. Even if there isn't target hardware to work with, the hardware is designed to meet or exceed the performance guidelines given to developers.

DX10 isn't much different in that sense from DX9. It'll take a while for Devs to make the change, based more on their game development cycles than any demand for it from the PC gaming community. Personally I think the push towards x64 will have the greatest impact on DX10 adoption more than anything else, even if the benefits of DX10 aren't fully realized for some years once games and hardware are able to run under DX10 acceptably. Until then, Devs and hardware companys who can't/don't want to support DX10 are going to downplay the importance of DX10, while the ones who can are going to trump it up and wear the DX10 badge proudly (even if it provides very little visual benefit at the expense of decreased performance).

This is all true, but I don't think that is really Newell's point.. The difference in coding for consoles and PC's have always been there, and the devs have just had to adjust to it. I think Gabe's main point is that only a very small fraction of the gamers out there are able to take advantage of DX10 because none of the consoles support it and it requires an expensive OS and hardware upgrade. At least if XP had DX10 support, gamers would onlu have to buy a new video card (like they did from DX8 to DX9) in order to be able to take advantage of the new API.

You have to hate if for the devs... DX10 is all the buzz, so any AAA title is going to HAVE to have a DX10 path to make it remotely marketable. However, they know that all the time spent on DX10 code is pretty much only going to be accessible to the smallest portion of the market.

On the flip side, the fact that we are a small customer base, really gives those of us who do have DX10 capable systems crappy implementations of games that have LESS eye candy features than the DX9 games. You don't think I'm just a tad bit annoyed to know that I could have kept XP and my 7900GTX from last year and I would have been able to play Bioshock with AA? As it is now, AA is not an option for me, since even forcing the DX9 patch results in instability. Basically, I paid more and got less...

Good points

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: nitromullet
This is all true, but I don't think that is really Newell's point.. The difference in coding for consoles and PC's has always been there, and the devs have just had to adjust to it. I think Gabe's main point is that only a very small fraction of the gamers out there are able to take advantage of DX10 because none of the consoles support it and it requires an expensive OS and hardware upgrade. At least if XP had DX10 support, gamers would only have to buy a new video card (like they did from DX8 to DX9) in order to be able to take advantage of the new API.

Well, I don't disagree with any of this, my point is (without knowing the DX capabilities of Bioshock), is that would it matter if XP supported DX10? To me it sounds like Gabe is covering his ass for why Bioshock doesn't include DX10 support when we're at the dawn of DX10 gaming. My point is that the game has been in development for probably 2-3 years, so realistically, devs aren't even going to bother with newer API support especially when there's cross-platform versions to consider that don't use the new API features. The ones who do get to wear DX10 like a badge, the ones who don't end up making excuses linked by the Inq.

You have to hate if for the devs... DX10 is all the buzz, so any AAA title is going to HAVE to have a DX10 path to make it remotely marketable. However, they know that all the time spent on DX10 code is pretty much only going to be accessible to the smallest portion of the market.

The whole situation is FUBAR imo. Just way too many moving parts on both the hardware and software side. I don't feel too bad for the Devs in the big picture though, since PC gaming for me has always been a story of delays, excuses, and disappointment mixed in with that occasional diamond in the rough.

On the flip side, the fact that we are a small customer base, really gives those of us who do have DX10 capable systems crappy implementations of games that have LESS eye candy features than the DX9 games. You don't think I'm just a tad bit annoyed to know that I could have kept XP and my 7900GTX from last year and I would have been able to play Bioshock with AA? As it is now, AA is not an option for me, since even forcing the DX9 patch results in instability. Basically, I paid more and got less...

I don't disagree with any of this, and I think you came across my Vista/X-Fi posts that are essentially the same situation on the sound side. But I also weigh the good with the bad and find my gaming experience is much more enjoyable with x64 and 4GB of RAM. If the Vista/DX10 link pushes games in this direction sooner rather than later, I think I'll be happier overall in the long run as DX10 support and hardware that runs it acceptably become more mainstream.

 

[nyker96]

Originally posted by: nitromullet

This is all true, but I don't think that is really Newell's point.. The difference in coding for consoles and PC's has always been there, and the devs have just had to adjust to it. I think Gabe's main point is that only a very small fraction of the gamers out there are able to take advantage of DX10 because none of the consoles support it and it requires an expensive OS and hardware upgrade. At least if XP had DX10 support, gamers would only have to buy a new video card (like they did from DX8 to DX9) in order to be able to take advantage of the new API.

You have to hate if for the devs... DX10 is all the buzz, so any AAA title is going to HAVE to have a DX10 path to make it remotely marketable. However, they know that all the time spent on DX10 code is pretty much only going to be accessible to the smallest portion of the market.

On the flip side, the fact that we are a small customer base, really gives those of us who do have DX10 capable systems crappy implementations of games that have LESS eye candy features than the DX9 games. You don't think I'm just a tad bit annoyed to know that I could have kept XP and my 7900GTX from last year and I would have been able to play Bioshock with AA? As it is now, AA is not an option for me, since even forcing the DX9 patch results in instability. Basically, I paid more and got less...

I think if M$ allows people to play DX10 on XP, that will provide an intermediate path to upgrading toward a complete DX10 system. I know DX10 is made for Vista's driver system. But if M$ can hack up an intermediate version of DX10 (albert less features) for Xp then rest of us can at least get a DX10 card, play it on XP for now with less bells and whistles, then upgrade toward the real DX10 system with Vista at a later date and get a boost in performance+visual right then. This I think can greatly ease the pain of this transition as well as pacify the game dev community, so they can just jump into DX10 coded games now
without fear that there won't be an audience to accept it. They can save some cost off dev for both DX10 and DX9 versions like some games now.

 

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: chizow
The whole situation is FUBAR imo. Just way too many moving parts on both the hardware and software side. I don't feel too bad for the Devs in the big picture though, since PC gaming for me has always been a story of delays, excuses, and disappointment mixed in with that occasional diamond in the rough.

I think that's exactly it... Way too many moving parts... The sad thing is that some of those parts are artificial in nature, such as no SLI on Intel chipsets and no DX10 on XP...

 

[gorobei]

The transition from xp/dx9 to vista/dx10 is likely to be either the best or worst choice in the upcoming history of PC graphics. At some point we all have to migrate to the next system/standard. (Is anyone still using DOS?) MS tried to speed up the "discard of legacy code" timetable and we're paying the price.

My take is this:
1) instancing and vertex edit in pipeline on the new generation of cards will be worth its price eventually.(less power spent on number of vert/poly/textels = more rendering power spent on things that will make a difference visually.) Whether this will be implemented thru DX10 or OGL is the real question.

2) MS has made some mis-steps already with the whole memory addressing overlap in Vista making DX performance slower than XP. What they were trying to do(avoid driver conflicts) was admirable, but they screwed the pooch and now the vista patch makes it function just like XP and eliminates one of the reasons Vista was better than XP.

3) video card makers are probably correct to slow down hardware releases until Vista/DX10 is working and the new PCI-E 2.0 motherboards are stable. As it stands the 8800 and 2900 series are really good DX9 cards, but probably only ok DX10 cards if only by virtue of the fact that DX10 is barely working. No point in buying a next gen card that will probably be unable to run the final DX10 code.

4) game devs are going to release games with some form of DX10, but mostly built on DX9. With such a small market of vista/8x00cards to shoot for, most of them will not make a pure DX10 game for a while. And they probably shouldn't. In this light, Bioshock is the correct way to go: get the game out in its originally developed DX9 glory and wait for the patches and sequels to get it into DX10 shape.

[I work in 3d CG, and if they ever get real time morph maps PC gaming will never look the same.]

 

[Zenoth]

I have to say that as a gamer there is absolutely no other reason for me to get Windows Vista than to get DirectX 10. If DirectX 10 would be a possibility for Windows XP I would forever stay with Windows XP. I still prefer XP's simple interface and the way it works and responds, how functional it is compared to Vista. I tried Vista for three months and I eventually couldn't sustain the issues I had with it, especially when it comes to (but not exclusively) gaming.

Give me DX10 for XP and I'd be the happiest PC gamer on this planet. And I agree with Gabe Newell for once.

 

[Cutterhead]

Originally posted by: SickBeast

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003
Jurassic Park computer programmer comes to mind. The whiney one.

Isn't that Newman from Seinfeld? :Q

Yes. Dennis Nedry was the character's name in JP.

 

[Zenoth]

Originally posted by: Cutterhead

Originally posted by: SickBeast

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003
Jurassic Park computer programmer comes to mind. The whiney one.

Isn't that Newman from Seinfeld? :Q

Yes. Dennis Nedry was the character's name in JP.

He got owned by that acid-spitting dinosaur, nice scene in the movie, his character was extremely annoying (very well played by the actor).

 

[Polish3d]

Originally posted by: chizow

Well, I don't disagree with any of this, my point is (without knowing the DX capabilities of Bioshock), is that would it matter if XP supported DX10? To me it sounds like Gabe is covering his ass for why Bioshock doesn't include DX10 support when we're at the dawn of DX10 gaming.

Are you confusing developers here? Gabe doesn't have anything to do with Bioshock aside from selling it via steam AFAIK

 

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: Frackal

Originally posted by: chizow

Originally posted by: nitromullet
Well, I don't disagree with any of this, my point is (without knowing the DX capabilities of Bioshock), is that would it matter if XP supported DX10? To me it sounds like Gabe is covering his ass for why Bioshock doesn't include DX10 support when we're at the dawn of DX10 gaming.

Are you confusing developers here? Gabe doesn't have anything to do with Bioshock aside from selling it via steam AFAIK

That was chizow's statement, not mine. Your formatting is all borked.

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: Zenoth

Originally posted by: Cutterhead

Originally posted by: SickBeast

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003
Jurassic Park computer programmer comes to mind. The whiney one.

Isn't that Newman from Seinfeld? :Q

Yes. Dennis Nedry was the character's name in JP.

He got owned by that acid-spitting dinosaur, nice scene in the movie, his character was extremely annoying (very well played by the actor).

Man, that's a nasty comparison to make to Gabe Newell. He reminds me more of Michael Moore than anyone else.

People always comment on his looks/demeanor. I care only that he makes awesome games. HL2's engine remains impressive to this day, especially considering that he pwned Carmack's Doom III engine.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: SickBeast

Originally posted by: Zenoth

Originally posted by: Cutterhead

Originally posted by: SickBeast

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003
Jurassic Park computer programmer comes to mind. The whiney one.

Isn't that Newman from Seinfeld? :Q

Yes. Dennis Nedry was the character's name in JP.

He got owned by that acid-spitting dinosaur, nice scene in the movie, his character was extremely annoying (very well played by the actor).

Man, that's a nasty comparison to make to Gabe Newell. He reminds me more of Michael Moore than anyone else.

People always comment on his looks/demeanor. I care only that he makes awesome games. HL2's engine remains impressive to this day, especially considering that he pwned Carmack's Doom III engine.

Which engine sold more? Yeah thought so...

I don't care what ppl say about DX10, it is the future and you're gonna have to deal with it instead of crying like babies.

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: Noema

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003
Some developers just kick and scream when it comes to changing the way they do things. It just means more work to do, when all they really wanna do is eat donuts.

And in the case of Gabe, well that's a lot of donuts.

Yeah, well they could eat a ton of donuts if they would just stick to OpenGL. They would simply need to learn how to program for the new features when new graphics cards came out.

I'm surprised there hasn't been a complete revolt against Microsoft in the gaming world. They have repeatedly created bloated and unstable operating systems which disallow cross-platform development (aside from their own Xbox platform).

As much as Carmack's recent games have sucked, I really wish he would have continued on with OpenGL. He could probably make a killing if he opened up a private university and taught computer science.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: SickBeast

Originally posted by: Noema

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003
Some developers just kick and scream when it comes to changing the way they do things. It just means more work to do, when all they really wanna do is eat donuts.

And in the case of Gabe, well that's a lot of donuts.

Yeah, well they could eat a ton of donuts if they would just stick to OpenGL. They would simply need to learn how to program for the new features when new graphics cards came out.

I'm surprised there hasn't been a complete revolt against Microsoft in the gaming world. They have repeatedly created bloated and unstable operating systems which disallow cross-platform development (aside from their own Xbox platform).

As much as Carmack's recent games have sucked, I really wish he would have continued on with OpenGL. He could probably make a killing if he opened up a private university and taught computer science.

Carmack remains an avid supporter of OpenGL to this day. He is building a new engine. Where have you been?

You can't revolt against the ONLY OS choice out there. Linux and MacOS don't even count, the software selection is horrible.