Since DirectX 10 Never Really Became A Gaming Standard...

[The Happy Stromboli]

Should we expect anymore from DirectX 11? I mean DX10 was popular among enthusiasts but it seemed always reserved in games as the "ultra high no where near required" option. Are we going to see more from DX11?

 

[PingviN]

DirectX 10 failed partly due to Vista being a failure. With Windows 7 doing everything right and there already being a Vista customer base, DirectX 11 has a better starting point than DirectX 10 ever had.

 

[T2k]

DirectX 10 failed partly due to Vista being a failure. With Windows 7 doing everything right and there already being a Vista customer base, DirectX 11 has a better starting point than DirectX 10 ever had.

Err, Vista did a huge disservice but I think it's more than there's nothing in DX10 you can't do in DX9 per se... DX11 is a lot more differnet: there are new things and it supports old codepath right off the bat so no need for rewriting (shitty console ports, anyone?) etc.

 

[v8envy]

<ballmer>Tesselation, tesselation, tesselation</ballmer>. With a bit of elbow grease the same scene can look amazingly better with DX11. We're talking the same kind of image quality leap we saw from DX7 to DX8 and once again DX8 to DX9 titles.

DX10 didn't really do that, as T2k mentioned.

Also, DX11 is a lot closer to the original DX10 capability set than DX10 was to DX9. The programmer learning curve has mostly been climbed already. Add to that DirectCompute, and DX11 offers quite a bit in terms of value. While it's true that DX11-coded apps will run on DX10 (and 9 and 8...) hardware with no extra work above checking capability bits you still have a DX11 dependency and the app won't run on a legacy OS -- you still need the DX9 version of the code for the old OSen.

Plenty of people skipped Vista but are now more than ready to adopt win7. So yeah, DX11 on a high end card? Better get it if you don't want an upgrade in the next year.

 

[aka1nas]

In Dx11, they essentially re-introduced the concept of "cap-bits" so that one version of D3D can support Dx9 through Dx11 hardware with various features available at each hardware level. Dx11 is also a strict superset of Dx10, which means that you will likely see a lot of new games coming labeled as Dx11 that do technically use d3d11.dll but don't implement SM5 or tessellation and run fine on Dx10 hardware.

 

[0roo0roo]

DirectX 10 failed partly due to Vista being a failure. With Windows 7 doing everything right and there already being a Vista customer base, DirectX 11 has a better starting point than DirectX 10 ever had.

regardless if they had allowed xp to do dx10 it would have succeeded.

 

[Wreckage]

Should we expect anymore from DirectX 11? I mean DX10 was popular among enthusiasts but it seemed always reserved in games as the "ultra high no where near required" option. Are we going to see more from DX11?

DX11 will be held back by the Xbox 360. So don't expect much from it.

 

[aka1nas]

regardless if they had allowed xp to do dx10 it would have succeeded.

Not even then, likely. MS tried to take a hard line regarding standard support with Dx10 compared to previous iterations. That meant that developers were going to have to do a completely separate code-path to support Dx10 and Dx9(which is a given for 90% of games so they can run on the 360). With previous Dx revisions and cap-bits, you could sort of half-ass it much easier.

Trying to keep the standard unified is probably better for the consumer long-term as it leads to less confusion with gamers buying only partially compatible hardware. However, it massively stalled uptake of Dx10.

 

[aka1nas]

DX11 will be held back by the Xbox 360. So don't expect much from it.

To a degree this is true. However, the PC is already at the point in the current console lifecycle where it has hugely surpassed the consoles in capability and is now starting to overtake them on cost. A minority of developers currently developing for consoles will eventually flock back to the PC as they can push the envelope more there.

More importantly, in another 18-24 months we'll have a new set of consoles launching. I can't imagine the next Xbox not supporting Dx11, and Dx11 will probably be the API that we're going to be stuck with for next 7 years due to those consoles dominating the game dev dollars.

More forward-thinking developer houses will see this and start getting familiar with Dx11 over the next year, release a PC title or two in the next 24 months, and then be ready to port it or release an even more impressive title on the new consoles when they release.

 

[Schmide]

DX11 will be held back by the Xbox 360. So don't expect much from it.

Actually it won't. The xbox360 will most likely receive a runtime version of DX11. Programs will just be made for "Downlevel Hardware" (dx10.1) Edit it should receive some profile like that.

 

[aka1nas]

Actually it won't. The xbox360 will most likely receive a runtime version of DX11. Programs will just be made for "Downlevel Hardware" dx10.1

That's even better news if so.

 

[BFG10K]

DX10 will indirectly become a standard of sorts because of the fallback capability of DX11. But that&#8217;s thanks to DX11 more than anything else.

 

[Wreckage]

Actually it won't. The xbox360 will most likely receive a runtime version of DX11. Programs will just be made for "Downlevel Hardware" dx10.1

The 360 can't even run DX10
http://www.joystiq.com/2006/08/24/xbox-360-cant-run-directx-10-confirms-ati/

 

[Schmide]

The 360 can't even run DX10
http://www.joystiq.com/2006/08/24/xbox-360-cant-run-directx-10-confirms-ati/

Yes but it does support stream out and infinite shaders. It's kind of 10ish. (Edit: So twice in a week Wreakage has proven me wrong. Ouch)

Edit: Let me correct myself. It may or may not get a directx 11 code path. The basic idea of directx 10 was to make standard hardware that programmers could program too. Previous version 9 and below had scattered compatibility and had to be programmed based on various subsets of functionality. (thus actually what would be the justification for the batman AA issue) As much as directx 10 added functionality, it was this ideal level of functionality that made it attractive. The xbox 360 though unable to produce many of the effects directx10 allow, it can be programmed like a directx 10 profile. Many of the effects can be fudged in the compiler.

Edit2: I have always felt that directx10 was supposed to be the xbox360 standard hardware set. The the 10 cards that came out after it pushed the standard just a bit past what Microsoft was shooting for. Thus the xbox360 became the 10 like hardware that wasn't.

 

[soccerballtux]

DirectX 10 failed partly due to Vista being a failure. With Windows 7 doing everything right and there already being a Vista customer base, DirectX 11 has a better starting point than DirectX 10 ever had.

Windows 7 is just as annoying as Vista, the only thing that changed was hype and peoples' perceptions.

 

[akugami]

Windows 7 is just as annoying as Vista, the only thing that changed was hype and peoples' perceptions.

I've used Win7 since the RC and had access to the final build before the public. Win7 is a much smoother OS than Vista because of the UI. It still has a few annoyances that were introduced with Vista but it's not annoying per se. There are still a few UI elements and OS behavior I prefer in XP vs Vista or Win7 but overall Vista was not as bad as it was made out to be. This is almost like the Office ribbon interface, it's not a bad interface but it has been almost universally reviled because it's different.

 

[aka1nas]

The 360 can't even run DX10
http://www.joystiq.com/2006/08/24/xbox-360-cant-run-directx-10-confirms-ati/

It doesn't invalidate his argument, it just means that it will be downlevel D3D10Level9 from the KB article he linked to.

 

[BFG10K]

Yeah, AFAIK DX11 should down-level all the way to DX9 if required. That makes it much easier for developers as they no longer need to develop separate paths for each DX level.

 

[Painman]

DX10 had far more to do with the re-design of the driver model corresponding with the re-design of the OS kernel than new features, though a few were tossed in for good measure. DX11 is far more meaningful as far as feature sets are concerned. Many of the new features are behind-the curtains, and will work even if the rendering device doesn't support the new hardware features.

I don't think comparing a console's featureset to DX-anything is meaningful. It's a console. It's completely static, and there's a reason for that.

 

[Wreckage]

It doesn't invalidate his argument, it just means that it will be downlevel D3D10Level9 from the KB article he linked to.

It still won't change the fact that developers will target the 360 and then simply port over to the PC. Thus, we will have to wait until the next Xbox for most developers to target that and then port that over.

Otherwise it will take programs like TWIMTBP to add advanced features like 3D and Physx or AMD paying a ton of money (like Dirt2) to add DX11.

I blame Microsoft's "XNA" as it basically reversed the trend of porting from the PC to the console.

 

[Painman]

Otherwise it will take programs like TWIMTBP to add advanced features like 3D and Physx or AMD paying a ton of money (like Dirt2) to add DX11.

I hope to God that you're somehow making money off of this incredulous crap. Otherwise, you're nothing but the most pathetic, laughable tool in the known Universe.

Personal attacks are not allowed in the technical forums -Admin DrPizza

 

[aka1nas]

It still won't change the fact that developers will target the 360 and then simply port over to the PC. Thus, we will have to wait until the next Xbox for most developers to target that and then port that over.

Otherwise it will take programs like TWIMTBP to add advanced features like 3D and Physx or AMD paying a ton of money (like Dirt2) to add DX11.

I blame Microsoft's "XNA" as it basically reversed the trend of porting from the PC to the console.

You entirely missed the point. With Dx11, they no longer need to "port" anything. One build of the game can run on both platforms, with any unsupported features on the Xbox being disabled.

The concept of porting is a previous-gen term and is rapidly becoming meaningless. Game developers are building games to be cross-platform now that the tools are available. Whether they spend the resources to implement additional PC-specific features is a financial decision, in which the cost in dev time is greatly reduced by this new functionality.

 

[Attic]

I hope to God that you're somehow making money off of this incredulous crap. Otherwise, you're nothing but the most pathetic, laughable tool in the known Universe.

IMO it's worse, much worse, if he's making money of it.

 

[tweakboy]

I think your right, DX10 never caught on. DX11 will not catch on either. DX12 will catch on though, coughs. :thumbsdown:

 

[Genx87]

DX10 was a failure due to the massive install base of DX9 systems. Windows 7 will help in this regard but it will take years before DX10-11 systems own nearly the entire install base. If DX10 was able to be run on XP it would had been adopted more imo. Since DX11 came out with Win7 it will most likely be the API of choice from now on.