The DX10/Vista Scam

[Pesmerga]

Normally I wouldn't give a hippo's shit about what Microsoft is up to these days, but it's time for me to upgrade my video card from a 7600gts to an 8800gt (or equivalent).

Now, I read an RPS article (full of comments ranting on about how DX10 is nothing new and all the features found there can be done in DX9) explaining how to get the DX10 features in DX9 settings under XP. What gives? Why do we need DX10? What good is it?

Is this simply Microsoft putting pressure on Crytek to make their game "Vista Exclusive", and Crytek simply leaving the cvars hidden in plain sight for gamers to eventually discover, underhanding whatever Microsoft had intended?

Or is it deeper, darker, more convoluted?

The "Games for Windows" propaganda machine churns out more hilarious shit.

Hear that? It?s PC gaming being slowly throttled to death - AGAIN - by Microsoft and the various companies who are riding their hype train.

First, they released the original Xbox, which caused a massive exodus of PC developers, who created a generation of mostly terrible, still-getting-the-hang-of-console-development games.

A few years later, they realize this. And they know Vista has almost nothing to offer apart from new UI chrome (whoopee). So they try to make gaming a primary selling point - because lord knows PC gamers are used to paying stupid amounts of money for insubstantial increases in performance and fidelity - and strategically make DX10 Vista-exclusive.

After that, they realize that good art running on good engines is what actually makes games look better, not APIs. But at this point they?re just grasping at straws. They operate on pure spin, trying to imply that any game with DX10 support is Vista-exclusive - I?ve seen countless people ask of titles like Bioshock ?isn?t that Vista exclusive??

MS has always operated by convincing people they don?t have options. L337 rig PC gamers are particularly susceptible to this because they?re desperate for ways to justify their purchases.

And now the latest rumor that DX 10.1 will not be compatible with DX10 hardware. But in the same article it discusses how DX 10.1 has, ultimately, no impact on performance, visual capacity, or... anything.

What gives? Does DX10 really bring anything new to the table? Should we really wait for DX10.1 hardware, and can I justify switching to Vista to play "Vista Exclusive" games?

 

[Hectic Glenn]

There are a team of guys working on getting Dx10 working on XP, because of the anger caused by the Vista/Dx10 arrangement. The rumour about 10.1 being separate is frightening, and may end up being true D:

But I guess the theory is that MS want people on Vista, Nvidia want people to buy their newest hardware, and people want to play the best games. There is a pretty easy business plan in there to get people eating out your hand

 

[Asus]

ATM I don't think there is anything technical that is keeping MS from making DX10 work on XP. Supposedly there was a required feature required (now optional) that made it not 100% possible on XP without redoing code outside of DirectX (in the OS). But there are some differences with how DX10 works that let the developers use more effects that would not be playable under DX9 (slower performance).

And about theinquirer.net article and DX10.1, it doesn't say it won't be compatible. DX10 hardware will play fine with 10.1 and SP1 but just won't use the extra features. I mean...the hardware does not have the logic. Just like a DX8.1 card will run with DX9c installed but won't use the extra features. They are just commenting on the fact that 10.1 is so soon out of the gate to make DX10 'old'.

 

[Kyorisu]

Several developers at the Nvidia 2007 Editor's conference last week told us that they were too far into the production cycle to consider the upcoming D3D standard. According to NPD research 254 new PC game titles are expected this fall. Roy Taylor, Nvidia Vice President of Developer Relations, stated that one undisclosed publisher reported online purchase and downloads of new PC Game titles were four times that of retail purchases. Microsoft General Manager of Games for Windows Kevin Unangst told us that there will be over "15 million Direct X 10 GPUs installed by the end of 2007 and over 102 million by the end of 2008."

Unangst continued noting that "gaming is expected to grow 80% over the next 5 years" and that Microsoft has shipped "over 60 million units" of its Vista operating system. All of the numbers point to something phenomenal: PC Gaming is alive and well. Recent DFC data projects PC gaming will bring in over $13 billion through 2012.

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/10/29/amd_hd_3800_to_support_dx_10/page2.html

Throttled to death they say? That's funny.

ATM I don't think there is anything technical that is keeping MS from making DX10 work on XP.

Except for the part where DX10 is designed to work with Vista's driver model.

 

[Asus]

Except for the part where DX10 is designed to work with Vista's driver model.

this is the part I was referring to.

Part of Direct X 10?s original design allowed graphics cards to share memory with the system. This means that if a game was needed more memory than the graphics card could provide it would simply borrow system memory.
ATI had no problems implementing this feature into their DX 10 graphics cards but Nvidia had some issues. So, what was a concrete feature of DX 10 became an optional one.

This feature was the reason that DX 10 could not work on XP. In order for a graphics card to share system memory XP would have to undergo serious changes. Since this feature is optional, why couldn?t MS release a version of DX 10 for XP without the memory sharing feature included.

 

[Hellrider]

Do you have to get Vista for 8800 cards ?

 

[Asus]

DX10 cards (8800) run DX9 features fine in XP. Vista is required for DX10 features for those games that have a DX10 mode.

 

[Hellrider]

But all those features can be enabled in DX9 don't they ? (Crysis for example)

 

[Asus]

Nope. Why would they? Example, can't play with DX9 features when running in DX8.1 mode or DX7. Just not available.

 

[Pesmerga]

And now this. While Crysis in Vista and with a DirectX 10 graphics card is indeed rendered in the supposedly faster-performing DX10, its maximum visual wow is not unavailable to XP. DX9 can do most of what DX10 can, just (theoretically) not as efficiently. It’s just that Crytek, or EA, or Microsoft, or some jiffy-bag-full-of-money agreement betwixt all three, have artificially locked out the ‘Very High’ graphical detail setting in XP. A simple config file tweak reactivates it, and Crysis can then look as beautiful as it does in DX10 with maximum detail in DX9.

Of course, you’ll still need a monster rig to reach anything like a playable framerate, though some folk are reporting maxed-out Crysis actually runs faster in XP than Vista.

More importantly, it reveals that there’s certain skullduggery at play in terms of Crysis and DirectX10. It may be pretty, but it’s not the major technological sea-change we’ve been led to believe it might be. Now we know for sure that DX10-level visuals do not require DX10 and Vista. Can anything ever convince us that’s the case again? I patiently await the full version of Crysis being hacked to allow physics and day/night cycles in DX9 multiplayer.

The only thing that I've heard that can only be done in DX10 is single object motion blurring.

 

[Hellrider]

Nope. Why would they? Example, can't play with DX9 features when running in DX8.1 mode or DX7. Just not available.

But people found a way to enable 'Very High' options (Crysis) in DX9 - all options but one, (they supposed to be DX10 only). And they say it works better in DX9 mode.

 

[Asus]

I bet those are not DX10 only features. Could be DX9 features that Crysis decided to only enable under their DX10 path and disable when running in DX9.

And some features that the hardware includes (like ATI usually has extra things in their cards not required by DirectX) is not required in DX9. So the feature is there in the hardware and ignored by a lot of developers coding DX9 games since it isn't standard but could be used if they wanted to do the extra coding.

 

[golden_fang]

screw vista imo

 

[Asus]

hehe
I do hope those guys can get DX10 working under XP. And fully, not looking like a hack job. But MS not supporting previous OS versions with newer DirectX versions has happened before. Like Win95 didn't get DX8.1.

 

[Barney Fife]

Am playing Bioshock on my XP system, and a friend of mine plays Halo 3 on his XP system.

Any Questions?

If everyone stays where they are, sticking to their ever-standing stiff, nothing's-wrong-with-what-so-ver OS (XP); Microsoft and her followers would come back looking for us...Soon DX10 would be degraded back to DX9.

 

[Cole]

The main point about Dx10 is to reduce overhead and code clutter(they removed all Dx9 and lower code in the API). You can do nearly every feature thats done in Dx10 in Dx9. However Dx10 will simply due it faster.

I'd also like to note that current Dx10 cards are not concentrated on Dx10. I believe it was ATI who said they are not concentrating on Dx10 performance. They are still concentrating on optimizing Dx9 on there cards as fast as possible. I think ATI even said, Dx10 performance is gonna run at about Dx9 performance this generation. Expect Dx10 performance to rise as drivers get better and ATI/Nvidia start concentrating on Dx10 performance than Dx9 performance.