Tim Sweeney sets the DX10 record straight...

[VictimOfScience]

Great interview/article here.

2006 is the first year where it became economical for developers to ship games that don't support Windows 98 and Windows ME, which implies that an operating system has a 6-year lifespan. Vista will ship in 2007, so mainstream games that require it should start appearing in 2012 or 2013. So much can happen in that kind of time period that we ought not even consider it.

DirectX 10 is a good and solid step forward for graphics, but it's very much an evolutionary thing, and for a game shipping holiday 2007, DirectX10 will represent maybe 10% of a typical game's customer base, say 35% Xbox 360, 35% PC, 30% PS3 (which will still be ramping up then), with one-third of the PC owners having new computers running Windows Vista with DirectX10 GPUs, and the other two-thirds either running XP or running Vista on DirectX9 hardware. I want to point this out in advance, since the marketing around DirectX 10 exceeds the (good but not revolutionary) reality.

Nice to hear that its mainly performance gains and not all the graphical bells and whistles everyone seems to be making it out to be. Still, every little bit helps...both the devs and the gamers!

 

[Iced_Eagle]

Performance increases, yes, but there are new tools which in the hands of the right developers can help create sweet effects.

Also, with the better performance you can do more per frame and create better graphics. Obviously porting to DX10 won't change a thing but you need to actually implement and change a lot of code, but IMHO it's worth it.

I can't wait to see some DX10 only games that fully take advantage of the new API. That way they can focus on the one platform (Vista) and can spend more time developing and less time testing hundreds probably thousands of hardware configurations.

 

[VictimOfScience]

Performance increases, yes, but there are new tools which in the hands of the right developers can help create sweet effects.

Also, with the better performance you can do more per frame and create better graphics. Obviously porting to DX10 won't change a thing but you need to actually implement and change a lot of code, but IMHO it's worth it.

I can't wait to see some DX10 only games that fully take advantage of the new API. That way they can focus on the one platform (Vista) and can spend more time developing and less time testing hundreds probably thousands of hardware configurations.

Very true. And you'll need all the optimization you can get while your system runs Vista too!

 

[Asuka]

DX10 kicks so much ass!

 

[AH_Viper]

Damit, this has got to be bull...

DX9 http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/directx_10_graphics_preview/images/55.jpg

DX10 http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/directx_10_graphics_preview/images/56.jpg

There's no WAY that can be ingame... honestly, proove me wrong - someone show me that real time and i'll eat my hat (quite happily at that 'cause i'm picking up Flight Sim X either way)

 

[Sanada]

Must be fake. The mountain reflections in the water are identical in both shots so it's probably just a photo overlay. I'll be amazed if it is real.

 

[PvtRyan]

What Sanada said. Plus, Flight Sim uses volumetric clouds, the ones in the DX10 pictures look like a texture.

 

[Iced_Eagle]

The above about DX10 aren't in-game actually. Those are just concepts of what they are trying to achieve.

Good luck to them if they can do it!

 

[Asus]

Yeah, it's a render. Probably a target for what they want out of dx10 though.

 

[Malfunction]

Well from the stuff we've seen from Crytek and in Alan Wake, I could see stuff like this being plausible in a few years.

 

[Ren.182]

Well if they can make FSX look like that in DX10 then I'll be amazed. Maybe in a few years.

 

[nutcrackr]

dx10 is just hype

 

[Cole]

dx10 is just hype

Actually it's a nice evolutionary graphic process that will increase graphic speed, create much more advanced and efficient shaders, and make it much easier on developers because of revamped drivers(Vista Drivers), and overall allow for faster and more efficient games than previous versions of DirectX.

 

[bbson john]

Can't wait for Directx 11.

 

[DEATH eVADER]

Reading about directX10 never fails to impress me

 

[[RnL]Stefan]

the second screen indeed is just a concept and that stuff can be achieved with DX 9 already, the first one was really ..not impressing. oblivion for example does not look "that" good, compared to the second shot but still a lot better than the first one, imho.

what i really don't like about DX10 is, that's it's going to be a vista only feature. winxp won't get it.

 

[Core407]

the second screen indeed is just a concept and that stuff can be achieved with DX 9 already, the first one was really ..not impressing. oblivion for example does not look "that" good, compared to the second shot but still a lot better than the first one, imho.

what i really don't like about DX10 is, that's it's going to be a vista only feature. winxp won't get it.

I thought XP was going to allow for DX10 emulation.

Does anyone have any links that talk about the DX10 cards?

 

[Cole]

I thought XP was going to allow for DX10 emulation.

Does anyone have any links that talk about the DX10 cards?

Xp will not be able to do Dx10. It's got a lot to do with drivers and to push Vista.
Vista's driver system is going to make Developers life much easier.

 

[mortiz]

Another difference between Direct3D 10 (which is what everyone really refers to as "DirectX 10", when they're talking about graphics at least) and previous versions (other than the fact they're scrapping the fixed-function pipeline) is that they're getting rid of the D3DCAPS structures (which were used to determine the hardware a person had on their computer to shaders and other effects could be switched on or off depending on the level). Instead Microsoft have thought it wise to have a minimum level for Direct3D 10, so basically Direct3D 10 games shouldn't in theory be backwards compatible with Direct3D 9 hardware. It makes sense if the new generation of Direct3D graphics cards have all of the fixed pipeline functionality removed as I mentioned earlier. Though apparantly there's some way to emulate Direct3D9.

 

[Przemek]

Vista will in some way have two DirectX's installed. The 9.0 mode will be supported by DirectX 9.0L and Microsoft promises higher performance in 9.0 mode under Vista than under XP. Crytek claims the same about Crysis, so it might be interresting

 

[Cole]

Vista will in some way have two DirectX's installed.

Vista uses a customized Dx9 that supports it's driver system. It's called Dx9L(as you pointed out). The main performance increase will be because of this more strict driver system.

Vista uses Dx9L for the Aero interface not Dx10.