Friday, July 11th 2008
Microsoft to Unveil DirectX 11 Later this Month
We are barely into experiencing DirectX 10 / 10.1 games with proper levels of detail with upcoming titles demanding hardware, and Microsoft already has plans for DirectX 11, the next big version of this API set. Microsoft will show off DirectX 11 at the XNA Gamefest which is scheduled to take place on July 22 and 23 in Seattle, United States. This year's Gamefest is to be centered by DirectX 11 and the advancements that are proposed to be brought about.
Thankfully Microsoft isn't doing a 'Vista' this time around, this new multimedia and gaming API will be built for both Windows Vista and the upcoming Windows 7 operating systems. The API could be released to public anytime in late 2009.
There are several implications of this:
Thankfully Microsoft isn't doing a 'Vista' this time around, this new multimedia and gaming API will be built for both Windows Vista and the upcoming Windows 7 operating systems. The API could be released to public anytime in late 2009.
There are several implications of this:
- Poor-adoption of DX10: DirectX 10 has received a lukewarm response at best. With surveys already showing the market share of Windows Vista being a dismal 16%, it also hints at the poor-adoption of DirectX 10 since it's exclusive to Windows Vista.
- Everyone runs for benchmarks: Let's face it, benchmarking is fun. Those who buy expensive hardware have even more fun in showing off their…DirectX 10 benchmark scores. But mainstream gamers (who aren't prepared to spend over $250~$300 on video-hardware) simply aren't able to enjoy DirectX 10 titles with the level of visual detail the API originally promised. With mainstream hardware, at best you could run a DX10 game at reasonably high resolution but toned down visual detail. This is an important factor pushing video-gamers to seek other forms of gaming, such as console gaming, with Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and Wii eating into PC gaming share. Even CryTek, whose DX10 title, Crysis, earlier given a 'poster-boy' status for DirectX 10, has received lukewarm market response and CryTek admits to that. Vista came with a "passing the cost to the consumer" approach in term of hardware performance as the operating system was burdened with DRM in too many stages; the climb in system requirements was too steep.
- Quantity makes up for Quality: Microsoft learned from its mistake of letting a version of Windows, the Windows XP live on in the market for close to seven years, enough time for users to get attached to the OS and bring about an 'incumbency-factor' when it comes to moving on to another OS of the same make. With Windows 7 already slated for late 2009, we can say that it's back to having a desktop Windows version every 2~3 years or so. And, what's more, a new DirectX every now and then. While DirectX 10.1 is said to have fixed some issues with several daughter-APIs (such as Direct3D), hardware manufacturers have played a certain role in limiting DirectX 10.1 from reaching out. NVIDIA plans to release a DX10.1 supportive GPU only late this year / early next year, which even the likes of S3 Graphics (VIA) has adopted the API and made compatible hardware. If a major-player acts reluctantly in embracing a new technology, its ill-effects reach far out. A lot of time has been wasted. No 'seriously awesome' title a-la Half Life-2 for DX9 has come out based on pure-DX10 yet, reason being only 16% of all Windows PC users use Vista. Why would a developer risk tons of production budgets on that 'minority' of users? Rather make games for consoles?
59 Comments on Microsoft to Unveil DirectX 11 Later this Month
I remember one of their BIG DX10 features was, "Trees and houses will break apart realistically!", and they used Crysis as their demo.
Once we all read that Crysis is about 98% the same in DX9 it was over.
I'm curious to see if S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky will provide us with anything new in DX10.
10 mustve been like the beta of 11 and 11 will be the proper finished product
Will this make gamers have to change their systems for even higher requirements?
you think they would've learned from that same blunder when the shoved XP out the door . . . but then again, at that time, the number of people who were "tech aware" and had hardware capable of running the OS, as well as the skills necessary to navigate a new, touch OS were higher relative to the numbers of "non tech aware" consumers . . . Vista, though, was released to a public that is a majority "non tech aware" and were running systems that just barely met minimum requirements . . . coupled with the amount of bloatware these consumers love to pack their HDDs with, it's not wonder Vista turned into a wet dog at a perfume sale. again, see my comment to the first point - MS didn't help "prep" the market for Vista like they had done with XP, ME, 2000, 98, 95 and on and on . . . they drug their feet during development (just how far behind schedule was it?) and released an unbaked ball of dough . . . then a few months later they shipped the SP1 oven so the user could bake their own damn cake.
If you do not code, then you would not be aware of some of the shortcomings of the existing ones.
If MS wants to keep developers using DirectX, they have to keep it in sync with modern graphics card hardware and evolving technologies.
I, for one, am thankful that MS continually updates their .net framework and other APIs.
It makes my life easier when they polish their code.
I don't think DX10 failed because MS didn't push it enough, I think it failed more because they released it solely for an OS, that at the time, was not ready for release.
Although, at this point dx10 seems almost like dx9.0d, they just called it dx10 to promote the new os. I dunno though, I'm ready for some nice increases in new games.
when XP was released, it was in the same state that Vista was.
WIN2000/ME, WIN98, WIN95 were all like this as well . . . but there were more "tech knowledgable" users who knew how to configure the OS, and make set their systems up correctly for it.
I think the biggest problem MS had with Vista . . . was pushing all the "Vista Ready" emblems with the OEMs, who were slapping those stickers on systems a year or better before Vista was even released . . . the new OS comes out, people try to install Vista onto these older systems, and the hardware could barely run the OS because of how much it had changed since MS started pushing it. That led to a lot of customers that were very unhappy with how the new OS was running . . . coupled with shoddy and flaky driver support across the board, and the intial Vista release just comes across as an example of "waht not to do"