Microsoft DirectX 12 Shifts to SPIR-V as Default Interchange Format

[chrcoluk]

About games being there perpetually, that would be nice if you game a lot and replay games a lot, i think.

Thats me lol. I still need to go back into LR on PC as well, even with those 4k hours I havent got lightning up to max 50k stats.

 

[AusWolf]

Thats me lol. I still need to go back into LR on PC as well, even with those 4k hours I havent got lightning up to max 50k stats.

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Most games are either worth replaying, or aren't worth playing at all, imo. It's very rare when I finish one thinking "it was okay, but one playthrough was enough".

 

[ScaLibBDP]

SPIR 1.0 and 2.0 are based on LLVM IR, and are not the same thing as SPIR-V. SPIR was also designed primarily for compute, chiefly OpenCL, so I'm not surprised that Adreno OCL SDK supports it.
It's unable to handle graphical primitives, a deficiency that SPIR-V rectifies while retaining the compute lineage of SPIR.
In fact support for SPIR-V is mandatory in OpenCL 2.1, but... due to certain vendor's reluctance to implement full 2.x capabilities the new OpenCL 3.0 version drops that requirement (among with many other features of 2.x).

>>...I'm not surprised that Adreno OCL SDK supports it....

That is why I use it since 2018. It allowed to efficiently proceed with porting to Android.

Also, I hope you know that Adreno is a transformation from Radeon.

 

[razaron]

I never tried coding dx12, only Vulkan, but I just assumed they used SPIR-V.
I'm genuinely shocked this is a modern article.
Better late than never, I guess.

 

[THU31]

What I care about is eliminating shader compilation stutter. Tell me they can do that and I'll clap.

 

[CosmicWanderer]

Gamepass hasnt made a red cent. Between the cost of the infastructure and the cost of making the games, it's still not broken even.

And its revenue was up, but its subscriber count has been stagnant. Gives games away for cheap isnt a sustainable business model, and MS knows it.

This is another silly take. MS doesn't have infrastructure dedicated to Game Pass. It's utilizing the same infra of its other cloud services, namely Azure. So it's not losing money on hosting Game Pass services.

Also, they're not giving games away for cheap, they're guaranteeing recurring revenue via the subscription. A subscription which is not "stagnant" btw, it's up 36% this year as of the previous reported figure.

And it's going to grow even more with the Activision-Blizzard titles eventually making their way to the service.

 

[R0H1T]

Also, I hope you know that Adreno is a transformation from Radeon.

It's called an anagram

 

[dyonoctis]

Most games are either worth replaying, or aren't worth playing at all, imo. It's very rare when I finish one thinking "it was okay, but one playthrough was enough".

If you have less free time available it's a valid sentiment imo. Especially for games like Limbo or Helltaker which are fun, for what they are, but don't offer a different way of going about things or have secrets to unlock. The last time that I did a second play-through was after taking a 3 years break from Monster Hunter world because I was too rusty

 

[AusWolf]

If you have less free time available it's a valid sentiment imo.

The only people with enough free time to play every mediocre game are pensioners and the unemployed. The rest of us have to (or at least should) choose carefully. Life is too short to not have fun in your free time.

 

[Vya Domus]

Tell me they can do that and I'll clap.

Shader compilation will go away only when all vendors agree upon a common ISA like x86-64 for CPUs, which will never happen. I can see the likes of AMD and Intel doing it but Nvidia, never.

Only way that this could ever happen that I can see is if those pesky EU lawmakers enforce some kind of rule to make all GPU vendors switch to a common ISA but that would require the EU to be a major consumer of data center GPUs to be able to force their hand like that which unfortunately isn't the case, North America and Asia buy the largest amount of GPUs by far.

 

[Vayra86]

Clueless take. Game Pass is a financial hit for Microsoft. It was even up significantly in the last few earnings reports.

Xbox hardware is what's been declining.

Game Pass is what's keeping Xbox alive.

*for now, but let's take a long look at the cost of all those acquisitions and then recap what the real margin is for Xbox Gaming division.

It ain't a positive sum. MS is still running losses on gaming because they're clueless. They have a strategy, but no real insight or feeling with this market and it shows every time. Its one misfire after another, and Game Pass will suffer the eventual same fate as GFWL, Xbox Kinect, and the rest of the long list of gaming failures in the MS stable. Let's recap also the number of truly original titles coming out on Xbox. Its one franchise sequel after another, and the rest is available anywhere.

Its telling that even Sony still releases more new games, despite them releasing fewer than they ever did.

People want content. Gaming is content. If anything, that's what Game Pass underlines for us: content is king. But why does anyone use Game Pass now? Price and exclusivity. So again... what are the real margins of Xbox gaming?

Here's the Q2 summary

FY24 Q2 - Press Releases - Investor Relations - Microsoft

• · Windows revenue increased 9% with Windows OEM revenue growth of 11% and Windows Commercial products and cloud services revenue growth of 9% (up 7% in constant currency)
• · Devices revenue decreased 9% (down 10% in constant currency)
• · Xbox content and services revenue increased 61% (up 60% in constant currency) driven by 55 points of net impact from the Activision acquisition
• · Search and news advertising revenue excluding traffic acquisition costs increased 8% (up 7% in constant currency)

Microsoft doesn't mention Game Pass and they historically barely do. Net margins for Xbox division are unchanged YoY. All we hear from them is that its just a small segment of their gaming division. Of course, its probably a bit bigger because when this was said they had to get the Activision deal done. But still. Game Pass does not tangibly influence the profitability of Xbox. Its mostly been investing for the future, with the Activision deal paying off faster in revenue streams. Revenue is not profit.

Just because they keep investing in it doesn't mean its profitable. Quite the opposite: it needs help to become profitable. Otherwise they wouldn't invest.