AMD Demonstrates World’s First Microsoft DirectX 11 Graphics Processor

[malware]

At a press conference in Taipei, Taiwan today, AMD publicly demonstrated the world's first Microsoft DirectX 11 graphics processor. The series of demonstrations shed new light on the significantly improved computing experience set to debut at the end of 2009. The fusion of AMD's new ground-breaking graphics processors with the forthcoming DirectX 11 programming interface is set to forever change both applications and PC gaming for the better. To illustrate, AMD showed numerous examples of faster application performance and new game features using the world's first true DirectX 11 graphics processor.

• Get ready for a revolution: Games and other applications are about to get a lot better as a result of AMD's new graphics hardware and DirectX 11. DirectX 11 features such as tessellation will bring consumers higher quality, superior performing games making use of 6th generation AMD technology. Another DirectX 11 feature, the compute shader, will enable AMD's DirectX 11 graphics cards to help make Windows 7 run faster in a wide number of applications and in a manner that's completely transparent to users, for example, in seamlessly accelerating the conversion of video for playback on portable media players through a drag-and-drop interface.
• DirectX 11 done right on AMD: The development of DirectX 11 has been broadly influenced by AMD graphics technology. Each new version of DirectX builds on the versions that came before it, and many of the capabilities of DirectX 11 were pioneered on AMD GPUs, including DirectX 10.1, tessellation, compute shaders, Fetch4, custom filter anti-aliasing and high-definition ambient occlusion shading.
• Bringing consumers DirectX 11 sooner: The preview of the world's first DirectX 11 graphics processor at Computex 2009 validates AMD's commitment to delivering leading technologies to market before anyone else, and to continuing to foster innovation in computing.
• Fueling developer demand: It's not just consumers who are excited about the prospects of DirectX 11, game developers are also incredibly enthusiastic about taking advantage of new DirectX 11 hardware to bring even better games to market, in large part due to AMD's readiness to meet their DirectX 11 needs. Many developers have indicated their commitment to building DirectX 11 games initially on AMD's DirectX 11 hardware, delivering superior performance and compatibility.

"AMD has a long track record of delivering pioneering features that have gone on to become mainstays in the DirectX experience, and we're doing it again with two mature, AMD-developed technologies in DirectX 11 - tessellation and the compute shader - both of which enable a better DirectX 11 experience for consumers," said Rick Bergman, Senior Vice President, AMD Products Group. "Today, we're previewing AMD's DirectX 11 graphics processor to build enthusiasm for this key technology so developers will have games available at launch and shortly thereafter. With the benefits it delivers to gaming, applications and Windows 7, developers are lining up to get their hands on our hardware, and we're confident that consumers will too."

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[DanishDevil]

Can't wait to find out more, and to see what nVidia has to say about this.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Is DX11 even finalized yet?

 

[hat]

I still don't get DX11. Is it hardware or software? When the DX11 games start hitting, do we all need new video cards?

 

[DanishDevil]

Direct X is software, but you need hardware that is capable of running that software. AMD has shown the public the first DX11 capable GPU.

Apparently, the only DX11 game that we know of at the moment is Battlefield: Bad Company 2. I just saw somebody post that though, so there may be many more.

 

[hat]

Indeed, however I have seen screenshots of Win 7 with dxdiag open and showing DX11. What if I were to buy a GTX260, would I be screwed when DX11 rolls around?

 

[Mussels]

from what i've pieced together, anyone with DX9 hardware or above can run a DX11 title - unsupported features are just disabled (and will therefore hurt graphics, or performance)

So if you use a DX10 video card, you get DX10 level graphics and performance. If you're an ATI user, you get DX10.1 and get the far better antialiasing. If you're a DX11 user... well, you get the whole thing.

 

[erocker]

Battleforge will be DX11. Here's a video with some game devs. talking about DX11. It is an AMD marketing video however.

 

[buggalugs]

Oh great, only a few more months before our expensive DX 10 cards are worthless.

But ye you can still play DX 11 games on DX 10 hardware but most of us will upgrade...again. Cant wait for some comparison shots and benchmarks to see how good it really is.

 

[ShadowFold]

So DX11 is gonna look better and perform better than DX9 games? Sounds pretty win to me.

We need a DX11 game list so I know what to preorder with my HD 5800 card!

 

[eidairaman1]

Dude Stop Worrying, by the Time DX11 Takes Effect the First line of DX11 cards will be old news.

 

[beyond_amusia]

I was hoping AMD would give us 4800 owners a gift and say that they will also fully support DX 11... I guess you can't get everything

 

[phanbuey]

AMD F*&K YEAH!!!! Dual 5870's ... oooooooo aaaaahhhh.

 

[15th Warlock]

I just hope DX11 hype is justified once the protocol becomes available, anyone here remember those shots MS released from Flight Simulator X comparing the DX9 version to the DX10 version? Well, I'm still waiting for DX10 to deliver the kind of graphical prowess that was hyped over two years ago....

I know from reading previews that DX11 is supposed to be everything DX10 never was, but after the massive dissapointment DX10 turned out to be, I just hope actual DX11 games live up to the hype; heck I know for sure PC gaming is ripe for a revolution that will finally help it show its supreme power over its console cousins (and to console gamers, it's not that I have anything against consoles, I own a PS3 and Xbox 360 too and enjoy playing games on both )

 

[xu^]

I won't be rushing to buy a DX11 card ,DX10 STILL isn't mainstream ,more games seem to be DX9 even after all this time.

 

[Wile E]

I just hope devs actually make use of tessellation this time around. It will greatly improve performance.

 

[Mussels]

I won't be rushing to buy a DX11 card ,DX10 STILL isn't mainstream ,more games seem to be DX9 even after all this time.

the reason adoption was shit, is because it required a second .exe file, they had to make parts of the game twice, in order to make it DX9 and DX10.

DX11 solves this* by allowing one exe to run all the codepaths. they code once, for DX11 and DX11 itself does the compatibility stuff, not the game itself.



*again this is what i've read/learned. with prerelease stuff, its always possible i'm wrong.

 

[Sihastru]

Also, in recent news, game developers are telling us how easy it is to make a DX10 title fully DX11 compatible, just by changing a few lines of engine code. Some really big titles out there supposedly took about 4 hours to be ported to DX11.

 

[slyfox2151]

the reason adoption was shit, is because it required a second .exe file, they had to make parts of the game twice, in order to make it DX9 and DX10.

DX11 solves this* by allowing one exe to run all the codepaths. they code once, for DX11 and DX11 itself does the compatibility stuff, not the game itself.



*again this is what i've read/learned. with prerelease stuff, its always possible i'm wrong.

if this is the case then DX11 WILL RAIN SUPREME !!!! they would have no reson not to make games dx11 if it can automaticaly downgrade depending on the hardware your running.

 

[hat]

That's the problem though... porting. I don't like porting... for example, in theory DX10 should perform better than DX9, given the same machine and game. However, it doesn't... because it's being ported from DX9 to DX10. If there was an all DX10 game, we wouldn't need SLI or Crossfire to run maxed out at acceptable frames. A single GTX260 would do it well over plenty of justice.

 

[raptori]

DX11 will be better and more easier for programmers and developers something better than anything before just like the same jokes when DX10 announced ...... cause until now there are few games that truly make use and build on DX10 only I'm not saying that DX11 is not good but you know developers are lazy .... the same scenario with DX10.......

 

[OnBoard]

First DX11 cards will run first DX11 games like poo anyways, so there's no hurry. But DX11 hardware might be really fast in DX10, like DX10 hardware was really fast in DX9, so it might be good.

Just don't get what's so great about tessellation, would it be used like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tessellation#Tessellations_and_computer_graphics
or just to make stoneroads & stuff?

 

[Mussels]

First DX11 cards will run first DX11 games like poo anyways, so there's no hurry. But DX11 hardware might be really fast in DX10, like DX10 hardware was really fast in DX9, so it might be good.

Just don't get what's so great about tessellation, would it be used like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tessellation#Tessellations_and_computer_graphics
or just to make stoneroads & stuff?

two examples:

In an RTS game, there are always identical looking units. You could have 500 identical looking onse, rendered just once with tesselation.

In an FPS game... think trees. lots and lots of trees, that dont hurt performance.

 

[Wile E]

two examples:

In an RTS game, there are always identical looking units. You could have 500 identical looking onse, rendered just once with tesselation.

In an FPS game... think trees. lots and lots of trees, that dont hurt performance.

Or leaves, or any oft repeated object in any game.

 

[OnBoard]

two examples:

In an RTS game, there are always identical looking units. You could have 500 identical looking onse, rendered just once with tesselation.

In an FPS game... think trees. lots and lots of trees, that dont hurt performance.

Or leaves, or any oft repeated object in any game.

Oh, Holy grail of performance I like this tessellation stuff