Microsoft to Unveil DirectX 11 Later this Month

[btarunr]

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:

• 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?

Anyways, it's in a way good for the industry to plan-ahead. Assuming DX11 is announced end of this month and technical know-how passed on to hardware manufacturers, they get a solid year and a half to devise hardware. Microsoft, NVIDIA and AMD/ATI could start talking about DirectX 11 at conferences such as Siggraph 2008 (August 11-15) and NVISION '08 (August 25-27). The world economy isn't in a very happy state right now, and people in general wouldn't like to spend as much as US$ 1900 to get the most out of a $50 game title.

With inputs from TG Daily

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[ShadowFold]

ugggh.. now I dont want a 4850...

and people in general wouldn’t like to spend as much as US$ 1900 to get the most out of a $50 game title

You dont need to spend that much.. my rig was about 700-900$.

 

[btarunr]

"to get the most"

 

[NinkobEi]

another direct x? what the hell microsoft you jerks.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

another direct x? what the hell microsoft you jerks.

[Sarcasm]Yes! Exclusively to Windows 7!! so shame on all who bought Vista![/sarcasm]

 

[MopeyMartian]

Perhaps if the switch from DX9-DX10 were more of a leap, than a hop, everyone would have been more inclined to spend greater time & money on it.

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.

 

[flashstar]

DX10 didn't really do anything amazing. Hopefully DX11 will bring some new stuff to the table.

 

[btarunr]

[Sarcasm]Yes! Exclusively to Windows 7!! so shame on all who bought Vista![/sarcasm]

DX11 comes for Vista as well.

 

[PrudentPrincess]

"to get the most"

Out of what? Crysis? XD

 

[IcrushitI]

DX 11 will tie in the new physics chips nicely with gaming.

 

[MilkyWay]

well you can think of direct x 10 a\s a gap between 9 and 11

10 mustve been like the beta of 11 and 11 will be the proper finished product

 

[Champ]

I swear man, you can't win. MS needs to make a game plan and stick to it.

Will this make gamers have to change their systems for even higher requirements?

 

[entilza]

This whole Vista, DX10 thing has been a disappointment I've seen no improvments. Computing has become so bloated these last years. Now comes another DX11 and Windows 7... Rinse and repeat.

 

[Easy Rhino]

late 2009 means early 2011.

 

[candle_86]

why are yall all pissed off DX9 had a very unusally long lifespan, most DX verions before it lasted 6months to a year tops

 

[Assimilator]

I have to agree with candle, DX9 was essentially four distinct versions (9.0, 9.0a, 9.0b, 9.0c) spanning 4 years (2002 - 2006), and DX8 was also long-lived: 8.0, 8.0a, 8.1, 8.1a, 8.1b, 8.2 (2000 - 2002). So I think it's a good thing that Microsoft is releasing a new version of DX - as long as it actually brings something worthwhile to the table, as opposed to being a motivation for people to upgrade their OS. :/

 

[WarEagleAU]

Windows 7 wont be out until 20 - 10 though. And it looks weird from early views of it (check out Maximum PCs website for a look at it). It uses touch screen technology

 

[imperialreign]

• 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.

well, MS didn't do much of anything to help push DX10 support with game developers - instead they left that task up to the two biggest GPU manufacturers . . . unlike yesteryear where MS played a bit more direct role with DX marketing

• 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.

again, another MS blunder - instead of making sure the new OS was properly optimized for the lowest Vista required hardware before they went retail, they were kicking the infant out the door and passing the new OS to the OEMs . . . and OS that was not properly polished and ready for widestream acceptance . . .

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.

• 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?

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.

 

[daehxxiD]

well, MS didn't do much of anything to help push DX10 support with game developers - instead they left that task up to the two biggest GPU manufacturers . . . unlike yesteryear where MS played a bit more direct role with DX marketing



again, another MS blunder - instead of making sure the new OS was properly optimized for the lowest Vista required hardware before they went retail, they were kicking the infant out the door and passing the new OS to the OEMs . . . and OS that was not properly polished and ready for widestream acceptance . . .

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.

Awsome Methaphors! Pretty much sums up what I was thinking when I read the article.

 

[OnBoard]

Good thing about DX11 is that DX11 cards finally play DX10 titles fast enough DX10 cards have been mostly useless, but boy are they fast in DX9.

 

[eidairaman1]

its funny that DX9C continues to be updated, i wonder if DX 10 is being updated despite .1 spec

 

[Kreij]

It makes very good sense that MS updates their API's.
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.

 

[imperialreign]

It makes very good sense that MS updates their API's.
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 agree


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.

 

[farlex85]

I agree


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.

Are OS's usually fully ready at release? I haven't been around that long, but I was under the impression earlier incarnations had similar problems upon release, likely due to the massive amount of compatibility that must go into it. There was more than ever in that respect this time, and it has seemed to me w/ the internet and advertising and such the way they are, vista just got a hugely bad rap at the beginning that they haven't been able to recover from. Had the internet not been as big as it is, I don't think vista would have done any worse than xp. People just don't want to try it b/c they've heard bad things and like xp, word travels much faster about such things these days than before. I don't think microsoft could've forsaw this, but they should have put it w/ xp.

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.

 

[imperialreign]

Are OS's usually fully ready at release? I haven't been around that long, but I was under the impression earlier incarnations had similar problems upon release, likely due to the massive amount of compatibility that must go into it. There was more than ever in that respect this time, and it has seemed to me w/ the internet and advertising and such the way they are, vista just got a hugely bad rap at the beginning that they haven't been able to recover from. Had the internet not been as big as it is, I don't think vista would have done any worse than xp. People just don't want to try it b/c they've heard bad things and like xp. I don't think microsoft could've forsaw this, but they should have put it w/ xp.

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.

well, like I mentioned in my earlier post . . .

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"