directX 11 announced... minor updates

DirectX 11 Details Emerge, Adds New Features to DX10 Hardware

   			by Aaron Linde 			Jul 22, 2008 2:03pm CST tags: [DirectX](http://www.shacknews.com/tag.x/DirectX), [Microsoft](http://www.shacknews.com/tag.x/Microsoft), [PC Gaming](http://www.shacknews.com/tag.x/PC+Gaming)				 		
   			 			Software giant Microsoft today revealed details concerning DirectX 11, the latest edition of its PC gaming graphics API.  Similar to DirectX 10, the software will be available only on Windows Vista and future versions of Microsoft's operating system. DirectX 11 will add new compute shader technology that Microsoft says will allow GPUs to be used "for more than just 3D graphics," allowing developers to utilize video cards as parallel processors. 

DirectX 11 will support tessellation, a feature which can potentially assist developers in making models appear smoother when seen up close. Multi-threaded resource handling is also incorporated, making it easier for games to utilize multi-core processors in a user’s machine.
Microsoft also disclosed that DirectX 11 will add features to existing DirectX 10-compatible hardware, though it was not immediately clear what those features may be.
A launch date for the new software was not provided, though Microsoft is expected to release more information in the near future. The bullet points, as provided by Microsoft, are listed below.

  • Full support (including all DX11 hardware features) on Windows Vista as well as future versions of Windows
  • Compatibility with DirectX 10 and 10.1 hardware, as well as support for new DirectX 11 hardware
  • New compute shader technology that lays the groundwork for the GPU to be used for more than just 3D graphics, so that developers can take advantage of the graphics card as a parallel processor
  • Multi-threaded resource handling that will allow games to better take advantage of multi-core machines
  • Support for tessellation, which blurs the line between super high quality pre-rendered scenes and scenes rendered in real-time, allowing game developers to refine models to be smoother and more attractive when seen up close

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/53810

They need to make up their mind on whether or not they’re giving up on Vista, or forcing it down people’s throats.

huh? why would they give up on vista?

vista > * (except with cad software)

DX9 4 life!

Minor updates with major implications.

Wut?

Are you kidding? Have you used Vista? Its terrible.

They were talking about bringing DX10 down to XP because of the amount of people that wont use Vista. It was one of their ploys to force the gamer market to upgrade to Vista, as well as those ‘Vista-only’ games that have disappeared off the face of the Earth. Now they’re making DX11 Vista only. So they can’t seem to make up their minds on if they want to force the ‘upgrade’ or not…

I’ve used it since it came out, I had some initial issues with it. Much in the same I had issues with 98 to XP when it first came out.

It’s all in preference, I’ve just never heard of anything solid about DX10 being brought to XP.

I heart my Vista so much

same with fuzzy

have had a few issues here and there, but with vista 64 SP1 things have been great. In fact, the only reason why I even use XP anymore is just for some of my cad software since the licensing interferes with the way vista handles root access.

most people just refuse change/to give it a chance, or they’re hardware is too old to use it efficiently. It really is superior to XP in almost every way

I’ve never heard of M$ bringing DX10 to XP. From what I understand, it’s not really possible (or would require extensive modification to DX10 and XP). It’s not all that surprising though, XP is almost 10 years old now.

I also never heard of vista only games (unless you’re talking about the “games for windows” platform). The game developers would be shooting themselves in the foot due to how scalable PC games are. That’s not to say that they don’t include DX10 perks though for high end gaming.

DX11 won’t be vista only either… it’s going to be a Windows 7+ compatible too. So pretty much no win2k/98/XP support

Halo 2 for PC, and a few others that require DX10+ are vista only at this point.

But honestly who plays Halo on PC, ha.

oh yeah, you’re right… forgot about that game.

Shadowrun was Vista only, couple others. They stopped doing that because it was shooting themselves in the foot.

And there’s an alpha out for DX10 on XP, done by a small group of coders on their own time. I think Microsoft could handle coding it for XP. They obviously don’t want to because its one of the few things they’re clinging on to with Vista.

I don’t see how Vista is superior to XP at all. I used it for a few weeks, didn’t run some of my apps correctly, they ripped off a few OSX GUI features, and decided to go with a real root user scheme (implemented badly, so that its practically useless). I went back to XP. When I decided to give Vista another go after a month, inexplicably, Vista didn’t want to boot any longer. Thats when I gave up.

The rest of the Internet, universities, and businesses agree that Vista sucks.

Yeah because like two people bought it. (Halo 2 PC that is)

the alky project is no more.

as for vista being superior, I mean that it has pretty much everything XP does and more (more refined IMO). Its the little touches that makes it hard to go back to XP.

Not saying that XP sucks… it still has it’s place, but as software devs update their programs to run on vista, compatibility isn’t a problem anymore unless you’re running old stuff. Not to mention better hardware support which is huge. For instance, when I plugged in my wacom tablet, vista automatically knew what it was and even has software integrated into the OS for pen tablet users (something XP does not)

to each their own… both are great OS’s and both have been rock solid performance/reliability wise

I love all the vista haters. It is 50x more secure than xp and much easier to use. If you dont like it, its because you are a mac humper or dont want to buy a new pc with a bit more ram to handle it. “vista is terrible!” Based on what? Because everybody else said so!

The only people that hate vista are the ones that can’t use a computer. (99.98% of the time it’s just the simple ID-Ten-T error)

I have been using vista since RC1, and there’s a reason that all of my computers have vista, and all the ones i’ve made for other people i put vista on it. It is a much cleaner interface, smoother running, and if you give it more than a few weeks (lol, good idea, give something you hate only 2 weeks, pick out all it’s flaws and instead of correcting them, go back to the inferior operating system) You use whats familiar to you, thats your choice…no reason hating vista because you dont ‘get it’.

And lmao at the ripping off the GUI interface of a mac. So, do you not buy GM because it ripped off Ford’s assembly line? or there engine technology? Its a business. One company sees something works for them, and they incorporate it into their product. Hell, if your going to use that excuse as to why vista sucks, you should start only buying/using xerox OS’s :lol:

While we are at it, why dont you explain how the user scheme is set up badly? As i’ve said, i have vista on all of my machines, and have migrate my user account(s) all the time when i reinstall. So much easier than it was in xp.

“The rest of the business and universities agree that vista sucks”

Get your facts straight. They dont agree vista sucks. They just dont have a reason to upgrade to it. For a couple reasons: Cost to train the IT people on it, and 2: your right, vista doesnt run good on 3+ year old hardware. Upgrading entire universities and business to an OS just because it is new would be a complete waste of their resources, especially in the current economic situation.

But its ok, i forgive you. You just probably dont remember when xp came out to realize that this is the exact same thing, just with vista.

also, microsoft isn’t giving up on vista. They just spent over $300 Million dollars to reverse what the deceiving mac/pc ad’s have done. Click me.

Some of these arguments are great. I’ll try to address them all.

  1. Vista just recently became as secure as XP. There are no additional security features except it treats you as a potentially hostile user on your own personal computer. The same features are available to use by sys admins with XP in a corporate/education setting. This isn’t necessary at home, if you know what you’re doing. I suppose most people work as Administrator, and Vista forces you to be intelligent.

  2. People that hate Vista are the ones that can use a computer, like I said above. An intelligent XP user has all the same functionality features available to Vista. Name something that is Vista only, that isn’t pure eye candy.

  3. Why should anyone force themselves to use a flawed product for longer than they have the will to? I gave Vista a fair chance, a lot of people did, and then when they were sick of it they went back to XP. Maybe because I got Vista for free and didn’t pay the $200 bill I was able to fairly judge it, and didn’t feel like I had to justify my purchase.

  4. If I wanted a pretty interface, I’d own a Mac (and probably run XP on it anyway). Or I’d add one of the many Vista themes for XP that make it look the exact same. The eye candy features of Vista just cause slow downs and don’t provide any additional productivity. And before you say it, 4GB RAM on a Vista machine and a XP machine are still vastly different, XP runs great with the maximum amount of RAM. Vista runs adequately.

  5. 90% of the hardware at the college I work at is brand new or refreshed every summer. It will easily ‘handle’ Vista. We haven’t switched to Vista (even though we have a site license for the university) is because it provides nothing additional over XP. You’re basically suggesting that people should use Vista because Microsoft told them to. If XP runs better on all hardware and operates the same, why Vista?

The continued nod from Microsoft that they will be supporting XP long into the future, past when even Windows 7 comes out, shows how bad the situation is. Windows 7 is slated for 2010, XP will be supported till 2014.

:lol: love the flat earth ad

Man, a lot of apple humpers on that site though (obviously). It’s worse than a VW forum lol

While i’ll admint, i really hate the UAC, and have the batch file to disable it before i do anything else on a computer (through work or home)…i’m not sure it “just recently” became more secure than XP. The “infected” computers that i get into work, 3/4ths, if not more of them are XP. Most of the vista issues i get in are user caused and easily fixed.

Vista also does the complete opposite of ‘requiring it’s users to be intelligent’. Specifically with the networking. That is not something the average user should be able to experiment with, and get working properly. But with Vista, it’s as easy as clicking a button. It will automagically configure your router, set up file sharing, and it ‘works’. With vista, they are allowing the general computer user to use the advanced features that they normally wouldn’t care about, while not taking away functionality from the people who would be more comfortable setting it up themselves.

And again, the time frame Microsoft is taking with vista is eerily similar to XP’s. From the time until SP1 was released, until when they seriously started advertising and pushing it. XP was not as stable, secure, and quick as it is now as it was in 2001 when it came out.

  1. People that hate Vista are the ones that can use a computer, like I said above. An intelligent XP user has all the same functionality features available to Vista. Name something that is Vista only, that isn’t pure eye candy.

The entire user experience is better. While maybe to the general user the only difference is the eye candy, if you honestly use it, the Vista experience is better. I have not gotten a BSOD since release day (on 32 or 64 bit), error handling is far superior to Xp’s, Parental controls built in are nice if your setting up a multi-user computer, the security of vista, networking is easier to set up, and the remote desktop connection is quicker and more reliable. Re-read my 2nd paragraph, first response. That is going to apply to 99% of these arguments.

  1. Why should anyone force themselves to use a flawed product for longer than they have the will to? I gave Vista a fair chance, a lot of people did, and then when they were sick of it they went back to XP. Maybe because I got Vista for free and didn’t pay the $200 bill I was able to fairly judge it, and didn’t feel like I had to justify my purchase.

You shouldn’t force yourself to like something, but you should force yourself to try something unfamiliar. When you installed vista, you only did your ‘free’ copy because you have heard it was awful and didn’t want to spend money on it. So, you humored Microsoft, tried it out. You instantly noticed how it differed to xp (note: what ‘flaws’ did you find in 2 weeks?) and were frustrated enough to switch back. If you are a ‘hardcore’ xp user, then going to vista for the first little bit is weird, because even though most things operate the same, the stuff they switched around did make it frustrating. But once you start to use it, and get familiar with it, you realize why they changed it and got used to doing it ‘in vista’. That is not a flaw. That is keeping the product up to date, and making the operating system more ‘basic user’ friendly.

  1. If I wanted a pretty interface, I’d own a Mac (and probably run XP on it anyway). Or I’d add one of the many Vista themes for XP that make it look the exact same. The eye candy features of Vista just cause slow downs and don’t provide any additional productivity. And before you say it, 4GB RAM on a Vista machine and a XP machine are still vastly different, XP runs great with the maximum amount of RAM. Vista runs adequately.

It’s already been said, vista is more than a GUI. I have computers with 1gb, 2gb, 3gb, 4gb, and 8gb of ram, all running vista (8gb is 64 bit of course)…Vista as a whole is going to operate quicker, smoother, and everything you do will have a ‘flow’ to it. TBH it’s not something that can be explained to the ignorant. Also, Vista runs on 1gb just like xp ran on 128/256 mb of ram. It might not be the greatest experience but it worked(works), for a lot of people. Plus with the price of ddr2 ram lately, upgrading to 2 or 3gb of ram isnt like it was with ddr/pc133.

  1. 90% of the hardware at the college I work at is brand new or refreshed every summer. It will easily ‘handle’ Vista. We haven’t switched to Vista (even though we have a site license for the university) is because it provides nothing additional over XP. You’re basically suggesting that people should use Vista because Microsoft told them to. If XP runs better on all hardware and operates the same, why Vista?

Regardless of your “there are no new features” argument, the biggest reason places have not migrated over to Vista is because of deployment costs, not licensing costs. The cost to redo every machine, and retrain all employees to use it, is not worth it right now in the economic situation. There are much more economical things they could spend that money on (in their mind). But don’t think they will never upgrade from xp. Again, it was about 2 years after XP came out before most places started switching off of 98. Right now, XP works. I never argued with you on that. What i’m arguing with you about is your simply stating ‘vista sucks’ without ever actually using it.

The continued nod from Microsoft that they will be supporting XP long into the future, past when even Windows 7 comes out, shows how bad the situation is. Windows 7 is slated for 2010, XP will be supported till 2014.

Windows 7 is ‘slated’ for 2010, doesn’t mean it will come out in 2010. Look how long it took vista to hit shelves, and that’s after removing some major features (like the winfs). And XP will be supported until 2014, but only with security updates and paid support. After 2009 there will no longer be any xp warranty, product hotfixes, and unless you want to continue to give MS more money, your not getting the same support. After the 2009 deadline, thats going to be when business’ and universities switch from xp to vista.