Direct X 11

[Mr ViennaX]

Forget about DirectX 10 and DirectX 10.1, the future of Microsoft's graphics platform for the Windows operating system is DirectX 11. The Redmond giant has certainly kept quiet on DirectX 11, just as it has gagged all information on the next iteration of Windows, but details do slip through its fingers. And while mum's the word on where the next generation of the Windows graphics technology is heading, Microsoft is gearing up to deliver the first public taste of the future version of the DirectX suite of multimedia APIs. In fact, at the end of August 2008, Microsoft will introduce DirectX 11 to the world.

Between 25 and 27 August 2008, Nvidia will hold its Nvision 08 conference in San Jose, California. Kev Gee, Software Development Engineer, XNA Developer Connection (XDC) is scheduled to deliver the introduction to DirectX 11 via a one-hour session at Nvision 08 on August 26. Gee promises that attendants will be able to get a sneak peek at what DirectX 11 will look like.

"Kev will introduce the new DirectX 11 rendering pipeline currently under development at Microsoft. The technology builds on the existing DirectX 10 API set and adds new features including tessellation, multithreaded rendering, compute shaders, Shader Model 5, and more. Get up to speed fast with the next generation of rendering technology," reads the presentation of the "Introduction to DirectX 11" session (vr-zone via WinBeta).

Just as Windows 7 will have Windows Vista at its foundation, and will simply be built on top of it, being an evolutionary release, so will DirectX 11 be based on DirectX 10. Microsoft has already officially stated - through the voices of Steven Sinofsky, Senior Vice President, Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group and Christopher Flores, Director Windows Communications - that the graphics subsystem in Windows 7 would have its roots deep into Vista, and that the next generation of the Windows client will play well with the same set of devices and hardware products as its predecessor.

And since the Vista-centric hardware solutions will be able to accommodate Windows 7 with no problems, this means that the same is valid for drivers, including graphics drivers. With DirectX 10 (and DirectX 10.1 as of Service Pack 1) evolving into DirectX 11, Microsoft essentially ensures that Windows 7 will be backwards compatible with DirectX 10 graphics cards.

However, just as it is the case with Windows Vista and Windows Vista SP1, which need DirectX 10 and DirectX 10.1 specific hardware in order to take advantage of the evolution of the technology, so will Windows 7 need DirectX 11-based graphics cards. At this point in time, Microsoft failed to reveal whether DirectX 11 will be back ported to Windows Vista.

"Kev has worked as a professional in the games industry for over a decade and has experienced shipping and supporting many titles spanning a variety of genres. He currently works for Microsoft in the XNA Developer Connection (XDC) team where he helps developers create amazing games across a range of Microsoft platforms," it is added in the synopsis for the "Introduction to DirectX 11.

[cybx]

The XNA team shared some of their goals for the next iteration of the API, DirectX 10.1, as well as a few of the longer-term aims for the progression of gaming on the PC.

10.1 will aim to eliminate some programmability limitations when it comes to the unified shader architecture established in 10, as well as laying down a minimum capability for anti-aliasing in hardware. 4x Multi-Sampling AA will be minimum for 10.1 - although we suspect that there will be many cards that can theoretically tick the box, yet are totally useless at this in practice. The new iteration will also add better support for arrays of textures using cube maps, with the aim of acceleration texture processing.

Looking forward to DirectX 11, which is surely a few years away yet, the Vole's stated high-end goals are to bring down the cost of authoring art for games, integrating with new PC hardware better, and enabling more interaction between the user and the game in the form of better physics, AI and other such gameplay functions.

To help with art costs - which are swiftly spiralling upwards, as games get bigger, longer and more detailed, thanks to next generation consoles - Microsoft will be implementing procedural content generation to help create larger textures. The API could also adjust image quality on the fly, within an engine - so if a game started to slow down as a level got more and more complex and busy, DirectX could scale back the detail level on screen to up the frame rate.

In terms of hardware integration, the XNA team pointed out that a number of hardware trends will need to be looked at. CPUs are adopting more and more parallel cores, and DX11+ will sport better support for parallel resource creation on threads, and a more friendly driver interface for working with parallel threading.

Stream processing and GPGPU are big movers and shakers in the graphics world, and DX11+ will bring in support for this functionality. Since GPUs are massively parallel processors, they could be potentially used for super-high precision arithmetic, which is much slower than the floating point single precision currently used.

From what we are told by reliable sources. MS was keen on having DX11 be part of Windows 7. DX10, which while technically pretty nifty, is saddled with Vista as an arm twist mechanism, so it is taking off like a water buffalo with bunions and a weight problem.

For Windows 7, MS basically pulled the mandatory DX11 requirement at the behest of one company that basically whined a lot. History tells us that if you throw a hissy fit, MS will screw itself over and cave in, look what they did to neuter DX10 when NV got all pouty. Now DX11 is gone, and the debate is about DX10, and whether it will even be mandatory.

If this sounds so absurd it borders on the surreal, think about this. Computers need to run Windows, and if MS specs the minimum reqs so high that the low end can't run it, well, they will turn 7 into MeIII just like Vista is becoming MeII. About half of PCs are sold with those crappy integrated graphics, and there is one company that won't make the cut there, so they cried to MS.

With three GPU vendors out there, this means that if DX11 is mandated, at least a quarter of the PCs won't run it, not to mention laptops, and that can't happen. The DX9 vs 10 as standard debate is also about the same thing, one company doesn't think they will have enough horsepower by then, so they moan.

In the end, it basically says that 7 is going to be an unlucky number. If they are already hacking at the few expected features now, imagine how much more is going to be cut when they are facing real deadlines?

Microsoft is giving DirectX 11 the boot from its next version of Windows to keep hardware requirements down -- apparently the DirectX 10 requirements of Vista were enough of that sort of trouble for one decade. Obviously there's no official word on Microsoft at the moment, so we'll reserve judgment for the time being -- and hey, maybe no DirectX 11 wouldn't ruin our year -- but with the endless quantity of features cut from Vista still fresh in our memory, this is certainly not an encouraging sign if true.

Well I hope it will be better than DX9 and DX10.
I didn't really see too much different between 9 and 10 apart from odd-one-out graphics that crash your PC.

[yash_qwe]

mah how can u two right tis much it hurt my hand when i try
didt vista come out with DX11
or was that when u had to buy a new video card to get it

[cybx]

Vista comes with DX9, not DX10, you have to download DX10 from the Games for Windows website and you need a DX10 compatible video card and GPU.
Vista comes with .NET Framework 3.0, not .NET Framework 3.5, you have to download a Visual Studio 2008+ / ASP.NET 3.0+ / IIS6+ associated product or an update, etc.
Vienna comes with DX11.
Vienna comes with .NET Framework 4.5.
The question is what happened to .NET Framework 4. If so, version 4 is coming soon, that's good.
XNA 3.0 is coming with .NET Framework 4.5 and DX11 support APIs.
Lets hope it comes out tommorow, I doubt it though, I bet late 2009 at the least.
Hey, how come Linux(s) distributions don't have a problem with kernel upgrade, but when MS and Apple's teams do it they fail, whats up with the money making mascots, can't they keep up with Tux???

[yash_qwe]

i have net 4.0

[yash_qwe]

xna ?

[oldtech1]

is direct x gonna be the main controller of physics cards as well ?
and what direction do you guys think there going with that for realistic action in gaming. with ever increasing cps speed and 4-8 cpus on a grid bus is it even gonna
be nessasary for physics cpus.

[yash_qwe]

man i cant wait for the hologram age haha
i think by that time we would be on DX 31 lol
with like 1 terabyte video cars and rams lol
with super fast processor

[oldtech1]

for the time being if a pair of $17 3d glasses is to cheap there are several 3d ready screens out now that dont require the shutter shades.
http://www.reviewspring.com/3d-lcd-monitors-a80.php
http://www.pcworld.com/article/117303-1 ... nitor.html

i have seen screenless monitor systems projecting images on different tematured air.
http://www.fogscreen.com/en/
but so far they havent marketed for consumer end user market yet

[cybx]

Yash-Qwe, you can't have .NET 4.0, 3.5's the latest.
XNA is the platform that developers use to develop Windows and XBox 360 Live games in Visual Studio or other developing environment.
XNA 3.0 comes with a 3D designer.