DX10 - What Microsoft does not want you to consider...

Some of my thoughts around DX10...

I keep hearing gamers talking about DX10 being one of the biggest benefits of a Vista upgrade. Despite the lack of decent DX10 titles right now, the speculations is DX10 is the future of PC games.

But, what is DX10? It is marketed as a Vista only superior rendering technology. But, looking more closely at it, there is more to it.

The true value of DX10 is it defines a standard that graphics card manufacturers need to follow. DX10 cards needs to implement a certain amount of high-end 3D features, and by saying a game needs to be DX10 compatible, the developers can target a proper uniform platform rather than the thousands of various cards out there with all kinds of widely varying specifications.

How does this benefit the gamer? Well, apart from the obvious fact that DX10 cards support the latest 3D magic, it will make the developers able to optimize the games far better than before. A lot of your systems power is lost due to the fact the developers cannot predict what it is, and need to make totally general 3D engines which will render on anything you throw at them.

This effect is pretty obvious when you look at titles released on both xbox 360, which is basically a PC system, and a regular PC. Bioshock is a good example. It renders beautifully with all high end settings like dynamic shadows enabled on the xbox 360. On my PC, which configuration wise is far superior to the xbox 360, Bioshock runs at unplayable speeds when the same graphical effects are turned on. So, all the power is wasted, basically because the developers could not predict what my system looks like, and optimizing for every possible 3D card out there is just too hard.

Once developers and 3D card manufacturers get their heads around DX10, it means DX10 titles should be tightly optimized to match your DX10 hardware, much like console games can. Naturally DX10 cards will have varying configurations as well, but the DX10 standard identifies a lot of common ground.

But what does this mean for the Vista/DX10 binding? Basically it means that Vista is not needed to benefit from DX10. Since the main benefit from having a DX10 card comes from the fact it represents a common standard.

Basically DX10 means two things:

1. A label guaranteeing a minimum amount of features is supported by a 3D card.

2. The name of the actual API Vista uses for rendering 3D graphics.

Microsoft wants you to think of the two as one, as it will motivate you to get Vista. But in fact, technically there is nothing that stops DX10 as a standard being valuable on other platforms. OpenGl under Linux could just as well benefit from "DX10" features of a card, possibly making games look even better than DX10 can on Vista - given enough talent. Doom 3 is a good example of how OpenGl once pushed the gaming technology further before, despite the fact Microsoft was putting their mighty marketing muscles behind DirectX at the time.

With DX10 Mixrosoft is in effect trying to take the credit for graphics card manufacturers technological achievements, and coupling new cards with a brand associated with Vista clearly will confuse gamers into believing they will need Vista to play tomorrows games.

DX10 as a technology and driver is more than anything a lock, locking a game to a certain platform, to force you into upgrading your operating system, creating an artificial advantage to buying Vista.

But I hope there will be another John Carmack out there who will prove this to be false, by making a great "DX10"-only game for new OpenGl or other drivers, running on other platforms than Vista. In the meantime we can benefit from projects like the Alky Project, promising to make XP drivers for DX10 games so they will run under XP, like they should be able to.

Well, while you are right on the whole DX10 being a standard for the graphics cards manufacturers to aim for, this is nothing new, it's been like that since DX7, maybe earlier. So developers have always had a platform to aim for and optomise to. The biggest impact on PC performance in games compared to consoles isn't the optomisation, it's the OS, consoles don't have them. The average PC is running 50~ processess before the game starts, thats 50~ programs using CPU power and memory resources.

Hardware and resources being bogged down with background programs is far more damaging to performance than developers optomising their games.

You can actually get some performance back from your computer by booting in minimal boot mode, this is about as close as you can get to the true power of your hardware.

BTW, a good example of what you are talking about with OpenGL being just as good as DX10 is Quake Wars. There is an effect called Soft Particles, which smoothes the edges of particle effects that clip into geometry. This is touted as a DX10 feature but Quake Wars uses the Doom3 engine, which is built on OpenGL 2.0. So yes, you are right, DX10 level hardware can just as good effects with OpenGL or even DX9 as Crysis has shown.

Also, John Carmack is working on iD Tech 5 which is running on OpenGL and looks amasing.

Have fun

Well, while you are right on the whole DX10 being a standard for the graphics cards manufacturers to aim for, this is nothing new, it's been like that since DX7, maybe earlier. So developers have always had a platform to aim for and optomise to. The biggest impact on PC performance in games compared to consoles isn't the optomisation, it's the OS, consoles don't have them. The average PC is running 50~ processess before the game starts, thats 50~ programs using CPU power and memory resources.

Hardware and resources being bogged down with background programs is far more damaging to performance than developers optomising their games.

You can actually get some performance back from your computer by booting in minimal boot mode, this is about as close as you can get to the true power of your hardware.

BTW, a good example of what you are talking about with OpenGL being just as good as DX10 is Quake Wars. There is an effect called Soft Particles, which smoothes the edges of particle effects that clip into geometry. This is touted as a DX10 feature but Quake Wars uses the Doom3 engine, which is built on OpenGL 2.0. So yes, you are right, DX10 level hardware can just as good effects with OpenGL or even DX9 as Crysis has shown.

Also, John Carmack is working on iD Tech 5 which is running on OpenGL and looks amasing.

Have fun

NosmoKing1984

Thanks for your thoughts, and I agree with you on most points. However, when it comes to consoles versus PC, the reason why consoles perform better on less potent hardware is as stated initially, consoles benefit from more optimizations because the hardware is identical on all devices running the same code.

xBox 360 is indeed also running an OS, derived from Windows, and although it obviously has fewer system related processes running, the performance impact on Windows is insignificant as the processes are event based and only uses CPU if something happens. Most processes are sleeping processes.

There are some tools that can freeze all system processes and give a game all the power, but the speed increase is next to nothing as it's the 3D card which represents the bottleneck, not the CPU which is handling those processes in the first place.

Trust me on this, I have been a game developer for more than 10 years, and knowing the hardware 100% really is a very powerful tool for the developer, and allows significant optimizations... :)

Also, I agree with you DX has been hyped by Microsoft from the beginning, but DX10 certainly is different in the aspect of Microsoft telling you Vista is needed to benefit from new features in DX10 cards. This is simply not true, as you point out as well. And I feel MS are misleading gamers intentionally to persuade more people to buy Vista.

Vista just came out. You guys seriously need to relax and be patient. If you dont like it go make your own Operating System(lol that was pretty funny). OoSuperMarioO

Im really failing to see an issue worth crying about here.

DirectX 9.0 came out in 2002. Its old, outdated technology. DirectX 10, while being new and allowing for pretty new effects, still hasnt phased out DirectX9 rendering modes, since the majority of the world still runs on DX 9 hardware. Given the low adoption rate of DX 10, mostly due to Vista, it'll take several more years before DX 9 is phased out. Hell, just last year is when games started phasing out DX 8.

By then, the next version of Windows will probably be out. Please, upgrade to either Vista or Vienna. You're just holding back the rest of the world. No idea why MS even bothers providing DX 9.0 support for Windows ME and 98, or would people have complained about that too if MS decided to cut off those two OS from their DX 9 support list?

As for OpenGL and your hope.....yeah, thats not gonna happen. The hardware obviously has to support the effects in order for OpenGL to be able to do it. It'll still need DX 10 like hardware to meet the same level of visual fidelity. So, at that point, why bother with OpenGL if you were planning to only target Windows platforms (which are 90% of PC games)?

Odd... new games run beautifully on my older PC. Orange Box, BioShock, CoD4 (but obviously not Crysis though). I was able to run BioShock and CoD4 comparably to the 360 versions on hardware mostly from 2004. The Orange Box however I can run at higher levels than the 360 (more MSAA and Anisotropic filtering) at the same or better framerates (and with TF2 with double the players and with no noticeable lag).

DX10 is a load of trash MS is trying to shovel into the market so they can have more control. DX9 works perfectly fine and if MS were a scrupulous company (oxymoron?) they would have released DX10 for XP because it is a set of drivers... nothing that comes with Vista is needed to run DX10.

I won't be upgrading to Vista until MS stops supporting XP... and even then I might just go Linux. MS is attempting to monopolize the PC gaming market, I for one will not allow that to happen.foxhound_fox

link specs.OoSuperMarioO

Im really failing to see an issue worth crying about here.

DirectX 9.0 came out in 2002. Its old, outdated technology. DirectX 10, while being new and allowing for pretty new effects, still hasnt phased out DirectX9 rendering modes, since the majority of the world still runs on DX 9 hardware. Given the low adoption rate of DX 10, mostly due to Vista, it'll take several more years before DX 9 is phased out. Hell, just last year is when games started phasing out DX 8.

By then, the next version of Windows will probably be out. Please, upgrade to either Vista or Vienna. You're just holding back the rest of the world. No idea why MS even bothers providing DX 9.0 support for Windows ME and 98, or would people have complained about that too if MS decided to cut off those two OS from their DX 9 support list?

As for OpenGL and your hope.....yeah, thats not gonna happen. The hardware obviously has to support the effects in order for OpenGL to be able to do it. It'll still need DX 10 like hardware to meet the same level of visual fidelity. So, at that point, why bother with OpenGL if you were planning to only target Windows platforms (which are 90% of PC games)?

XaosII

I was indeed talking about OpenGL running off "DX10" hardware. DX10 in Vista is merely a driver, which is my main point. Technology wise you can benefit from the "DX10" card features in other environments as well, including but not limited to OpenGL running on Windows or Linux architecture.

I believe you should be able to enjoy the benefits of your new DX10 card without having to shell out more money to have access to the DX10 drivers in Vista. Drivers are drivers, and up until now we got drivers for free with each new card. If Microsoft wants money for this now, then I hope we will see free alternatives in OpenGL or similar technologies.

As for people holding the industry back by not upgrading to Vista. I find Microsoft trying to monopolize and control the graphics manufacturers much more of a threat to progress. A monopoly is hurtful to competition, and we need competing technologies to drive the market forward. MS contributed little with Vista, except trying to artificially lock new games and graphics card features to their new operating system to persuade gamers to "upgrade".

As a sidenote, I recently "downgraded" from Vista to XP after running Vista for 8 months, and I now see better compatibility and better performance in my games, as well as other software, I feel relieved to escape from a premature OS and I do not miss DX10 at all. Sure, I guess we will all have to adapt to Vista at some point. And since Microsoft are forcing everyone onto this platform we will eventually see some progress there, making XP obsolete sometime in the future. Not because Vista is superior gaming technology, but because developers will eventually get their head around how to make even Vista work properly and better than XP. They basically have no choice...

Alky Project is no more.zeus_gb

Really? Why did they stop it? Not feasible, not enough resources or Microsoft made legal threats?

Well, yeah.. Microsoft's plan.

Hold Gamers new games hostage (by creating DX10 for Vista only) so they can sell thier crappy new, bloatware, overpriced operating system.

I see no reason to upgrade from XP to Vista. However will we not enjoy the benefits of standarization even if we do not own DX10 software but as long as we own all the harware that is still both DX9 and DX10 compatible?

On the otherhand console gamers this generation are lucky as both Sony and Microsoft are willing to loose billions of dollars in order to either gain dominance in Bluray or in Microsoft's case god knows what.

[QUOTE="OoSuperMarioO"]link specs.foxhound_fox

I know you are lieing becasue X1650 pro is a shader model 3 card

...MS is attempting to monopolize the PC gaming market, I for one will not allow that to happen.foxhound_fox

Microsoft already has a monopoly over the gaming market. If you want to develop a game, and you want it to reach the largest audience, you develop for Windows. And vice versa, you want to play the majority of commerical games, you need to buy Windows.

Besides, Microsoft obviously has to try and get users off of XP and onto Vista, and they do that by adding features that the previous OS doesn't have. If XP had Direct X 10, then for a gamer, the largest reason to buy Vista is gone, and Microsoft want people to move over and Vista and spend money, not stay with XP.

Microsoft wants you to think of the two as one, as it will motivate you to get Vista. But in fact, technically there is nothing that stops DX10 as a standard being valuable on other platforms. OpenGl under Linux could just as well benefit from "DX10" features of a card, possibly making games look even better than DX10 can on Vista - given enough talent. Doom 3 is a good example of how OpenGl once pushed the gaming technology further before, despite the fact Microsoft was putting their mighty marketing muscles behind DirectX at the time.

Blue_Tomato

With DX10 Mixrosoft is in effect trying to take the credit for graphics card manufacturers technological achievements, and coupling new cards with a brand associated with Vista clearly will confuse gamers into believing they will need Vista to play tomorrows games.

DX10 as a technology and driver is more than anything a lock, locking a game to a certain platform, to force you into upgrading your operating system, creating an artificial advantage to buying Vista.

Blue_Tomato

But I hope there will be another John Carmack out there who will prove this to be false, by making a great "DX10"-only game for new OpenGl or other drivers, running on other platforms than Vista. In the meantime we can benefit from projects like the Alky Project, promising to make XP drivers for DX10 games so they will run under XP, like they should be able to.

[QUOTE="Blue_Tomato"]

Microsoft wants you to think of the two as one, as it will motivate you to get Vista. But in fact, technically there is nothing that stops DX10 as a standard being valuable on other platforms. OpenGl under Linux could just as well benefit from "DX10" features of a card, possibly making games look even better than DX10 can on Vista - given enough talent. Doom 3 is a good example of how OpenGl once pushed the gaming technology further before, despite the fact Microsoft was putting their mighty marketing muscles behind DirectX at the time.

Teufelhuhn

With DX10 Mixrosoft is in effect trying to take the credit for graphics card manufacturers technological achievements, and coupling new cards with a brand associated with Vista clearly will confuse gamers into believing they will need Vista to play tomorrows games.

DX10 as a technology and driver is more than anything a lock, locking a game to a certain platform, to force you into upgrading your operating system, creating an artificial advantage to buying Vista.

Blue_Tomato

But I hope there will be another John Carmack out there who will prove this to be false, by making a great "DX10"-only game for new OpenGl or other drivers, running on other platforms than Vista. In the meantime we can benefit from projects like the Alky Project, promising to make XP drivers for DX10 games so they will run under XP, like they should be able to.

"DX9 has its act together well. I like the version of DirectX on the 360. Microsoft is doing well with DX10 on tightening the specs and the exactness. The new features are not exactly well-thought-out. Most developers are pretty happy with DX9. The changes with DX10 aren't as radical. It's not like getting pixel shaders for the first time. Single-pass shaders are nice with DX10, but it's a smaller change." - John Carmack

I know you are lieing becasue X1650 pro is a shader model 3 cardBig_Black_Eyes

Microsoft already has a monopoly over the gaming market. If you want to develop a game, and you want it to reach the largest audience, you develop for Windows. And vice versa, you want to play the majority of commerical games, you need to buy Windows.G013M

[QUOTE="Big_Black_Eyes"]I know you are lieing becasue X1650 pro is a shader model 3 cardfoxhound_fox

Microsoft already has a monopoly over the gaming market. If you want to develop a game, and you want it to reach the largest audience, you develop for Windows. And vice versa, you want to play the majority of commerical games, you need to buy Windows.G013M

1) Trusting Wikipedia blindly w/o double-checking isn't the smartest thing in the world, but okay.....

2) Your point about Blizzard is moot. I'm pretty sure he was speaking in somewhat general terms when he said what he did about games/Windows. Microsoft holding a monopoly over the gaming market though is small potatoes when you consider they still sit on top, over Apple, Linux etc.......unless you see a bunch of smaller, indie-development studios come back, then most everyone else is still going to cater to systems running Windows, because that's where the money is.

[QUOTE="zeus_gb"]Alky Project is no more.Blue_Tomato

Really? Why did they stop it? Not feasible, not enough resources or Microsoft made legal threats?

[QUOTE="Big_Black_Eyes"]I know you are lieing becasue X1650 pro is a shader model 3 cardfoxhound_fox

Microsoft already has a monopoly over the gaming market. If you want to develop a game, and you want it to reach the largest audience, you develop for Windows. And vice versa, you want to play the majority of commerical games, you need to buy Windows.G013M

And where do you think that the majority of their income comes from? Windows users.

But besides, I didn't say that they couldn't develop for other platforms (for example UT3 is coming to Linux AFAIK) -- it's just that you're far, far more likely to see a big-budget PC (PC meaning Windows, Mac, Linux and other) title being exclusive to Windows, rather then it being exclusive to Mac or Linux or any other OS.

The money to support such a big budget title would really only come from such a large user base as Windows.