The age old argument between Direct3D and OpenGL, personally I really like OpenGL as I’ve worked a lot with it and its very easy to use not to mention it is based on C (cross platform) instead of C++ (which is windows based and relies on windows libraries) so its portable and can run on Linux systems. John Carmac loves it too although Doom 3 had it’s issues with global illumination, it still looked awesome. (to note, I’m not a Microsoft fan-boy, I was just stating some facts which many people were overlooking based on a single example of a single game, dx10 isn’t crap, but it might not be “the best”, however it most likely will remain better than dx9 since it is made by the same company) OpenGL are actually working closely with windows to make sure that Vista can support OpenGL at optimal performance and indeed OpenGL continues to range just as good as Direct3D. They have already come up with highly optimized drivers to support the latest versions of OpenGL so that it can run well on Vista but these have to be downloaded separately (as far as I know) and do not come packaged with Windows. In fact, I’m working on a project at the moment where we have made the switch from Direct3D to OpenGL so our application can be cross platform deployable as well as being able to function on a PS3 (which will run on a linux OS). SO, OpenGL gets my vote in many ways and I never knocked it but I thought the discussion was about DirectX 10 which isn’t “crap”. DX10 does have some features which Crysis will use which are not possible with DirectX 9 but perhaps they do lock out some other features, maybe due to focused development on dx10 rather than trying to make dx9 look bad. They are just moving with the times and trying to get the engine looking as good as possible, and I must say it looks pretty amazing so far (even John Carmac said so and a lot of people from Id software, these are all OpenGL developers. During Doom 3 development they almost moved over to Direct 3D in fact but an update on OpenGL made them stick with it) Interesting points though and a very interest area of interest, I’m happy OpenGL is there to offer an alternative to windows and competition for dx10.

"DX10 has loads of potential since they rebuild windows in order to support a completely new architecture related to how the machine actually deals with graphics", my own quote, which clearly states DX 10 is totally different from DX9, dude I'm a games programmer why do you think I'm writing research papers on the topic? The basic core game dynamics can be written using standardized code which means to port the game to PC they didn't have to rewrite the entire program. However, since they built it with DX in mind, they didn't take "full advantage" of DX10's features (the basic code dynamics of DX9 and 10 are actually similar despite the ground architecture being totally different) I also never said that capcom are rookies not knowing anything, just that they didn't have time to fully expore dx10 capabilities in "this" game before they released the port, which the following quote supports ("A Capcom representative told us that the DirectX 10 improvements primarily enhanced performance by up to "10 to 20 percent" through the use of "geometry shaders, depth resolve, and stream output." That means that the Lost Planet demo is only using DirectX 10 to increase performance, not to produce advanced graphics effects.") As for lime05's comment, it takes developers time to get totally comfortable with new technology, clearly if you've been working with DX9.0C for a few years and then start to develop for DX10, it'll take time to explore all the new features especially since DX9 and DX10 are very different. Its like the gamespot reviews of games on the PS3 vs games on the XBox 360, the XBox looked better but gamespot mentioned that it was the second gen of games for the xbox and only the first for the ps3 so developers probably haven't explored what the ps3 can really do just yet. Anyhoo, I know despite backup from the article and the fact that I work with the technology day in and day out I can't win arguments against people that don't really read what I'm writing before trying to defend themselves (from what I don't know, I was just stating facts).

Wow, a lot of people get emotional about hardware. I wrote a research paper on the use of Direct X 10 and Next Gen Engines and basically DX10 has loads of potential since they rebuild windows in order to support a completely new architecture related to how the machine actually deals with graphics, now more focused on the support of 3D graphics technology. Right now the problem is that all of this technology is very new meaning most games still work on a background framework of DX 9 and are "modified" to support DX 10 later (which clearly means not taking full advantage of DX 10 capabilities as they even mentioned in the article). Even the graphics card manufactures haven't got it right. NVIDIA worked pretty close with Microsoft when DX 10 was being produced so they could release the first DX10 compatible card, but even then some of the later DX 10 drivers conflicted slightly with some of the special features of the 8800. The smartest thing for most people to do now is wait until the next Gen of DX10 supported games and graphics cards come out which will probably look a lot better than anything produced on DX9 simply because that is what happens with technology, it gets better!. The PS3 runs on a 7900 series NVIDIA so don't think there is any magic technology that makes that card run better than an 8800, the only catch is the tight architecture design for the PS3 meaning everything is totally designed to run at top performance with the technology inside it, dedicated for games. PC's have a lot more than just games to worry about but at least they are upgradeable. Ok, I'm done with all my ranting. Consoles are great entertainment systems (I've been using PS3, Xbox 360 and the Wii and all are great in their own way) and PC's are more expensive upgradeable all-rounder's (for more than just gaming). So it all comes down to how much money you have to fork out and your requirements. BUT DX10 and next gen graphics cards are clearly more capable of producing amazing results that more dated technology, its just a matter of time.