DirectX 10.1 upgrade leaves DX10 obsolete, probably requires new hardware to boot

contraband

I didn't see anything on this, I thought it was pretty big news:

From The Inquirer:

Here's the thing. DX10 hardware - such as the GeForce 8800 or the Radeon 2900 - won't work with the new 10.1 features. The 0.1 revision requires completely new hardware for support, thus royally cheesing off many gamers who paid top whack for their new hardware over the last few months on the basis of future game compatibility.

But these gamers shouldn't fret too much - 10.1 adds virtually nothing that they will care about and, more to the point, adds almost nothing that developers are likely to care about. The spec revision basically makes a number of things that are optional in DX10 compulsory under the new standard - such as 32-bit floating point filtering, as opposed to the 16-bit current. 4xAA is a compulsory standard to support in 10.1, whereas graphics vendors can pick and choose their anti-aliasing support currently.

Full article here.

What do you guys think about this? Are we just now ramping up technology so exponentially that future-proofing is impossible, even from a 0.0 product to the 0.1 version? From what I can tell, 10.1 is bringing only very minimal benefits to the table, which begs the question why you should even roll it out at all. Should DX10 have been what is now DX10.1? That is, all the optional components now compulsory.

Speakeasy

http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showthread.php?t=32103

We just went through this.

darleysam

http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showthread.php?t=32103

we tried this already. it failed.

edit: IN SOVIET RUSSIA, I BEAT YOU!

contraband

I am a failure

Rook

Short story is that 10.1 will bring in the replacement for DirectSound called XAudio2, so hopefully vista will get some decent sound card support. So yeah, it's worth it.

KiTA

Already posted about this, and promptly got out of hand. Entirely my fault, unfortunately.

As far as we know, this is a sensationalist headline and nothing much more. The quotes from Microsoft on this are inconclusive at best -- they mention DX10.1 being "a incremental, side-by-side update to Direct3D 10.0 that provides a series of new rendering features that will be available in an upcoming generation of graphics hardware."

But who knows what that means.

Personally I believe the "side by side" and "available in upcoming hardware" is PR-Speak for "not compatible with DX10.0 cards", but several people pointed out that they're not saying that directly, so...

Who knows? I'm just glad I got a 360 instead of a new Motherboard and Video Card.

Monoxide

Let me just clarify this now because the sensationalist headlines means that we're going to keep getting threads on it despite the fact that it isn't actually news. The fact that you linked to the fucking Inquirer should've been your first tipoff that it isn't a very accurate article.

DirectX 10.1 is an incremental update to DirectX 10, which actually makes changes that it requires hardware manufacturers to update their graphics cards to utilize. This means that, yes, if you want to use these new 10.1 features, you need to get a new card which supports it. I haven't read the actual 10.1 specification press release, so I'm not sure what these features entail, but if even the Inquirer couldn't make a big deal out of the features, I'm pretty convinced they're not worth caring about.

However, using these features is up to software developers, and for a developer to include 10.1 feature support without also including an option to turn said features off would mean they're essentially throwing money into the shitter. No one will do this. DirectX10 games work on DirectX9 cards, just without the pretty DX10 features. It'll be the same thing for DX10.1.

This is news because incremental updates to Direct X have never done this. Microsoft has only made sweeping changes like this between large whole number releases, like between Direct X 9 and Direct X 10. Does it matter to you? Fuck no.

What this means to you, the gamer is that if you want to use the new DirectX 10.1 features, in a game which supports it, you need to have the hardware that supports it as well. This should not be a shock to anyone. It doesn't mean that if you install Direct X 10.1, your games/computer/heart will stop working. It doesn't mean that if you want to update DirectX 10.1, you need to buy new hardware. And it certainly doesn't mean that Direct X 10 hardware is obsolete.

cloudeagle

Have we ever had such an incremental update in DX that has required a hardware update if you want to use it?

I remember the good ole days when you could just download the full new version of DX on your existing computer and be good to go.

Monoxide

cloudeagle wrote: »

Have we ever had such an incremental update in DX that has required a hardware update if you want to use it?

I remember the good ole days when you could just download the full new version of DX on your existing computer and be good to go.

me two posts up wrote:

This is news because incremental updates to Direct X have never done this. Microsoft has only made sweeping changes like this between large whole number releases, like between Direct X 9 and Direct X 10.

cloudeagle

Monoxide wrote: »

cloudeagle wrote: »

Have we ever had such an incremental update in DX that has required a hardware update if you want to use it?

I remember the good ole days when you could just download the full new version of DX on your existing computer and be good to go.

me two posts up wrote:

This is news because incremental updates to Direct X have never done this. Microsoft has only made sweeping changes like this between large whole number releases, like between Direct X 9 and Direct X 10.

*smacks head*

At any rate, this isn't a huge deal, but it does make my brain hurt trying to figure out what my computer can and can't do for a game. If I were Microsoft, I'd try to sell more PC games not by slapping a big ole "Games for Windows" brand on them, but to make them easier to install and play.

Rook

Monoxide wrote: »

cloudeagle wrote: »

Have we ever had such an incremental update in DX that has required a hardware update if you want to use it?

I remember the good ole days when you could just download the full new version of DX on your existing computer and be good to go.

me two posts up wrote:

This is news because incremental updates to Direct X have never done this. Microsoft has only made sweeping changes like this between large whole number releases, like between Direct X 9 and Direct X 10.

Well, arguably Dx9c required SM3.0 which the existing cards 5X00 and 9X00 series didn't have. But you will be downloading the full Dx version when it's released. The only bit people are talking about here is the Direct3d component.

Microsoft plans to do 4 update to the directx Sdk per year so expect more of this.

darleysam

for me, since the showboat for DX10 is Crysis, i'm waiting for the kinds of cards that will make it's eyes bleed to be cheap enough for me to afford (which i'm expecting won't be before the end of this year), so i held off on upgrading. Anyone that already has.. well you should already know that anything you buy is obsolete the minute your money's changed hands, so only pay what you actually deem necessary for the goods, nothing else.

cloudeagle

Microsoft plans to do 4 update to the directx Sdk per year so expect more of this.[/QUOTE]



Is Microsoft trying to make PC gaming hideously complicated?