ozone3d.net — Microsoft claims DX10 (D3D 10, the "important" part for games) can't be ported XP. The truth is you don't even need DX10 to use all major new features of DX10 hardware on ANY platform. That includes XP. How is this possible? OpenGL ofcourse. The only thing stopping MS from porting DX10 is greed, not technology. RTFA before you reply.
Apr 14, 2007 View in Crawl 4
ander1dwApr 14, 2007
Title is misleading, it should read "DX10-based Hardware Works in XP Through OpenGL," not DX10 itself.
redlionApr 14, 2007
on that list of useful *proprietary nvidia extensions* (amazing! game developers will now have to learn the different proprietary extensions of ATI, nVidia, intel...) I still don't see workarounds for the main reasons that required the new driver layer for Vista like GPU task switching and GPU memory management as you can read @ <a class="user" href="http://pollux.arstechnica.com/journals/microsoft.ars/2007/2/14/7060/p1">http://pollux.arstechnica.com/journals/microsoft.ars/2007/2/14/7060/p1</a> even if nvidia allows the developers to use some of the DX10 graphic features through proprietary extensions this does not mean that all of the DX10 features could have easily been ported to XP I don't get why you pretend Microsoft to port DX10 to XP, it's their OS after all and I believe they have all the right to chose which features to port back to older platforms and which not. when you bought XP Microsoft never promised you that they would have gave you newer features for free; it's a company after all and like all the other companies their scope is to make money, like that or not
lickApr 14, 2007
I found the exact article that describes why Direct3D10 is Vista only. Visit: <a class="user" href="http://www.gamedev.net/reference/programming/features/d3d10overview/">http://www.gamedev.net/reference/programming/features/d3d10overview/</a>
happyscrappyApr 14, 2007
This article doesn't cover the main aspect of DX10 that MS uses as an excuse to not port DX10 to XP.That is, in Vista, the kernel schedules GPU tasks. This allows multiple clients to use the GPU simultaneously without having to have intimate knowledge of how every client in the system is using the GPU. In that way, it is just like CPU scheduling allows CPU multitasking.This was needed for Vista because the system uses the GPU to render the UI, while a game may be trying to use it too.And this cannot be easily ported to XP. Note that GL doesn't do this scheduling either, and it cannot since GL is outside the kernel.However, under XP, the system doesn't use the GPU at all, so the game using the GPU is the sole client and you don't need this scheduling unless the game itself has multiple tasks to schedule.So what MS could do (and if I were NVidia I would beg them to do) is bring DX10 to XP with the caveat that games can only have one task using the GPU at once since there is no scheduling. This would allow XP to have much of the DX10 functionality.But the executive version is MS isn't going to do this because they are using DX10 was a lever to sell copies of Vista.P.S.: the article in question is useless in arguing this point. Poor choice by the submitter.
dukeeeeyApr 15, 2007
it would be possibly if someone ported itand graphics card manufacters wrote the driversbut i doubt it will ever happen, although saying that, I think wine runs a few direct x apps/games.
obkenobiApr 16, 2007Submitter
[quote]Is that why they broke openGL on vista?[/quote]They didn't want to support it at all. The only reason they did is because so many pro 3D graphics apps and high-end hardware uses OpenGL.
obkenobiApr 16, 2007Submitter
[quote]P.S.: the article in question is useless in arguing this point. Poor choice by the submitter.[/quote]There's very little documentation so far about supporting DX10 hardware in XP and other platforms. If you know of any, maybe you should submit it to Digg?I assume game developers already know about all this, so maybe we'll have something other than John Carmack's interview to explain it to the non-believers and the MS trolls.