bit-tech.net — Vista launched today, and the new OS promises (eventually) to give gamers a whole new world with DirectX 10. The article goes into some of DX10's offerings and why it will be great for developers, and therefore gamers. It's a bit of a technical read, but very interesting.
Nov 30, 2006 View in Crawl 4
kn0w1Nov 30, 2006
But what if you make a game that uses DX10 and the Xbox360 it's going in hasn't been updated (or even has an Xbox Live account) ?Console games need to run "out of the box" (whether that box is the console or the game ..)But maybe they could do like PSP games and do some version check before running and have the software on the disc to update if needed? (Just speculating as i don't know how Xbox 360 games boot, etc.)
digitaldudDec 1, 2006
FSX supports Direct3D 10 (with a soon to be published update) and the game itself is out now. =)
ademanDec 1, 2006
@seanmacWhat are you talking about? Most sane developer's write their 3d code around an abstraction layer which has a Direct3D or OpenGL backend, though admittedly that trend does seem to be fading, as microsoft continues to push their proprietary crap on everyone. (Although I attribute the majority of Direct3D adoption to D3DX (a set of helper functions for everything from 3d transformations to model loading) )And i've stressed this time and time again. DirectX and OpenGL are ONLY INTERFACES TO HARDWARE. Direct Sound interfaces a sound card, Direct3D and OpenGL interface graphics cards, and so on. It's not like Direct3D "makes" any effects, it simply exposes the functionality to a program. Having said that, OpenGL exposes new effects in a much better way, without breaking the entire API every iteration.OpenGL has broken backwards compatibility once in its 13 year run. Direct3D has broken it's API every single iteration since i've used it (Dx7)Having said that, OpenGL is going to break its API a second time jumping from OpenGL 2.1 to OpenGL 3.0 They are totally changing the object model. This is actually a GOOD thing, as opposed to Direct3D's changes which mostly consist of an extra parameter or two and renaming a function, basically a refactoring nightmare.OpenGL 3.0 promises geometry shaders, longer vertex and fragment(pixel) shaders.And several things Direct3D 10 doesnt have, namely superbuffers, which will allow batching of epic proportions. Render to vertex BUFFER. among other things.Long story short: OpenGL 3.0 > DirectX 10 based on features aloneDirect X 10 > OpenGL 3.0 on supportwinner = ?Who knows, with all of the exciting OpenGL 3.0 features, more and more people might switch (back) over to openGL.
lucas448Dec 1, 2006
good thing i just got that 512 graphics card :) now for ram...
obkenobiDec 1, 2006
[quote]After perusing the article, I still personally fail to see what advantages DirectX 10 has over OpenGL 2.0[/quote]It allows script kiddies to act like they're graphics programmers and make buggy, bloated games.
obkenobiDec 1, 2006
There will be soon. And they won't need DX10 or Vista!
obkenobiDec 1, 2006
[quote]The 360 uses DirectX, Managed DirectX and the.Net APIs.[/quote]DX, but not DX10.
honoredmuleDec 2, 2006
What, the effort that brought developers and hardware vendors together to collaborate on the next generation of graphics capability? Or the effort that implemented an API to use that capability. OpenGL benefits from the efforts of DirectX and the other groups that participated in this collaboration...if OpenGL wanted to to be the innovator, it should put up the investment into a unified vision of the future like Microsoft has done.They don't get a cookie for being able to copy what Microsoft made possible. It's a sad day when brick and mortar companies do a better job of collaborating than the open source zealots...for some, at least. But I can't really say I'm surprised. No leadership = no focus/creative vision/direction/agreement = no innovation.
mrviklundMar 29, 2008
Great article.
mrviklundMar 29, 2008
Great article.