DirectX 10 Hardware Rendered Obsolete by Microsoft

Started by Atomm · 7 posts · 1,143 views

  1. #1
    From /.

    "SIGGRAPH 2007 was the stage where Microsoft dropped the bomb, informing gamers that the currently available DirectX 10 hardware will not support the upcoming DirectX 10.1 in Vista SP1. In essence, all current DX10 hardware is now obsolete. But don't get too upset just yet: '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. We suspect that the spec is likely to be ill-received. Not only does it require brand new hardware, immediately creating a minuscule sub-set of DX10 owners, but it also requires Vista SP1, and also requires developer implementation.'"


    Wow.... I mean, really, wow.... Talk about a huge blow to the video card manufacturers.

    And yet, another reason not to buy Vista at least until SP1. The groovy cool new benefits that it proposes for Gamers simply don't matter.....

  2. #2
    Bill: "How can we further alienate our user-base?"

    Paul: "Hmmm. . .I don't know if we can. I mean, security problems out the wazoo, an OS that suffers under the yoke of crippling HD-DVD/Blu-ray copy protection, uses way too many resources and gives no real benefit until the DX 10 games come out. . . "

    Bill: "THAT'S IT!" All those cool, expensive graphic cards people bought in anticipation of playing Crysis - let's make 'em buy new hardware!"

    Paul: "Brilliant!"

    Bill: "Brilliant!"
  3. #3
    That needs to be a cartoon..... :-)

  4. #4
    Glad now I didn't drink the DX10 cool-aide. Although I will say tomorrow (when I officially become a student again) I am going to the campus bookstore to buy my nearly free license of Vista and XP 64Bit. I don't imagine I will install Vista, maybe on an extra harddrive, I just need to learn to trouble shoot it.
  5. #5
    Wow. Wonder if there is a way to change this thru a firmware update? I would be pissed if I bought a card just to play crysis. As it is I'll probably just go this route. Alky
  6. #6
    Is Alky still moving forward? I figured M$ would have shut them down by now....

  7. #7
    Sagz wrote:
    Wow. Wonder if there is a way to change this thru a firmware update? I would be pissed if I bought a card just to play crysis. As it is I'll probably just go this route. Alky

    Cool. I'd heard about this some time ago, but didn't know much about it, as I don't have any DX10 hardware anyway. I hope they pull it off and can give us a real XP solution. I'm not going to Vista on this machine at all, and I'll have to see what things look like when I build a new machine - I might not go Vista then either.

    I'm not a fan of the mandatory OS migration without compelling reason. If DX10 runs on XP, that's one of the biggest Vista advantages eliminated.