DirectX 11 OTW

Duper · Post by **Duper** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 10:35 am

welp.. this is totally worthless to me.

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 11:21 am

Yeah, nothing new here. Ever since the Geforce 3 came out with programmable hardware (instead of fixed function) it was inevitable Microsoft would get on the bandwagon to support GPGPU. This largely means nothing for games.

fliptw · Post by **fliptw** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 1:40 pm

pretty much guarantees that few games will need anything more than dx9 till windows 7 comes in 2012.

they should open source DX-doubtful, but they should.

Video card makes should also make cards that run cooler-doubtful, but they should.

BUBBALOU · Post by **BUBBALOU** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 2:48 pm

So does this mean when windows 7 comes out with it's yearly subscription plan that Dx-XX will have a pay to download feature rates??

Microsoft will not take second seat to BLIZZARD

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 4:16 pm

\"just a few days ago\"... uh... DX10 was released one and a half years ago. Guess time flies for some.

GPGPU will have some impact on some games; probably more on those that benefit from highly parallel architectures. I also doubt DX11 is only intended to address that. New graphics technologies come out fairly regularly, after all. The problem is that GPUs are struggling enough with their current job sometimes (Crysis?), so moving even more off to the GPU when CPUs are becoming increasingly parallel themselves might not make a lot of sense.

Open-sourcing DirectX doesn't seem to have much purpose, in my mind. For video cards to manufacture compliant cards, there does need to be a standard implementation; so at the end of the day the decisions regarding what will and will not be included need to be made at one place. I'm not seeing how opening it up to all and sundry will actually help that.

Also, some video cards do already run cooler than others. I recall the GF6xxx generation used less power than the 5xxx generation; even these days it's still possible to get cards that don't have massive power consumption. Usually at mid-range to lower end, unfortunately, but if the high-end had low power consumption you could safely release a higher-clocked version of the same card and get a new high-end card, so...

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 4:38 pm

If you look at the amount of actual work being done per watt, GPUs shouldn't be doing that bad really. Also, look at the idle power consumption of the latest GTX280 parts from Nvidia, they use pretty aggressive clock gating and other power management techniques to lower the idle power consumption. Although load power is another story, 1.4 billion transistors on a now dated 65 nm process get pretty hungry when they kick into full speed.

Duper · Post by **Duper** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 6:02 pm

I seem to recall reading the other day that the newer GPU's that Nvidia is having printed is on much smaller architecture. I'll see if I can track that article down. It was a couple months back. But you are correct. 65nm is extremely antiquated. There shouldn't be any reason they are still building transistors the same size the pentium had. .. or was the 486?

Jeff250 · Post by **Jeff250** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 6:23 pm

Hm?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/65_nanometer

Duper · Post by **Duper** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 6:28 pm

doh, I was thinking of measurements in microns. .. I'm still looking for that article. it was interesting. Thanks for the link.

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 9:16 pm

65 micron might have preceded VLSI... that scale is probably visible.

Duper · Post by **Duper** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 9:42 pm

I thought that Intel is down to something like .9 micron or some such. Aw well.. I'll shutup before I start chewing on my other foot.

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 3:00 am

0.045 micron (45 nm), which is why a different measurement unit is used these days.

JMEaT · Post by **JMEaT** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 7:51 am

Still pimping GF6 and 7 series here. (And Windows XP!)

1x GF 6800
2x GF 7600 GS
1x GF 7950 GT

TIGERassault · Post by **TIGERassault** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 2:38 pm

Well, you can't say anything bad about a new DirectX being released!

Except for DirectX turning Vista-exclusive. But I sincerely doubt there'll be anyone still using XP and expecting to be able to run all the new games once they start only using post-Dx9 properly.

BUBBALOU wrote:So does this mean when windows 7 comes out with it's yearly subscription plan that Dx-XX will have a pay to download feature rates??

Microsoft will not take second seat to BLIZZARD

Yup, totally. A company releasing it's 11th coding platform version free is a sure sign that they're planning on putting a price on future versions. Sure.

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 3:13 pm

Pretty sure Bubbalou wasn't being serious there.

TIGERassault · Post by **TIGERassault** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 3:28 pm

Sirius wrote:Pretty sure Bubbalou wasn't being serious there.

Yeah, but I was just getting really fed up with the big-companies-like-to-take-advantage-of-customers jokes and stereotypes.

Duper · Post by **Duper** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 4:11 pm

Sirius wrote:0.045 micron (45 nm), which is why a different measurement unit is used these days.

thx. that makes a lot more sense.

Tigerassault wrote: Well, you can't say anything bad about a new DirectX being released!

Except for DirectX turning Vista-exclusive. But I sincerely doubt there'll be anyone still using XP and expecting to be able to run all the new games once they start only using post-Dx9 properly.

Dude! Are you joking??!! that is THE worst thing about it. It's called strong arming your customer base. And yeah it's free. It's in their best interest. Give it people free and REQUIRE the industry to use it. ppfft.

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 4:49 pm

The industry isn't required to use it, though. I still haven't heard of any DX10+-only games coming out, although it may not be too much longer.

P.S. Except Halo 2, which is a bit of a special case, and ... really, a bit of a joke.

fliptw · Post by **fliptw** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 9:46 pm

dx10 or higher only titles won't happen until consoles support DX10...

Halo2 was a big joke tho.

Foil · Post by **Foil** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 10:05 pm

I thoroughly enjoyed Halo2 on my Vista box. It looked absolutely stunning compared to the XBox version I had played a few years ago.

Richard Cranium · Post by **Richard Cranium** » Fri Jul 25, 2008 9:04 am

Sirius wrote:The industry isn't required to use it, though. I still haven't heard of any DX10+-only games coming out, although it may not be too much longer.

P.S. Except Halo 2, which is a bit of a special case, and ... really, a bit of a joke.

I think the PC version of Shadowrun also requires DX10 but thats a MS game too. Could be wrong though.

TIGERassault · Post by **TIGERassault** » Fri Jul 25, 2008 12:06 pm

Halo2 and Shadowrun are really classed more as Vista-exclusive than Dx10 exclusive.

Duper · Post by **Duper** » Fri Jul 25, 2008 2:43 pm

TIGERassault wrote:Halo2 and Shadowrun are really classed more as Vista-exclusive than Dx10 exclusive.

same thing. You can't run vista on Dx9(you aren't even given that option) and you can't run Dx10 on XP.

Grendel · Post by **Grendel** » Sat Jul 26, 2008 12:17 am

Ahem. DX10 contains DX9. Actually all previous versions of DX are supported by the current DX. You can run the Vista GUI on DX9 by turning of Aero.

Duper · Post by **Duper** » Sat Jul 26, 2008 2:12 am

Split it like you want Gren.

MS made no beef about making Vista backwards compatible. It probably also has components of Dx 7 and 8 as well.

TIGERassault · Post by **TIGERassault** » Sat Jul 26, 2008 8:31 am

Duper wrote:You can't run vista on Dx9

I think you've been drinking too much Duper, your sentences are backwards.

AceCombat · Post by **AceCombat** » Sat Jul 26, 2008 2:10 pm

JMEaT wrote:Still pimping GF6 and 7 series here. (And Windows XP!)

1x GF 6800
2x GF 7600 GS
1x GF 7950 GT

same here, XP Pro, Skt 478 P4EE 3.4, 7800GS AGP

Duper · Post by **Duper** » Sat Jul 26, 2008 8:16 pm

TIGERassault wrote:
Duper wrote:You can't run vista on Dx9
I think you've been drinking too much Duper, your sentences are backwards.

*edit* retort removed by me.

Sorry to be so snappy Tiger.
What I was meaning in that statement and not conveying it well was it's nearly impossible to run Vista on Dx9. you might be able to but I assume it would involve a "major" hack job to do it as it was mentioned by Krom (I think?) that Dx 10 is installed with Vista.

not that any of this REALLY matters.

DirectX 11 OTW

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