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Game developers, hardware manufacturers and Microsoft all have something to say about the next-generation DirectX protocol, but none have anything to say too positive

AMD's Radeon HD 3850 and HD 3870 will be two of the hottest graphics adaptors for the 2007 holiday season.  The Radeon HD 3800 series, previously codenamed RV670, is a 55nm optical shrink of the 80nm R600 architecture.

One of the only features added to RV670 is the inclusion of DirectX 10.1 support, an API layer that will be rolled out with Microsoft's upcoming Windows Vista Service Pack 1. 

When asked about the advantages of picking up a DirectX 10 graphics adaptor today, versus waiting for NVIDIA or AMD DirectX 10.1 products, Microsoft's senior global director of Microsoft games on Windows, Kevin Unangst, replied, "DX10.1 is an incremental update that won’t affect any games or gamers in the near future."

Microsoft isn't the only developer downplaying DirectX 10.1. Cevat Yerli, CEO of Crytek, states,"We pride ourselves on being the first to adopt any important newtechnology that can improve our games so you would expect us to getwith DX10.1 right away but we've looked at it and there's just nothingin it important enough to make it needed.  So we have no plans to useit at all, not even in the future."

NVIDIA also has a response for AMD's DirectX 10.1 support, a feature of AMD's new HD 3800 series that the company has been rather vocal about.

NVIDIA's corporate roadmap details plans to include DirectX 10.1 in its ninth-generation GPU architecture, codenamed D9. However, the first D9 processors will not debut until next year, likely after the release of Microsoft's Vista Service Pack 1. 

NVIDIA's latest guidance describes DirectX 10.1 as "a minor extension of DirectX 10 that makes a few optional features in DirectX 10 mandatory."

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Well, DX10 still hasn't caught on in earnest...
By HaZaRd2K6 on 11/13/2007 7:38:51 PM , Rating: 2
So why did anyone think that DX10.1 would be a huge improvement? DX10 is tied to Windows Vista and that discourages a lot of people who've heard horror stories about the OS.

Reading Maximum PC last week, I saw that the only reason the GF8 series doesn't support DX10.1 is because development of DX10.1 started too late to be included. And it doesn't give you many huge updates, either. According to Maximum PC, "The update ... is mostly incremental. ... [It] now makes several formerly optional feature mandatory, including 4x AA and 32-bit floating-point filtering."

Looks like my 8800 still has some time left.




RE: Well, DX10 still hasn't caught on in earnest...
By Noya on 11/13/2007 9:35:58 PM , Rating: 1
quote:
DX10 is tied to Windows Vista and that discourages a lot of people who've heard horror stories about the OS.


It's not just that. Most gamers are PC enthusiasts and have no problems with XP Pro, thus, no reason to upgrade to Vista.


RE: Well, DX10 still hasn't caught on in earnest...
By Rabbagast on 11/14/07, Rating: -1
RE: Well, DX10 still hasn't caught on in earnest...
By Frallan on 11/14/07, Rating: 0
RE: Well, DX10 still hasn't caught on in earnest...
By TomZ on 11/14/2007 8:06:45 AM , Rating: 1
I work at a small company, and we've got about a dozen machines we upgraded to Vista about a year ago. Not a single speed or stability issue in the bunch.

There are also tens of millions (hundreds by now?) of people out there using Vista, since a large portion of the PCs sold this year are running Vista. Funny with that large of a number that the Internet wouldn't be just flooded with complaints if what you're saying is true.

I think it's more likely that you're just ill-informed about Vista. Enjoy your ignorance.


RE: Well, DX10 still hasn't caught on in earnest...
By leexgx on 11/14/07, Rating: -1
By TomZ on 11/14/2007 8:54:25 AM , Rating: 5
As a counter point, my parents (not computer savvy) are running Vista and have been for quite a while without any problems. I haven't received a single "tech support" phone call from them. So I'm not sure why you wouldn't recommend Vista to others, but everyone's entitled to their own opinion.


By Spivonious on 11/14/2007 9:24:45 AM , Rating: 4
I couldn't resist...

quote:
It does not matter if millions of people are using Vista. It still does not change the fact that it's not a good OS to use for every task .

If you want everything to work out of the box , XP is there .

If you want to fuss around getting things to work or spending more money to update stuff that works perfectly fine then buy Vista.

For office-use Vista is probably fine (any software less than a year old) .

For large companies and gamers , Vista requires them to probably upgrade every PC and on the new PCs that they get with Vista the software they use probably will not work . Games perform not as smoothly as they do on XP . Games just work on XP ; not all games just work on Vista.

I have Vista on here in a dual boot configuration and I say it's got 1-2 years before I use it as my main OS and I do not recommend it to new users yet ( maybe after SP1 but probably not ).


If English is not your first language, then take this as a learning experience. It's a crazy language and I could never imagine trying to learn it.

If English is your first language, then you need to improve, because you came across sounding like an idiot.

Now, to my reply.

My parents have been running Vista for the past year and have had zero problems with it. My dad enjoys playing Half-Life 2 and Supreme Commander. It's true that Vista will struggle trying to run on a five year-old PC but most users upgrade their hardware more often or will simply buy a new PC with Vista preinstalled. My dad definitely prefers Vista to XP after he got used to the new interface (about two weeks). All of the existing hardware he had (scanners, printers, cameras, etc.) worked with no problems.

Yes it's a pain for large companies to have to upgrade every machine, but there's nothing telling them they have to do it all at once. My company still has some NT4 machines simply because that department hasn't gotten new PCs for a while. I don't think any company is going to upgrade hundreds of PCs to Vista at the same time.


By euclidean on 11/14/2007 1:12:39 PM , Rating: 2
My company just upgraded from Win2K back in August 2006 to WinXP. Took them 5 years of testing before they'd switch. Thought there a big stickler to having everything standard. In the last 10 months I've probably worked on roughly 1,200 machines all of which had XP installed on it when I was done with it if it didn't have it done already. basically when the company said switch, they dropped support for win2k, and whenever someone had an issue or got a new computer, it was switched or setup with XP. They're testing Vista right now and I guess we're looking at another year, maybe 2 before we switch. We have a few test servers already running win server 2k8...they plan on switching to that soon as well.

But ya, Vista is a great OS, sure there's a few bugs, but all these complaints i'm hearing from people are the same complaints I heard when XP hit the market...since XP SP1 though, I haven't heard virtually any complaints for XP.


By ioKain on 11/16/2007 9:51:47 AM , Rating: 1
^^ I think someone was feeling unimportant.


By howtochooseausername on 11/14/2007 12:28:26 PM , Rating: 4
I work in a large organization and consider myself a tech enthusiast.

My company plans to eventually go to Vista but only when we absolutely have to. Vista puts additional infrastructure requirements such as a license server that corporate is unhappy with. Also we have to recertify a bunch of apps that we use.

This wasn't the case when we moved from win2k to winxp.

Personally, I find Vista annoying, and as pretty as it is, it's just doesn't add functionality with all that prettyness. For my group, we are going to replace our desktops with Apple MBPs.

For my home computer, I'm willing to put up with some slowness for better visuals. But I just can't seem to get used to Vista. The layout of things in Control Panel are counter intuitive, and I have to work a lot harder to get things done. Even that I'm willing to put up with, but not the fact that my games run slower in Vista than in XP.

My analysis of Vista is that it is a lot of 'bling bling'; lots of pretty shiny things but no style or substance.


By hopsandmalt on 11/14/2007 11:31:38 AM , Rating: 4
I have to agree with TomZ. I am a gaming enthusaist myself, and I havent had a single problem with Vista. At release, sure there was a glitch or two, now, no way. All of my peripherals have solid drivers. Soundblaster and NVIDIA now have decent drivers.

My system is DDR3, I have 2 gig ram, several large HDs, dual core processor, and an 8800 ultra. Crysis runs perfectly maxed out. LOTRO has now incorportated DX 10 support and is absolutely beautiful with no glitches. World in Conflict, DX 10 support. Flight Sim X will have DX 10 support. The list is starting to grow, and I firmly believe that there are graphical differences between DX10 and DX 9.

One of the largest issues with Vista and gaming was fixed several months ago when Microsoft patched the issues with memory management and high end video cards. So... It is hard for me to see people write that there are still SO MANY ISSUES WITH VISTA, when there really arent any. I can frag like the best that are using XP.

Oh sorry, one more thing.... Someone mentioned something like: Aero=slow. Truth is, most games (good games) take Vista out of Aero mode before loading anyway. After all, why do you need Aero while playing a game?

Thanks!

Have a great day!


By Screwballl on 11/14/2007 12:12:11 PM , Rating: 4
So your one or two installs qualify as a large scale source of stability?
Come back when you have hundreds under your belt like me and have seen problems with well over 75% of all Vista installs in less than 3 days.


RE: Well, DX10 still hasn't caught on in earnest...
By TomZ on 11/14/2007 7:27:18 PM , Rating: 3
1. Since when does a "dozen" equal 1 or 2?

2. How many "problems" would you see when deploying any operating system to hundreds of machines? Nearly any install of any OS on any machine is going to have some minor issues, whether that is Vista, XP, or even Linux. Get real - software's not perfect.

3. 75% might be indicating you don't know what you're doing. You might not want your superiors to know about that figure. :o)


By elgoliath on 11/14/2007 7:34:57 PM , Rating: 2
I was thinking the same thing as your #3- I'll be the first to say Vista has had it's issues (tho not nearly as bad as some make it out to be), but if I had an issue with 75% I think I'd be looking for a new job....


By Screwballl on 11/16/2007 10:00:27 AM , Rating: 3
1. a dozen is nothing compared to a computer tech that has dealt with this in the real world with hundreds of installs... your few non-problematic installs is the exception rather than the rule. I have never had to stand by the computer to monitor the install process as much as I have had to with Vista. Since the Win3.1 days I have installed thousands and thousands of Operating systems and usually just check it, next, next next, yes, product key, then walk away. Vista has had so many problems that I have to waste my time monitoring it and watching the install the entire time. This is usually when I get several Vista installs going at the same time with the error/repair log next to the machine.

2 & 3. Looking back on OS installs, these numbers are from the owners own recorded statistics among several store, (only one of which I was employed but went out on my own), not my personal stats. These numbers reflect OS related problems:
Vista - 73% of them have problems during or just after installation. Extend this to more than 6 months and this number rises to around 90%.
XP - 16% had problems pre-SP1 and around 5% after SP1. More than 6 months with SP1 or 2 = 18% (if you include user error then it goes up to around 40%).
WinME - 60-70% had problems. Over 6 months closer to 95%
Win98 - 38% with 1st edition, 24% with 98SE. Over 6 months adds about 10% for every 6 months until it tops out around 85% due to age.
Linux - less than 10% but it depends on configuration and has gotten to the point that even if there is a hardware conflict it still works to the full extent minus that one device. I just got my X1950GT working in Fedora Core 8 and we all know how ATI/AMD is with their linux drivers. Over 6 months the number actually goes down because of how good the open source community is at fixing things.

The ONLY machines that seem to have very few to no problems with Vista are certain specific models from OEMs. If you look at all OEM models there is still a 30-40% "problem" rate among Vista machines within its first few weeks. Could be due to drivers or other issues but it is ALWAYS OS related. I have an XP Home (OEM - Dell) install that has run for 5 years now without a single problem EVER. I have other installs (Xp Pro) that have been running for 3 full years 24/7 without a problem. Yet I have heard of ONLY 1 Vista install that has run 8 months without a single problem. All the others have had at least a driver issue, OS crash, kernel dumps, hardware or software incompatibility among plenty of other problems.

I can care less of being voted down, I know there are plenty of MS fanboys that don't want people talking bad about their precious DX10 easter egg OS that is the greatest thing since the moon landing.
Granted some people may not have problems but also a good majority of them do not have the education to actually dig into their system and see that there truly is a problem that just has not taken a physical error message (yet) or even something as simple as going into the Device Manager and seeing something not working. This is where our numbers come from. Vista is inherently a very bad OS that should still be on the beta table ironing out its many built in problems.


RE: Well, DX10 still hasn't caught on in earnest...
By Aikouka on 11/14/2007 8:29:17 AM , Rating: 1
I've been running Vista Ultimate (32 and 64-bit) on two machines that I built and I haven't had a problem at all with them. Well, I did have my nVidia drivers blue-screen on me a lot in the beginning (only once during normal activity, but they'd mess up if I played a game (WoW) and a video at the same time), but everyone knew how bad the G80 Vista drivers were in the beginning :P.

There is one thing I've noticed about Vista though. It seems whenever I hear a horror story about it, I just have to ask one question, "OEM or home-built machine?" It seems the answer is always OEM. Now this doesn't mean someone with a home-built machine hasn't had a bad time, but in my experience, it seems most Vista woes tend to come from Dells, HPs, etc.