DX 10 already being phased out, yet DX 9 continues ?

The developers are going to continue to support DX9 for the foreseeable future because that's what the consoles use. Until we get a new console generation DX9 isn't going anywhere. Furthermore, there are a lot of computers out there still running Windows XP, and most developers don't want to lose sales on the PC version by dropping XP support just yet, so another reason for DX9 to stay.

DX11 support is the hot new thing that hardware enthusiasts are clamoring for. Given a choice of spending resources adding DX10 or DX11 support, developers will probably go for 11 to keep the enthusiasts happy, rather than focus on a version of DirectX that never took off due to the failure of Windows Vista.

I doubt anyone will miss dx10 it was pretty much a failure along with vista release.

No they don't, and im tired of that lie. No developer uses the high level API's for the PS3 or 360 because they are too slow; they use the lower order libraries [libgcm for the PS3, and I forget what the 360 one is called] for direct access to the hardware. [Remember ATI's rant about DX being too slow a few months back? Same logic here: Direct HW access is significantly faster, and the preferred method for getting the most out of consoles.]

DX9 is supported because 50% of the market is still using Windows XP. [I said from day 1 that MS not porting DX10 over would kill the API].

DX10 is dieing simply because DX11 is a superset, with a few speed enhancements and Tesselation support. As such, DX10 is rapidly getting phased out.

EA released a patch for Crysis 2 putting in support for DX11. Guess i need to upgrade my card as i will end up playing all games in DX9 on Windows 7 ...sigh

dx10 is useless, it never had any noticeable image quality improvements, they were all very minor but a relatively large performance drop was seen. Tesselation is the biggest thing dx11 brings, although tesselation was available years ago with ati truform, it brings it to a standard that all cards can run. It will still be a while before dx11 cards become a requirement, as only todays higher end cards produce acceptable performance with dx11 and most people are mostly still running dx10 cards anyway.

well, don't know about DX10, but dx11 cards have already become pretty much become the recommended requirements. As I posted earlier, EA released a DX11 Ultra Upgrade and according to the pictures posted on Nvidia site, there is a hell lot of noticeable difference. For now I am going to have to do with the other two parts of the upgrade, i.e patch 1.9 and high-res textures since i won't be able to take advantage of all the pretty features of DX11 anyway. Though, except for differences in Crysis 2, I am yet to notice much difference in other games between DX9 & DX11. Though I do see a need to upgrade in the near future as my hardware will be underused anyway. This sucks. Just got the 9800GT about a year back and am still able to play everything maxed out :-/

DX10 could see a rebirth in the future. When the vast majority of the PC's are DX10 capable, it's possible that DX10 will become the low end DX path.

It really comes down to that. DX9 will be around as long as there isn't a higher level DX path that the vast majority of the population have. DX11 is for the cutting edge atm, leaving DX10 in the middle with little to really offer.

Unlikely rebirth might i add. Next gen consoles will probably go the DX11 way as it is being supported on PCs already and DX11 support on consoles will mean that PC masses won't be getting the console ports and shitty graphics with need for graphics enhancements. They could easily do it through a few patches here and there. Bottom line as the first guy said, DX9 won't die as long as the consoles aren't upgraded. But it might be safe to consider DX10 / 10.1 are already dead. People like me who are yet to see too much of a difference between DX9 and DX11 will probably hold on to the DX10 cards we currently have, but there are those who have money and OCD related to upgrading their PCs who already have DX11 cards and hardware that supports Quadfire / Quad-SLI which is overkill imo.

No they won't. I'm tired of the "consoles use DX" lie thats been going around for years now by people who don't know any better. There isn't a single game on the 360 that is programmed with its DX libarary, and the PS3, Wii, Android, IOS, or any other platform not named Windows uses DX anyways.

Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces (APIs) for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with Direct, such as Direct3D, DirectDraw, DirectMusic, DirectPlay, DirectSound, and so forth. The name DirectX was coined as shorthand term for all of these APIs (the X standing in for the particular API names) and soon became the name of the collection. When Microsoft later set out to develop a gaming console, the X was used as the basis of the name Xbox to indicate that the console was based on DirectX technology.

In a console-specific version, DirectX was used as a basis for Microsoft's Xbox and Xbox 360 console API. The API was developed jointly between Microsoft and Nvidia, who developed the custom graphics hardware used by the original Xbox. The Xbox API is similar to DirectX version 8.1, but is non-updateable like other console technologies. The Xbox was code named DirectXbox, but this was shortened to Xbox for its commercial name.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DirectX

xbox doesn't use directx ?

No real visual improvement from DX9 to DX10, and too many people still running XP because Vista sucked so hard is why there is no motivation for a developer to use dx10.

If you look at steam hardware survey, we get the following interesting results:

80% of gamers have windows 7/Vista. Only around 20% still use Xp.

close to 95% of gamers have dx10/11 graphics cards, with only around 5% still using directx 9 or older. (direct x 11 GPUs are at around 25%, direct x 10 around 65%)

keep in mind that dx11 is backwards compatible with dx0. It really does not make much sense to me why most games are still directX 9. they should drop support for directX 9 altogether, only a small minority need that support, and that minority would be forced to upgrade anyway if games were all in directX 11. those with directX 10 systems would just have to play with dx11 features disabled, but I think now is the time for developers to make games natively in dx11.

Windows XP still dominates the overall install base for all Windows OS. As of December 2010 it still represents slightly over 50% of all PCs. Granted not all of them are gamers.

The Steam survey excludes people who do not have a Steam account. There are a lot of causal gamers who would not necessarily buy games thru Steam or buy games that require Steam for DRM purposes. May people play those free online java/flash based games.

DX9 is not going anywhere any time soon since it is the lowest common denominator for that vast majority of PCs out there. Maybe for hardcore gamers DX9 users is a small minority, but hardcore gamers are a small minority of the entire PC gaming community.

DX10 is dead because DX11 is out there. Why develop games that supports DX10 if the install base of DX10 cards is shrinking? Only people with Windows Vista or Windows 7 can play DX10 titles; the combined install base is almost 50% (as of December 2010). Gamers who currently have DX10 cards will eventually upgrade to DX11 cards. From a development point of view, making a game compatible with DX9, DX10 and DX11 can be a nightmare to include all those graphic effects and the time necessary to debug any graphics issues.

Marking gimmik from the start. No one uses the DX API for the 360 for anything other then XBLA titles, because ITS TOO SLOW. Period.

Direct HW access is still the preferred method for creating games for consoles, so you can squeeze the most performance possible out of hte system.