What Direct3D 10 Is All About

Today's launch of the Nvidia GeForce 8 series marks the advent of next-generation graphics. What can we expect from graphics makers with respect to DirectX 10 hardware?

Hehe page is not even up yet, thanks for the heads up!

Other reviews, (thanks Dailytech)
Motherboard.org
GamePyre
Phoronix
TweakDown
Gotfrag
HardOCP

Read the GTS review from tweakdown, no oblivion test but pretty impress with the overall capabilities of this card! Especially if you limit you're gaming at 1920 and under...

The GamePyre technical part is the most interesting so far. Lots of benches with different AF and AA mode, pretty neat!

Oh and Toms review is up =) and its not even about the G80

Too bad it's strapped to the hip of DRM.

Personally I'd enjoy a comparison with OpenGL... You know, the language that actually defined the shader models... which has been providing GLSL (which maps exactly with HLSL) for a few years now, and which is, accidentally, platform-agnostic (well, not anymore, as Microsoft has decided to cut out support for OGL >1.4 out of Vista)...

It would be nice to compare DX10 and OGL 2.1, for a laugh.

er, sorry buddy, I don't speak that language

Lamens term please?

Yes, lets see some benchmarks. This article isn't very objective. "Everyone run out and buy your card!". I mean really. I think the general consensus in the forums is wait and see.

I have no doubt that the new tech will be great, but as a consumer now, I would have to think about the upgrade path. Be wary of the hype.

Well, I wonder if enough protesting from users might make Microsoft re-consider allowing XP and only XP to run DX10. XP will still have some life left in it.

The best way to protst in this sense would be to just not buy Vista, nor any hardware able to run DX10. This would put pressure on Nvidia and A/Ti/MD to get MS to concede.

Thank you =)

Does OpenGL care whether the OS is 32bit or 64 bit?

it has run in 32 and 64-bit almost since its inception (Alpha...). Moreover, it is not a 3D language: it's a graphics abstraction language, able to do 2D, 3D, off-screen and distributed rendering.

As a matter of fact, it allows the scene to be computed on one computer, and actually rendered on another computer over a classical TCP/IP network - even if the server runs on a Linux 64-bit OS while the client runs windows XP 32-bit (this is still experimental, but it doesn't require a complete overhaul of the language to work - while Direct3D would need yet another one).

It's too bad that most people are not even considering that Vista and DX10 are totally strapped to DRM. I won't be upgrading to either if that means being forced into DRM.

Ahnilated

DRM stands for Digital Rights Management.

It is a term for software designed to protect copyrights to other software and is generally implemented poorly and without much forethought. Frequently DRM prevents legitimate usage of software more effectively than piracy.

Several of the last few games I have purchased did not run properly until I cracked them. As such I hate DRM both as a concept and as the implementation. It is a waste of development dollars and only really harms the legitimate user.

Far. Too. Many.

It is much easier to list which ones do not. There is a thread over in games general discussion where we are working on that list.

Just to add some information about DRM, if applied to something like, say, a book:
- you can't read it in any other place than a closed room at your own place. Forget reading in the bus or at work (you need to buy it again to read it in the bus, then yet again to read it at work), showing the book to other people results in instant page blanking out.
- if you want to quote it, you can; on the condition that you don't quote it more than once, after that you have to buy the book anew.
- you are not allowed to write anything in the margins; doing so requires a professional version of the book, please contact the editor.
- every time you read it, you are supposed to phone the editor to say that you're reading it, and what pages.
- if you buy the tome 2, and tome 2 can only be read if you aknowledge a different set or restrictions - sorry, Rights Management, then those new Rights apply to the first one.
- If you decide to get rid of tome 2, tome 1 becomes unreadable.

Welcome to Vista and DRM.

DRM needs to die a horrible death... preferably taking down a big company with it just for dramatic impact... MS I think is too big for that to happen, but ya never know... ever since Starforce was implemented, I think the concept of DRM turned very nasty indeed.

Right now I use DRM-less stuff, listen to independant music and read old books.
Linux Power; Creative Commons rule.

it looks like Vista's DX10 will stop up/downsampling all variable frequency sound samples to 16-bit, 44100 Hz and match sound I/O to actual hardware more closely. On the other hand, you will now be completely unable to hit the hardware directly.

One reason is DRM, to prevent re-recording of DRM-protected songs.

I don't see why Microsoft just does not trash direct x. if they used open Gl and open AL they could save the money that it cost to develop direct x and there games could be sold to people using Linux, or Gasp OS X .

If the people down at ID Software can make nice Open Gl game engines why can't other people.

Also if Microsoft screws Open GL wouldn't that hurt all the companies that make CAD and 3d rendering software. and the math + science software

Rino3d, Autocad, Maple, MATlab, 3d studio max.. the list goes on ... Come on MS think of the poor engineers, Physics , math people that need Open GL to do their work..

---//>

To get more people to buy their OS, duh! LOL

Well, with Microsoft now working with Novell SUSE or whatever, I wonder if that means that they might make it easier to run DX games under Linux.

Right there with you.

Hell I'd pay decent money just for DX10 on XP.

Errr I am waiting for direct X11

Because of pirates?

With Vista, it'll be harder for peole to pirate copies, meaning more money for Windows. With games being DirectX10, means, Microsoft rakes in more money...

*sighs*

If wine is working on creating something to work with DirectX10 API, I wonder if more people will switch to linux as well

right now, installing Wine is that difficult:
- download the package for your distribution.
- install said package (rpm or apt) using your distribution's tools.
- run winecfg.

The latter creates the virtual drive, converts fonts, gives most relevant directories drive letters, selects best available sound subsystem, says if vertex/pixel shading is hardware-supported or software emulated (or turned off), and sets emulation at Windows 2000 level. On first run. In the user's home directory (so, don't call winecfg as root).

The only modification I usually make to it is specify which drive is a CDROM drive in the advanced options - this allows some copy protection systems to work out of the box.

By the way, Wine now autodetects joysticks.

there is this little thing called irony...