AMD: DirectX Comments Taken Out of Context
AMD is performing damage control, announcing its full support for DirectX after last week's interview with Richard Huddy.
Just over a week after AMD's worldwide developer relations manager of its GPU division, Richard Huddy, spoke out against DirectX and other APIs, the company now says that it supports DirectX and that the previous comments were taken out of context and exaggerated. While that may be true, Huddy's latest interview with CRN-- along with senior director of ISV relations at AMD Neal Robison--also comes across as damage control.
"The [Bit-tech] interview started off being about OpenGL, and the way APIs are developed," Huddy said. "Obviously there’s pressure from Microsoft on hardware vendors to develop DirectX in a variety of ways. We spend a great deal of time getting feedback from game developers in the early phase of our hardware development, for products that are two or three years away from going to market."
The previous interview claimed that developers want the API to "go away," that it's getting in the way of creating some truly amazing graphics. Huddy himself was even quoted saying that developers have admitted this in conversations. But in this latest interview, he said that only a handful of high-end gaming developers were looking to bypass DirectX and code directly to hardware.
"It’s not something most developers want," he said. "If you held a vote among developers, they would go for DirectX or OpenGL, because it's a great platform. It’s hard to crash a machine with Direct X, as there’s lots of protection to make sure the game isn’t taking down the machine, which is certainly rare especially compared to ten or fifteen years ago. Stability is the reason why you wouldn’t want to move away from Direct X, and differentiation is why you might want to."
"We saw some of the chaos before DirectX coalesced the industry,” Robison added. "In the past there were all kinds of APIs developers had to worry about."
Later on in the interview, Huddy revealed that there's a division starting to take place in the gaming industry: those that want to stick with DirectX and other APIs, and those that want to move on in another direction. He even provided an example, saying that developers like DICE have highly-tuned, efficient rendering machines that rely on DirectX. Then there are developers like Crytek who literally sell hardware because they seemingly develop for technologies in the future, and could actually bypass an API.
"Many people are still shipping DirectX 9 games, which is still a perfectly reasonable way to go," Huddy admitted. "As hardware vendors we want to keep bringing out new hardware that produces something visually exciting. We want to be able to innovate. In the feedback we’re getting, some say 'move on from Direct X' and some say 'DX is absolutely the right place to play.'"
He also said that the comment about developers wanting the API to "go away" shouldn't be taken literally. Instead, APIs and middleware need to be innovative and adapt with evolving software code as well as GPU hardware, essentially taking "a different form."
Unlike the first interview, Huddy's follow-up to the Bit-Tech interview is rather lengthy. To get the full four-page dose, head here.
- Microsoft,
- EA,
- Crytek Studios,
- AMD,
- DirextX ,
- OpenGL ,
- APIs ,
- Neal-Robison ,
- Richard-Huddy
- Buffalo Launching Portable BDXL Burner for $286
- Pitchford: Here's Why Duke is Delayed Again
- Report: Moto Building Web-based Smartphone OS
- Nvidia's Official GeForce GTX 590 Release Video
- Intel, AMD Fiercely Fighting For Market Share
- AMD ''Interlagos'' Bulldozer Benchmarks Leaked
- Guild Transfer, Rename Services Coming to WoW
- Crysis 2: PC and Consoles Compared in MP Demo
- Crysis 2 Maximum Graphics Edition Unboxing
- Google ''Not Ready'' to Release Honeycomb Code
- Intel Announces New 320 SSD Series
- AMD: Fusion Makes Sense For Next-Gen Consoles
- Crysis 2 SP Shootout: PC vs. Xbox 360 vs. PS3
- The Winners of the $1000+ Core i7 CPU Giveaway
- Microsoft Distributing Windows 8 to Key OEMs?
- Bummer: Crytek Denies Crysis 2 DirectX 11 Patch
- Acer Dual-screen Iconia Up for Preorder at $1200
- AMD Readying Radeon HD 6790 for April 5?
Like developing a console port that only supports DX9 in 2011, when Crysis 1 from 3.5 yrs ago had DX10.
ha! So true...hence why I wont be buying Crysis 2. Im no EA fan, but at least the DICE guys are focusing on the PC.
So my hard earned money will be going to Battlefield 3. It looks amazing and with the return of 64 player support, I already put in my pre-order.
Crysis 2 was made in DX9 as that is ALL THAT THE CONSOLES CAN HANDLE
They have already said that DX11 will be there for the PC with hardware that can take advantage of DX11 effects
stop developing for consoles and then porting to PC....this is where a lot of the developers go wrong....i am sure it's cheaper and easier to do but it's not good for progress
Well, at least John Carmack strongly disagrees with Mr. Huddy!
C.R.E.A.M.
Microsoft is commited with Xbox, not PC games. See the reason of the flaming on DirectX? Video card makers are doomed and they know it. Their last hope is OpenGL which doesn't seem to get love from game developers.
Hah... Damage control. That's probably my favorite term of all time when it comes to just about everything.
Taken out of context? Who didn't think that to start with? (except the authors on news sites like this one)
It's no secret that direct access to the GPU is the fastest way to go. DirectX is... in my opinion, For mid to low end graphics/mid/low end games. I believe that DirectX was originally intended to get up starters to develop games, the more games the better, TONS of games(But they are Grade B games). That way Microsoft got more indirect marketing/exposure.
that huddy guys is absolutley right, years ago direct x did conform the pc gaming industry to a set standard.. i have never been a fan of direct3d tho as i think opengl is/was a better api.. but in this age.. Direct x is hindering the graphics card makers, for eg many times we have seen nvidia and Ati add features that have never been supported in games as support for them was never in direct 3d, for example ati truform was a tesselation engine developed in the direct x 8 era... as powerful as truform was it was never included in games.. this is the reason i think opengl was/is better because it can allow developers to add support the open source api.. (aka doom 3).. now in direct x 11 finally tesselation is supported but truform is not.. must be so fustrating for developers
we should all format our pc's and purge microsoft bloat forever lol
stop developing for consoles and then porting to PC....this is where a lot of the developers go wrong....i am sure it's cheaper and easier to do but it's not good for progress
its great for progress, the devs make more money so that the CAN progress. otherwise if all they released were high end dx11 titles only they would make no money and not be around for long. You obviously have no idea of the cost and time involved in making a game, especially when you overcomplicate the graphics.
we should all format our pc's and purge microsoft bloat forever lol
and move to apple bloat? or mainstram ubuntu linux bloat. anything that is easy to use and is compatable with numerous hardware configs is going to be bloat unfortunately.
Long live Glide!
Why can't MS just drop DirectX 9 already?
Because of it we're stuck on trying to optimize an obsolete architecture instead of focusing on the new DirectX 1x series API which in many cases (there are exceptions, as demonstrated by Dirt 2) are way more efficient compared to the older API.
What do we really want, faster DirectX 9 games or a more mature and feature rich DirectX 12?
Huddy does have a point. Microsoft is caught between their work on the PC platform and their cash cow of Xbox360. Now with Kinect, the Xbox and DirectX9 looks to live on for another 3-4 years...
its great for progress, the devs make more money so that the CAN progress. otherwise if all they released were high end dx11 titles only they would make no money and not be around for long. You obviously have no idea of the cost and time involved in making a game, especially when you overcomplicate the graphics.
Progress when we have games that are only DX9 and its 2011?!? You call dumbing down EVERY title to consoles progress?
Ray Trace is the game technology of the future:
http://software.intel.com/en-us/ar [...] ay-traced/
Well, maybe sometime in the next decade.
Direct access to GPU, close to metal, allows consoles to match Windows on Crysis 2.
Windows is burdened by layers and layers of APIs. Windows GPU have more than 10X the power of best consoles, so the burden of API means that we only enjoy 0.10X of the power of PC GPUs...
But going closer to metal on PC will solve nothing. A developer may spend 2 years creating an amazing game for a given architecture, but after a GPU upgrade, the game stops working, because GPU can't evolution without architecture changes. That's what API do; API translate standard code to different architecture codes. Without API, there is no compatibility, no PC, no evolution.
ha! So true...hence why I wont be buying Crysis 2. Im no EA fan, but at least the DICE guys are focusing on the PC. So my hard earned money will be going to Battlefield 3. It looks amazing and with the return of 64 player support, I already put in my pre-order.
I will destroy you in the battlefield 3 okie dokies??
Direct access to GPU, close to metal, allows consoles to match Windows on Crysis 2.Windows is burdened by layers and layers of APIs. Windows GPU have more than 10X the power of best consoles, so the burden of API means that we only enjoy 0.10X of the power of PC GPUs...But going closer to metal on PC will solve nothing. A developer may spend 2 years creating an amazing game for a given architecture, but after a GPU upgrade, the game stops working, because GPU can't evolution without architecture changes. That's what API do; API translate standard code to different architecture codes. Without API, there is no compatibility, no PC, no evolution.
You're confusing the API with the device driver.
An API does simplify development, because it removes even the device driver from the equation, and allows one to write for NVIDIA, Intel and AMD all at once, but with overhead.
Also, you're incorrect about the compatibility. It assumes they change the instruction set, or more to the point, have it so existing instructions do not run. You can change an architecture without making old instructions not work. Look at the 386, and look at Sandy Bridge. And that's from 1986. If they're not doing it already, they'd have no trouble making a stable instruction set with what they know now, and keeping it for every generation without much, if any, sacrifice. They may be doing it already.
iam2thecrowes said: or mainstram ubuntu linux bloat.
Really? Ubuntu, bloated??? If memory serves, a fresh Ubuntu install is something like 2GB of disk space, and it includes office, torrent, email, cd/dvd burning, etc... software... Fire up Ubuntu Software Center and install a handful of IDEs, a slew of games, and some other random stuff, you may be looking at a 10 to 20gb install.
Whereas Windows 7 installs to something like 20gb, immediately bloats itself to 30gb with shady background HDD activity, and doesn't really come with anything useful. Chuck in Microsoft Bloated Office, Microsoft Bloated Visual Studio, and a few other bloated M$ productivity items, and you're looking at 40 to 60GB.
Like developing a console port that only supports DX9 in 2011, when Crysis 1 from 3.5 yrs ago had DX10.
And Crysis 1 still challenges todays hardware.
As for coding directly to hardware, if I remember correctly Intels Larrabee was supposed to allow that while also developing for DirectX and OpenGL still.
Dudes this so called bloat of installation on hard disk does NOT matter.
It's the instruction PATH all the way down that determines the speed.
The hard drive memory cells don't slow down the process and have nothing to do with it on a hardware level.
The reason there is talk about slower because of space is because of RAM fragmentation+defragmentation+other stuff going on.
We need optimized drivers for pc, it's that simple.
Maybe precompilation or compilation of gpu-code when starting application by drivers just as done by regular C would mean serious catch-up to the consoles.
Or something that does an if/case with instruction sets/hardware and lets you use higher-level or assembler would make it possible to make programs that:
1) Can fallback to an api when necessary
2) Can provide close to metal optimized code in a flexible way.
Something like this would make it possible to let the game developers choose very freely what they want to do.
Don't want to use special gpu-assembly code to do stuff. Fine.
Want to provide gpu-assembly code. Fine! And what the heck we can even throw in api-fallback when the gpu-assembly code doesn't work.
Tada!!! Everybody happy and hopefully cross-pollination!!
What the frack?!?
Since when does Crytak have a majority share of graphics cards on the desktop platform?
Direct low level access to the graphics card was a nightmare for game development. Anyone remember DOS when this used to be the norm? Remember how annoying it was to have to live with crappy graphics because your graphics card wasn't supported (bummer) and you had to use something similar to VGA compatibility mode? Games built with DirectX can run on any graphics card ever created as long as said graphics card has enough muscle. With DirectX it's possible to create graphics so realistic that they almost don't even look animated. It takes very little effort compared to DOS's direct low level access. Many of AMD's 5000 series graphics cards are capable of rendering these kinds of graphics both in single mode and in Crossfire.
Interesting, I'm all for DX11 but if developers take the time they can still make some gorgeous DX9 games (Napoleon: Total War, Crysis- even Crysis 2 still looks amazing). And annymmo- read the quote again- it got me as well. What they are saying is that people buy really expensive hardware to run Crytek's games. If it wasn't for Crytek really- high end cards wouldn't sell as much.
does 3dmark 2011 graphics need a low level to make such a graphics? that is dx11 with all features on and looks fantastic, sometimes even looks photorealistic. what cant crysis2 do that? why cant you developers develops some games with that such a graphics?
As a relatively new machine builder but avid gamer, I want to go on record as saying that this comment section is confusing. All this time I've been wandering around thinking I knew what DirectX was, what it did, where it was going, etc... now I see it's just an old dog still hanging around that no one really likes.
i'm so sick of eharing idiots say stupid things like "consoles are holding back graphical progress" or "devs need to built for teh highest system specs possible"
to those of you that have made coments along those lines, i have to say , you must be the biggest self centered, pampered a-- rich idiots in the world.
let me ask you , would you go bust your hump as a trash man for free or for 1/3 rd the usual pay??? if the answer you give is "no" then ask yourself why should you expect games developers to do the same?
graphically progressive games DO NOT put food on the table , nor does it get developer's kids through college, And it ceratinlly doesn't leave companies much moolah to work with as far as staying releveant enough to actualy make any kind of incremental graphical progress on thier next game.
my point being making games is a buisness ,much liek what ever job you avhe is a buisness , and buisnesses work to maximise profits so that they can continuallya fford an expanding eployee base, as well as afford to OCCASIONALLY push the envelope, key word being occasionally , becuase if they pushed the envelope every game , fewer people would buy thier games adn eventually they would have to start layign off employees and cosndiering closing thier doors . you don';t have to look no further than duke nukem, and many other past vapor wares to see what ahppen to copanies that do more pushing than money making (though duke nukem forever is finnally gonna see reelase , we won't being thier opriginal dev again 3d realms is pretty much out oft eh picture becuse they were pushing the envelope).
So in a way , seling games that are made for console (dx9) and then ported to PC is a VERY VERY large part of progress , beucase progress COST MONEY , any that thinks progress doesn't cost should have thier head examined.
Perfect! Now I don't have to learn Assembly
Somebody poked this guy the wrong way