Direct3D 10/11 Natively Implemented on Linux

Gamers on Linux are used to there being a limited choice of 3D APIs. OpenGL is an excellent cross-platform solution, but a lot of development these days are on Direct3D – which is from Microsoft and obviously not on Mac OS X or Linux. Well, not on Linux until this week.

Luca Barbieri made a commit with news of native Direct3D 10/11 support into Gallium, with an eventual goal of running Windows games in Wine.

"The primary goal is to realize Gallium's promise of multiple API support, and provide an API that can be easily implemented with just a very thin wrapper over Gallium, instead of the enormous amount of complex code needed for OpenGL," wrote Barbieri. "The secondary goal is to run Windows Direct3D 10/11 games on Linux using Wine."

He added, "Thanks to a very clean and well-though design done from scratch, the Direct3D 10/11 APIs are vastly better than OpenGL and can be supported with orders of magnitude less code and development time, as you can see by comparing the lines of code of this commit and those in the existing Mesa OpenGL implementation."

For those worried that Direct3D 10/11 won't have the same kind of performance as OpenGL, Barbieri said, "Finally, a mature Direct3D 10/11 implementation is intrinsically going to be faster and more reliable than an OpenGL implementation, thanks to the dramatically smaller API and the segregation of all nontrivial work to object creation that the application must perform ahead of time."

Read more at Phoronix.

Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.
  • Hard Line
    Finally we are about there to lose windows for good! games are the only reason I keep windows around
    Reply
  • swimomatic
    Sweet! one step closer to uninstalling Windows 7 on my 1215n.
    Reply
  • mlopinto2k1
    Hard LineFinally we are about there to lose windows for good! games are the only reason I keep windows aroundHmm.. lose Windows in favor of DirectX 10 and 11 on linux? IT'S MICROSOFT'S API! Microsoft isn't going to just make an API so people can reap it's benefits in Linux. There will always be Windows and there will always be Linux, for now. I am currently using Linux and hearing this definitely adds hope for the Linux community.
    Reply
  • ricardok
    Hard LineFinally we are about there to lose windows for good! games are the only reason I keep windows aroundI second that!
    Reply
  • thepinkpanther
    hey Steam i hear linux is more lucrative than ever...if u cant get a hint MAKE STEAM FOR LINUX
    Reply
  • dante01010
    Ok, but who need Diretctx ? Most of gaming consoles use OpenGL, developers just need to improve linux video card drivers
    Reply
  • ricardok
    mlopinto2k1Microsoft isn't going to just make an API so people can reap it's benefits in Linux.Actually, it's not going to be made by Microsoft. Also, it will run through WINE!! So, no, it's not LINUX native.
    Reply
  • neoverdugo
    That's the news that i was waiting for!!!! The last step that i need to ditch "winblows" is a complete testing of ALL the games that have been published from the past 20 years or more before i start my complete OS migration.
    Reply
  • tvel
    was Gallium a Vmware thing?
    Reply
  • mlopinto2k1
    RicardoKActually, it's not going to be made by Microsoft. Also, it will run through WINE!! So, no, it's not LINUX native.Seriously? I had no idea that this API for Linux wasn't gonna be made by Microsoft!! C'mon man, I am talking about Microsoft continuing development with DirectX. If EVERYONE is just gonna migrate to Linux, they will stop developing it. It'll never happen.
    Reply