Crytek, Microsoft and NVIDIA Downplay DirectX 10.1

DailyTech has made inquiries about what other big developers and Microsoft itself think of DirectX 10.1. Expected to be rolled out with Microsoft's upcoming Windows Vista Service Pack 1, "DX10.1 is an incremental update that won’t affect any games or gamers in the near future." said senior global director of Microsoft games on Windows, Kevin Unangst. 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 new technology that can improve our games so you would expect us to get with DX10.1 right away but we've looked at it and there's just nothing in it important enough to make it needed. So we have no plans to use it 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 latest guidance describes DirectX 10.1 as "a minor extension of DirectX 10 that makes a few optional features in DirectX 10 mandatory". 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.

Source: DailyTech

 

It's nothing more than some new shaders....it was never anything major. Although Crytek saying it will never use it is a bit silly.

 

I was under the assumption that dx10.1 was mainly an efficiency boost over dx10..

Ohh well SP1 practically re-writes Vista anyways... I haven't gotten the beta so I can't say what its doing for performance.

 

what is all this jive about dx10 cards being useless when dx10.1 comes out then....

I knew that would be BS

 

It is, but it also brings SM4.1 to the table.

SP1 is how Vista should of been on release lol.

 

Its about the industry protecting itself. I'm sure that 10.1 adds a lot of fixes and optimisations and maybe even features. But do you want your technology and industry partners with 100s of MILLIONS of stock and 100s of millions of advertising being blown out of the water by a new "10.1" must have?

If it were "nothing", why is AMD/ATI releasing 10.1 cards now? As for developers, of course they arent going to develop 10.1 "only" code and lock themselves out of sales, just like DX10 games are ALSO runnable on DX9 hardware today.

If you HAVENT bought a DX10 card yet, then DONT. Only get a 10.1 card when they are out. Thats my tip.

 

DX10 isnt even taken advantage of, and they roll out 10.1 what the hell.

 

Of course it's minor, if it was major it would be DX11!

Sorry, that is what passes for programmer humor!

 

agree 100%

 

it is funny to read how companies play the marketing and public relations game. crytek said they wont use dx10.1 ... of course, their big release crysis is an "nvidia" game and nvidia calls dx10.1 minor.... so go figure there. and then of course you have ati bragging about their new cards supporting dx10.1 and we even saw some weird dx10.1 demo that looked way better than dx10. everyone was skeptical of that. at the end of the day the vast majority of PC gamers do not own dx10 cards. most wont buy a dx10 card until next christmas. game developers are finally getting on board with dx10 but dx9 still has a lot of potential. it is a lot of bullshit to wade through if you ask me.

 

Bah, optional features becoming forced, yeah, like 4xAA, to really kick you in the balls, when you're already running 1280x1024, with barely 35fps, in DX10.

 

I think you forget microsoft messed up the efficiency part of dx10... Dx10.1 is supposedly to fix that, and in turn would 4xAA really hurt you? Doubtful being I think I remember reading somewhere that we are talking like 30-40% increase.