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Microsoft Confirms DirectX 11 to Accompany Windows 7

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Microsoft's Ben Basaric, product marketing manager for Windows products, confirmed to PC Games Hardware that the next major update to the DirectX API, DirectX 11 would accompany Windows 7, the next major consumer operating system software by Microsoft. This, overwriting his own statement given to the website earlier that he wasn't sure if DirectX 11 would be ready to ship with the OS upon its launch. Furthermore, he also indicated that Windows Vista will have access to the updated API, although not sure at what point in time.

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Why am i not suprised???? I knew this would happen. Ive not heard MUCH about DX-11 so i WOULD like to see SOME graphics cards & GAMES that support DX-11 & I would like to see some benchies of them in action.

Saying that - if Windows 7 was still 2years away i suppose thats more or less enough time for ATi & Nvidia to start throwing out DX-11 cards but i suppose their gonna be screwing at M$ for making them release yet again some what another platform.
 
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Why am i not suprised???? I knew this would happen. Ive not heard MUCH about DX-11 so i WOULD like to see SOME graphics cards & GAMES that support DX-11 & I would like to see some benchies of them in action.

Saying that - if Windows 7 was still 2years away i suppose thats more or less enough time for ATi & Nvidia to start throwing out DX-11 cards but i suppose their gonna be screwing at M$ for making them release yet again some what another platform.

well im pretty sure i read somewhere that current DX10 cards would be able to handle DX11
 

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i too, heard that DX10 (not just 10.1) cards can run DX11.

That means all DX10 hardware can run DX11 under vista. nice.
 
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Not very good marketing person, fire him, save money, make Win7 cheaper.

Ben Basaric doesnt seem to know very much does he? Doesnt know if, doesnt know when, isnt sure if, changes his blog and does u-turns...

If he is the product marketing manager for Windows products, and he is so clueless, then he's not very good at his job. I suggest MS saves themselves some time and money, and reinvests his salary, office space, and expense account, in something more productive, even MAKING WINDOWS 7 CHEAPER! ;) Or investing in another debugger so that there isnt a need to patch the code so quickly ;)
 

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yea i read some time ago dx 11 is dx10 with all of dx10's initial flaws fixed thats why dx10 hardware would work well with it
 

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i too, heard that DX10 (not just 10.1) cards can run DX11.

That means all DX10 hardware can run DX11 under vista. nice.

:confused: That doesn't make sense, since DX10 cards can't run DX10.1, So DX11 would be less of an upgrade than it. Would make DX10.1 kinda pointless if it's not included in DX11.

Well will be interesting to see what happens. If DX10 cards can run DX11 it will be too slow anyways, just like first SM3.0 cards were too slow to run HDR and like first SM4.0 cards were too slow to run DX10.
 

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:confused: That doesn't make sense, since DX10 cards can't run DX10.1, So DX11 would be less of an upgrade than it. Would make DX10.1 kinda pointless if it's not included in DX11.

Well will be interesting to see what happens. If DX10 cards can run DX11 it will be too slow anyways, just like first SM3.0 cards were too slow to run HDR and like first SM4.0 cards were too slow to run DX10.

my guess, is that they're going to emulate it through shaders. Look at how they're doing Physx and F@H - it will be like that. lots faster than a CPU doing it, but definately slower than a 'true' DX11 card.
 

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my guess, is that they're going to emulate it through shaders. Look at how they're doing Physx and F@H - it will be like that. lots faster than a CPU doing it, but definately slower than a 'true' DX11 card.

this is true as well - although a DX10/10.1 compliant card might be able to run DX11, it wouldn't be as effective as a card that's been designed to be compliant with DX11 specs.


But, never fear, I had read somewhere not too long ago that ATI does plan on having DX11 compliant cards on the market sometime next year. More than likely, although I can't say for sure, the HD5000 series will be the first to market with DX11 support. ATI is good about getting on the ball with new tech support.
 
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i too, heard that DX10 (not just 10.1) cards can run DX11.

That means all DX10 hardware can run DX11 under vista. nice.

From what has been announced with DX11 DX10 and 10.1 cards will be able to cover some, if not most of the featuresets, but there will be some parts of DX11 such as the tesellator which DX10 and DX10.1 cards won't be able to cover easily (I believe when Microsoft was talking about the DX11 tesellator they said that it would be more advanced for DX11 than the tesselation available in the XBOX 360 and the current ATI cards, so the tesellator in those won't work.

Hopefully this means that current DX10 and DX10.1 cards will be able to run the DX11 version of the game just with certain things like the tesellator disabled. AFAIK the tesellator is the only significant hardware change between current cards and DX11 cards, as has been said above DX11 is aiming at doing what DX10 does only more efficiently, as well as adding compute shaders, tesellation and finally a multi-threaded render path.

bit-tech did a nice little sum up of what DX11 was adding that was new back in september but i think that was before the multi-threaded render path was announced.
 
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Furthermore, he also indicated that Windows Vista will have access to the updated API, although not sure at what point in time.

This.
 

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Microsoft has even managed to turn DirectX into a joke. Just another marketing gimmick to be used by MS tools to peddle their wares and force upgrades. Let me guess DirectX 11 will be a Vista II.... er I mean a Windows 7 exclusive? Fucking great.
 

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Let me guess DirectX 11 will be a Vista II.... er I mean a Windows 7 exclusive?

Nope Vista will have it too. Not right at Windows 7 launch, but surely before there is any DX11 games :)
 
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No problem isn't it? Windows 7 won't come out soon, and when it does, we already have new graphic card with DX11. I don't think any gamers would keep a graphic card more than 2 years.
 

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i too, heard that DX10 (not just 10.1) cards can run DX11.

That means all DX10 hardware can run DX11 under vista. nice.

Its true, I heard it too. But still we will have to upgrade our GPUs once OpenCL shows up on the game developer's to-do list. BTW, since people think Windows 7 is going to be the name, rumors back at the beginning of January say that the next OS would be called Windows Vienna, however since the OS will still have Aero, just more streamlined and more multi-core optimized, it should be called Vista Second Edition.
 

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Well you have Options

Server OS are more refined then desktop counterparts
I say

2003>XP
2008>Vista

Windows 7 i swear better be well refined over Vista.
 
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You could say it builds on the Server 2008 improvements over Vista.
 

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we need a OS that isnt based upon the previous version, i say get rid of NT and start fresh, focus on the Kernel, then Focus on Functionality, then the GUI and make them all interact without bugs that have plagued the OS since Windows NT.
 
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That isn't likely to happen until at least several years after W7, they went from Win2K >XP >2003 >XP64, now we have Vista >2008 >W7.
 

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:confused: That doesn't make sense, since DX10 cards can't run DX10.1, So DX11 would be less of an upgrade than it. Would make DX10.1 kinda pointless if it's not included in DX11.

Well will be interesting to see what happens. If DX10 cards can run DX11 it will be too slow anyways, just like first SM3.0 cards were too slow to run HDR and like first SM4.0 cards were too slow to run DX10.

DX10 hardware can do pretty much everything (if not everything) DX10.1 does. For instance the most famous DX10.1 feature, MSAA buffer readback can be done through DX10 with NO PERFORMANCE PENALTY, contrary to what was suggested. What happens is that the feature was not a requirement in DX10 and to make things worse it was not properly explained in the documentation, so very few developers noticed it or wanted to go throught the hassle.

From what they comment in some posts at GameDev.net, there are many many others like that (i.e. cube map arrays) that are apparently present in DX10, but were not as properly implemented. I don't know how to explain why are not well implemented, probably it would be something like this:

where in DX10.1 you have to write: C = A+B

in DX10 you would have to do: ADD [content_of (A), content_of (B)] -> Store_in variable(C)

Note that the above is just a representation and has nothing to do with any real thing, but you get the idea. Despite the sentence in DX10 being much more complex, for all purposes the hardware would have to do the exact same thing.

All of the above is when it comes to the DX10 API. There's one more thing that is, DX10 hardware (what is sold as DX10) can do many more things than the ones that the DX10 API does, and it can do them in the proper manner, the one DX10.1 does (i.e C=A+B). BUT everybody has to remember that Microsoft decided that for DX10 and newer APIs the hardware has to be able to perform the 100% of the features in the way that DX10.1 especifies them. You don't support 1 of the features out of hundreds and you can't sell your card as DX10.1, although in practice and for all purposes the card can do everything in DX10.1 except that single thing. It doesn't matter if that feature is not important or if it is a future proof feature that can't be implemented in current hardware or if the hardware can do the thing in a different (better for the said hardware) manner.

Previous DX versions were plagged by lacking or changed/optimized features depending on the GPU brand, and yet they could obtain the DX certification, DX10 and up don't, but that doesn't mean the cards can't do those things. Probably Microsoft has decided to step back a bit in DX11 and let GPU manufacturers some flexibility. In the end the old way of doing things was only worse for developers in theory, but the truth is that many of them, the most important of them, don't care too much about how easy the API is for them to use. It does help them, but it's not something they want so much as being able to use a feature in as many different hardware as possible.

A clear example of what I'm saying is FarCry2. Ubisoft has been criticized because they said that DX10 and DX10.1 did the same for them. Feature and performance wise. That's because they went through of the hassle of also creating the DX10 path (remembet: ADD [content_of (A), content_of (B)] -> Store_in variable(C) ) for every feature they used, something no other developer has done AFAIK.
 

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A clear example of what I'm saying is FarCry2. Ubisoft has been criticized because they said that DX10 and DX10.1 did the same for them. Feature and performance wise. That's because they went through of the hassle of also creating the DX10 path (remembet: ADD [content_of (A), content_of (B)] -> Store_in variable(C) ) for every feature they used, something no other developer has done AFAIK.

There wouldn't be any problems if DX10.1 cards would also work with that "ADD [content_of (A), content_of (B)] -> Store_in variable(C)", just use it for both cards and be happy. If I got it right NVIDIA can do the 'DX10 AA speedboost' only like that and ATI can do it only with DX10.1.

How much more work it is to write that think for both cards separately I don't know, must be quite a bit as FC2 is the first to use it. It seemed to pay off, as that was also the first game that runs faster AA enabled in DX10 than DX9 at least on some systems.
 

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Memory 4 GB (2x2GB) DDR2 Corsair Dominator 1066Mhz 5-5-5-15
Video Card(s) GigaByte 8800GT Stock Clocks: 700Mhz Core, 1700 Shader, 1940 Memory
Storage 74 GB WD Raptor 10000rpm, 2x250 GB Seagate Raid 0
Display(s) HP p1130, 21" Trinitron
Case Antec p180
Audio Device(s) Creative X-Fi PLatinum
Power Supply 700W FSP Group 85% Efficiency
Software Windows XP
There wouldn't be any problems if DX10.1 cards would also work with that "ADD [content_of (A), content_of (B)] -> Store_in variable(C)", just use it for both cards and be happy. If I got it right NVIDIA can do the 'DX10 AA speedboost' only like that and ATI can do it only with DX10.1.

How much more work it is to write that think for both cards separately I don't know, must be quite a bit as FC2 is the first to use it. It seemed to pay off, as that was also the first game that runs faster AA enabled in DX10 than DX9 at least on some systems.

Well there's no point in DX10.1 compliant hardware being able to do the complex thing, because if you do support both paths, it's obvious you are assuming developers will use the complex way and then developers WILL only use the complex way. Being that the difference is in the API implementation and not in the hardware application, they would never use the less common implementation.

Furthermore by supporting both, the hardware or the driver model would be much more complex and expensive to make and mantain.

The better solution for clarity and ease of use (apart from every GPU using the same implementation, which was MS's intention) is the API supporting both paths with one single function. That function would decide the path to use, while the developer is agnostic to that election. I honestly don't think it would be so difficult for the API to decide which to choose based in the GPU ID. I think that's how it worked prior to DX10 anyway.
 
Joined
Apr 21, 2008
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IRAQ-Baghdad
System Name MASTER
Processor Core i7 3930k run at 4.4ghz
Motherboard Asus Rampage IV extreme
Cooling Corsair H100i
Memory 4x4G kingston hyperx beast 2400mhz
Video Card(s) 2X EVGA GTX680
Storage 2X Crusial M4 256g raid0, 1TbWD g, 2x500 WD B
Display(s) Samsung 27' 1080P LED 3D monitior 2ms
Case CoolerMaster Chosmos II
Audio Device(s) Creative sound blaster X-FI Titanum champion,Creative speakers 7.1 T7900
Power Supply Corsair 1200i, Logitch G500 Mouse, headset Corsair vengeance 1500
Software Win7 64bit Ultimate
Benchmark Scores 3d mark 2011: testing
dx11 , that is good for new ati hd 5xxx
 
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