Maximum PC DirectX RSS Feed

DirectX 11 Comes To Vista

Justin Kerr — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 09:00:32 -0500

Microsoft launched Windows 7 with full DirectX 11 support, but until now, Vista users running ATI’s newest 5000 series cards were left out in the cold. Its not like you’ve been waiting months to play the newest DX11 titles, but at least you now have the comfort of knowing that you don’t need to upgrade your OS in order to take advantage of your new GPU.

DirectX 11 isn’t a massive leap forward over the DirectX 10.1 found in Vista SP2, and in fact, is actually a superset implemented using WDDM (Windows Display Drive Model). Windows XP users will need to continue making do with DirectX 9 because it is not compatible with WDDM, and Microsoft has been pretty clear that this isn’t likely to change anytime soon.

The platform update KB971644 should be delivered to Vista users automatically via Windows update. Now all you need is an Radeon 5870. DirectX 11 support in Vista seems as good a reason as any don’t you think?

Nvidia Discusses DirectX in Windows 7

Paul Lilly — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 15:30:07 -0500

According to Nvidia, Windows 7, which recently reached RTM, will be the catalyst that propels the concept of GPGPU computing into the mainstream.

"Previously, GPUs were almost exclusively limited to rendering and accelerating graphics and video," Chris Daniel, product manager for software at Nvidia, wrote in a Microsoft Partner blog. "With the introduction of Windows 7, the GPU and CPU will exist in a co-processing environment where each can handle the computing task they are best suited for. The CPU is exceptionally good at performing sequential calculations, I/O, and program flow, whereas the GPU is perfectly suited for performing massive parallel calculations."

Nvidia went on to say that by introducing the DirectX Compute in Windows 7, Microsoft is providing a huge shot in the arm for developers to make better use of the GPU for more than just graphics acceleration. Such tasks include high-quality video playback, high performance transcoding, enabling new media scenarios, and offering extended control over media libraries.

"As an example of the real world benefits of DX Compute, you will be able to use the massive parallel capabilities of the GPU to significantly reduce the time it takes to manager your media files compared with just using the CPU alone," Nvidia added.

Image Credit: Nvidia

AMD Betting on DX11 to Launch it Ahead of Nvidia

Andy Salisbury — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 16:37:15 -0500

According to Rick Bergman, AMD’s Senior Vice President for Platforms, he and his crew are looking to beat Nvidia to the world of DX11.

According to Bergman, “We want to supply hardware to Microsoft and software developers so they can make DX11 games on our hardware first.” This would put AMD ahead of Nvidia, something that hasn’t happened for several years, thanks to Nvidia’s dominance in the DX10 market. “We were kind of fighting from behind, but with DX11 it feels like we’re ahead this round.”

Despite reports that very few game titles would take advantage of DX11, Bergman is keeping up his enthusiasm. Reportedly, he knows of a handful of independent software vendors that are working “eagerly” to release games.

Image Credit: AMD

The 9 Things Microsoft Got Right

Alex Castle — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 11:00:00 -0600

In the Holiday 2008 issue of Maximum PC we published a list called “9 Things Microsoft Got Right.” It was a lovely list, of course, but thanks to the space limitations of the print magazine we weren’t able to go into much detail about each of the items on it. We decided that the topic was interesting enough that it deserved more than that, so we’ve rewritten it for the web, with more information and analysis.

So, without further ado, here’s our list of the top 9 things that Microsoft got right:

Mainstreaming the PC

Early PCs were anything but user-friendly. Incredibly esoteric interfaces were hardly intuitive, and sky-high price-points meant that anyone who wanted to learn to use the machines had to be either independently wealthy or willing to give up their earthly attachments just to buy in.

Not that early Windows machines were cheap, either, but they were relatively easy to use, and by appealing to the users who didn’t have the knowhow to use earlier OSes, Microsoft grew the userbase of its software, pushing PCs into the mainstream and subsequently forcing down prices.

The “Mostly Open” Platform

Calm down, Linux-lovers, no one’s going to claim that Windows is open source; just that Microsoft’s thorough and well-documented APIs have been a major factor in the rise of Windows as the dominant platform. Those APIs, in addition to the Redmond giant’s ongoing commitment to fostering a strong community of developers, have ensured a steady stream of killer apps for Windows, securing Microsoft’s place as top dog.

Xbox Live

The Xbox wasn’t the first console with online gaming (that honor goes to the criminally under-appreciated Sega Dreamcast) but it was the first to do it successfully. By requiring a broadband connection to access Xbox Live, Microsoft ensured the service would run much more quickly than the online offerings of its competitors (which didn’t even include Ethernet ports standard). And by unifying user’s accounts and community features across all games, Microsoft created a single, brand-able online experience.

Although the Xbox was never a serious contender for its generation’s top console, the success of Xbox Live, and its subsequent improvements on the 360 have proven that online gaming isn’t just for the PC.

Pushing Minimum Hardware Specification

Just like any software, Windows has system requirements, and with each version, the minimum system specs get goosed somewhat higher. On one hand, this is necessary to allow Microsoft to keep pushing the technical capabilities of its OS. But beyond just that, the Windows minimum system specs give developers who want their app to be runnable by all Windows users a lowest common denominator to shoot for. By incrementally increasing the minimum specifications, Microsoft raises this ceiling and ensures that applications continue to evolve.

The Mouse as a Business Tool

The mouse, which just recently had its 40th birthday, is nearly ubiquitous on the desktop computer. But everyone’s favorite peripheral hasn’t always been so popular; it took Microsoft’s Windows to make it that way.

That’s not to say that Windows was the first OS to utilize a mouse; the Macintosh GUI allowed users to point and click a year before Windows did. However, the device wasn’t taken seriously as anything more than a toy until Windows 3.x got wide acceptance as an office tool.

Bringing TCP/IP to the Masses

Microsoft’s decision to include a TCP/IP stack in Windows 95 was proof that the Redmond giant understood the growing importance of the internet as a tool for a broad consumer base. Together with the included version of Internet Explorer, this made a huge number of Windows users into first-time web surfers.

Supporting Legacy Devices and Apps at All Costs

Whenever Microsoft releases a new version of Windows, they get some flak over compatibility issues with programs written for previous versions of the OS. Despite this, Windows has the biggest backwards compatibility team in the industry, famous for writing “shims” for specific apps and games to make sure they work on newer versions of Windows, even when the app is incompatible because of shoddy programming on the original creators’ parts.

So even if they don’t get it right all the time, Windows has proven that they get the fundamental fact that if an upgraded version of an OS breaks your users programs, it’s not an upgrade at all.

DirectX

Our younger reader may not remember this, but there was a time when playing a game involved more than just double-clicking an icon. Instead, you had to exit Windows, boot up in DOS and run the game from there, all because developers preferred to write their games for DOS, which gave them direct access to the computer’s components, such as the display adapter. Fortunately, Microsoft understood how important it was to get developers writing games for Windows, so they created DirectX, a set of APIs that allowed programs to interface directly with the devices needed to create compelling media on the PC.

By listening to developers and giving them the tools they needed, Microsoft allowed gaming to flourish on the PC. If they hadn’t, who knows what modern games would be like…

Churros

Alright, so maybe the verdict is still out on the recent Bill Gates/Jerry Seinfeld ads. Nonetheless, the commercials did get one thing right. One brilliant inclusion proved that Microsoft truly, profoundly understands the zeitgeist of modern tech culture. The factor in question? Yes, that’s right: the churro factor.

Think what you will about the rest of the ads, but you cannot deny that churros are indeed a warm, chewy, cinnamon-dusted treat, and Microsoft can’t go wrong in associating their brand with the fried Spanish delicacy.

Microsoft's WARP10 Will Let You Run DX10 on CPUs, Crysis at 7 FPS

Paul Lilly — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 14:15:05 -0600

If your graphics card doesn't support DirectX 10 or 10.1, don't worry about it, Microsoft has your back. The resourceful programmers at Redmond are working on a new component called WARP10 (Windows Advanced Rasterization Platform) to be included in Windows 7, which essentially ports DX10 duties to the CPU.

The upshot is that everyone will have access to DX10 eye candy even if the hardware doesn't support it. Minimum requirements for WARP10 are the same as they are for Vista - an 800MHz processor and 512MB of RAM. So if you have the hardware to run Windows 7, then in theory, you should be able to enable advanced effects regardless of your videocard.

"Our primary goal during WARP10 development was to produce a rasterizer that met or exceeded all the precision and conformance requirements of the Direct3D 10 and 10.1 specifications," writes Andy Glaister, Principal Development Lead of Microsoft Desktop and Graphics Technologies. "We wanted to do this while achieving a high level or reliability and stability. If this rasterizer was going to be used as a fallback for when hardware was not functioning, it’s important that it worked in all scenarios, configurations and different types of machines."

The downside is that everyone will have access to DX10 eye candy, even if the hardware doesn't support it. There's a potential for system vendors and resellers to mislead customers with DX10 marketing, even if the system being sold isn't up to the task. Running Crysis in DX10 mode at just 800x600 with everything set to low, Microsoft benched a Core i7 at 3.0GHz averaging just 7fps. By contrast, the same benchmark pulled an average of 5fps using an Intel integrated DX10 video solution. On an ATI 2400 Pro, that number jumped to 30fps. In short, WARP10 provides minimal gains over integrated graphics, and gets trounced by budget discrete GPUs.

To be fair, Microsoft isn't pitching WARP10 as a replacement for graphics, nor is the company saying DX10 should be rendered on the CPU instead of the GPU. When it comes to gaming, Microsoft sees its rasterizer being used as a diagnostic tool to help developers validate any visual artifacts as being rendering errors or problems with the hardware or drivers.

Windows 7, DirectX 11!

Mark Edward Soper — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 22:17:34 -0600

New versions of Windows have featured new versions of DirectX, the 3D audio and graphics family of APIs, and it now appears that Windows 7 will be no exception. According to PC Games Hardware, Microsoft's Ben Basaric, Product Marketing Manager Windows, says that Redmond will be bundling DirectX 11 with Windows 7, after all. Earlier this week, PCGH had reported that the pairing of DirectX 11 and Windows 7 was "unlikely."

So, what's new in DirectX 11? As we reported this summer, DX 11 will include compute shader technology, enabling the GPU to perform operations other than 3D graphics; better multi-core resource handling; more efficient utilization of the processing pipeline; hardware tesselation support for more detailed 3D models.

When can you expect to buy DirectX 11-compliant GPUs? AMD says its first DirectX 11 parts will be available in late 2009 - right about the time Windows 7 is expected to arrive. New operating system and new graphics hardware? Hopefully, that's a recipe for more realistic 3D graphics than ever before. If Microsoft and OEMs continue to work as closely as the Engineering Windows 7 blog suggests, that's much more likely than a repeat of the poorly handled rollout of Vista-ready hardware at Vista's introduction.

How about you? Are you going to wait for DirectX 11 before you buy a new graphics card, or are NVIDIA and ATI's current products tempting you to spend your money on DirectX 10/10.1 parts now? Hit Comment and tell us what your heart (and your wallet) are telling you.

DirectX Package Gets Minor Update for November, Nothing to Write Home About

Paul Lilly — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 10:02:36 -0600

Microsoft has released its DirectX November 2008 update as part of the company's loosely followed bi-annual update schedule. The last DirectX update was served up in August.

A number of enhancements mostly of interest to developers come packaged in the November DirectX SDK, as well as a Direct3D 11 technical preview with associated components and tools. As far as gamers are concerned, we found little information as to what possible bugs and performance enhancements the new update addresses.

If you're experiencing unexplained wonkiness while gaming and have been unable to troubleshoot the problem, you may want to give the November update a spin. Otherwise, you'll likely receive the update as a pre-packaged install on a new game at some point.

Image Credit: Microsoft

GDI/GDI+, Move Over: Microsoft Introduces Direct2D

Mark Edward Soper — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 14:54:35 -0500

For most of the last decade, improving 3D performance has been the primary goal of operating system, application (read gaming) developers, and hardware developers. However, when you're at work, trying hard to make the money you need to buy a new HDTV and über-gaming PC, you're probably working in a 2D world that's being managed by the creaky GDI/GDI+ APIs which were first developed back to the 1990s.

This week, Microsoft introduced a replacement for GDI/GDI+ called Direct2D. Microsoft's Thomas Olsen, a Dev Lead in the Windows Desktop Graphics organization, uses his new blog to bring us up to speed on why we need the new Direct2D API and how it will make PCs work better.

Olson points out that GDI/GDI+ use software rendering for tasks that modern GPUs can now perform, and that GDI/GDI+ is a completely separate subsystem from Direct3D. Direct2D, as the name implies, is designed to run on top of Direct3D, enabling support of modern GPUs while retaining compatibility with GDI/GDI+. Direct2D will be part of Windows 7, but it might also be deployed to Windws Vista and even Windows XP.

Direct2D provides better performance and better ClearType font rendering than with GDI/GDI+, and provides the ability to run in software mode if Direct2D hardware support is not available. Even in software mode, Direct2D is designed to provide "substantially better rendering performance than GDI+ with similar visual quality," according to the PDC 2008 white paper "Introducing Direct2D."

You can download a copy of this white paper, but note that it uses Office 2007's DocX format. If you need a DocX reader, you can download Microsoft's reader (which also requires the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats, available here), or download OpenOffice 3.0. Be sure to check out Tom's Blog for more Direct2D information as it becomes available.

If you use 2D graphics as part of your work or leisure time, what do you think about Direct2D? Hit Comments and tell us your thoughts.

Illustration courtesy of Tom's Blog.