Any thoughts / insight into the DX9.1 rumor?

[Joe DeFuria]

Picked up this link from another thread:

http://www.theinquirer.net/20030217.htm

The relevant quote:

We can freely say that DirectX 9 will make some big differences in future games programming since it will include some interesting parts that programmers will love to use. Rather unbelievably, Eva Glass' friend tells us that Microsoft will skip DirectX 9.0, expected by us all, and plump for DirectX 9.1 instead.

Has anybody heard of any related rumors, or believe this to be true? I would think that we'd hear something coming out of GDC if DX 9.0 is being bypassed (and delayed) to get to DX 9.1 directly. If not, I guess we'll have to wait until Meltdown 2002 in July.

I do recall that Penstarsys' latest "state of 3D" type article, it was speculated that the fall line-up would not have any DX9 parts...that nVidia and ATI would have "refreshes" (GeForce4 respin and R(v)250). And that DX9 parts wouldn't be until spring '03. I didn't believe that would turn out to be accurate, but if the DX 9.1 rumor is true, a Spring '03 release for DX 9.1 and DX9 hardware starts to make more sense...

The only question then would be, "what happened?" Why the change?

 

[Doomtrooper]

Could it be pressure from the big two to develop DX9 to a more mature state. Possibly one or both (Nvidia and ATI) have a GPU that needs Dx 9.1 feature set and no one is just devloping for DX 9.

Just guessing

 

[Nappe1]

Maybe this is just one of those fancy things that MS do.

btw, where is DX4?

anyways, I am more interested about this last sentence:

Expect to see more details on DX 9.1 from Fudzilla very soon indeed. µ

so, why soon? beta isn't even started yet. Only thing that comes to my mind conserning DX9 which should be soon, is Matrox' demo about displacement mapping on saturday at GDC.

 

[Joe DeFuria]

That guess is as good as any.

I'll make my guess from the other side of the coin. I doubt that the big two are playing "together" at all. It's not that they want DX9 to be more mature, it's that MS doesn't want DX9 out before the hardware is: I think that nVidia / ATI are perhaps having a more difficult time manufacturing a DX9 part than they anticipated. They have perhaps indicated to MS that they don't have a lot of confidence that they'll be able to get their parts out the door this fall.

Consequently, MS has no "need" to release DX9.0 this fall. Rather than just "delay" DX9 until the spring, or release DX9.0 this fall with no hardware to support it, they'll skip it and go directly to DX 9.1.

Another possibility is that DX9.1 isn't all that different from DX9.0, and that they'll be able to just release "DX9.1" this fall...

 

[Dave Baumann]

I’d say they probably realized that having their API pinned to a particular hardware set was a pretty poor move; everyone say that the whole PS 1.1/1.3/1.4 matching hardware was a bit of a debacle.

If the rumours were true that DX9 was being modeled closely to R300 then MS may have now decided this would basically be a continuation on the same path (DX8.0 = NV20, 8.1=R200, DX9.0=R300). Perhaps they have just decided to abstract the API a little further away from the hardware to encompass more hardware that’s going to be available by the end of the year/next year. With OpenGL 2.0 coming along this could give MS more impetus to do this.

 

[LeStoffer]

Some thoughts - no insight

I cannot help but getting this odd feeling that Microsoft initially decided to go with ATIs ideas for DX9 after the fallout with nVidia (over the license to the NV-implementation of some parts of DX8 - was it vertex shaders?). But since then I think that things have been cleared up between Microsoft and nVidia to the point where nVidia is now getting its stuff into DX9 alpha albeit late.

So I don’t think we’ll see a DX9 (ATI) and DX9.1 (NV), but just a small delay in DX9. The target is still a release in Q3 2002.

Something else to note: Since DX9 is more about programmability and less about fixed functions, one should think that more testing and verifying is needed. (The hardware folks probably have more freedom to implement certain functions and thus there is more room for mistakes).

Regards, LeStoffer

 

[ben6]

Well something strange is going on. Late last year/beginning of this year the program for GDC for Nvidia's speakers had distinct wording along the lines of "we'll be discussing some of the cool new things you can do with DX9 class hardware" to now saying "the greatest benefit will be
available to those planning early practical experience with DirectX 9 interfaces":

http://cmp.bluedot.com/re/attendee/gdc_02/speakerPage.esp?speakerId=36539581

This one-day course is aimed at developers working with Direct3D using the DirectX 8 interfaces. The course teaches the handling of modern high-performance accelerators to achieve both high performance and high-quality results. There are six principal sections to the course: 7 Pure performance: The measurement and pursuit of software efficiency, what tools can help and when; the effects of use and abuse of the Direct3D API; and why most games are still CPU-bound and what you can do to change that. 7 Scalability: As the breadth of features available in consumers' machines increases, strategies for exploiting the diverse resources continue to increase in importance. 7 Tricks and traps: An assortment of ideas collected from broad experience, including those that work and how to build on them, and those that don’t and how to avoid the same mistakes. 7 Shadows: A look at techniques for making high-quality shadows with high performance, from those that scale well from low-end hardware to those that take advantage of the newest DirectX 8 features.
Takeaway:
Participants gain a better understanding of the dynamics of cutting-edge graphics hardware, leaving with a cookbook of ideas and high-performance, high-quality rendering techniques applicable to DirectX 8-class graphics hardware. Special attention is given to ensure these ideas scale well across a range of PC hardware.

Intended Audience/Prerequisite:
Attendees should have a good grasp of the capabilities of modern hardware and direct experience coding the graphics side of DirectX 7 or 8. The greatest benefit will be available to those planning early practical experience with DirectX 9 interfaces.

 

[ben6]

Just to prove that my memory isn't totally shot in my old age:

http://www.beyond3d.com/messageview...did=1670&highlight_key=y&keyword1=gdc

Date Posted: Dec/11/2001 8:11 AM

Whole speaker list

Check out Microsoft DirectX day, Mark Kilgrad, Sebastian Domine, Dan Baker, Chas Boyd, Sim Dietrich, Cass Everitt and others ATI and Matrox speakers haven't been posted yet

Edit forgot Richard Huddy who's speaking on DirectX 9 and DX9 class hardware . Here's his description of his talk:

Richard Huddy
Richard Huddy has worked within the computer games industry for more than fourteen years and for most of that time has been specialising in high performance 3D graphics, he has been at NVIDIA almost four years. He previously worked with both RenderMorphics and Criterion Software developing their low-level APIs before moving on to spend time as a device driver writer specialising in Direct3D optimisation. Richard's primary focus now is on teaching game programmers how to get the best from modern high performance architectures using Direct3D. Richard is a regular contributor at Microsoft's Meltdown conferences and teaches at the annual gdc and Creativity events. Richard lives in England and is proud of the fact.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Session
104-Advanced Direct3D
Date/Time: Date/Time TBA
Track: Programming
Format: Tutorial
Level: Intermediate

Description:
This one-day course is aimed at developers working with Direct3D using the DirectX 8 or 9 interfaces. The course teaches the handling of modern high-performance accelerators to achieve both high performance and high-quality results. There are six principal sections to the course: · Pure performance: The measurement and pursuit of software efficiency, what tools can help and when; the effects of use and abuse of the Direct3D API; and why most games are still CPU-bound and what you can do to change that. · Scalability: As the breadth of features available in consumers' machines increases, strategies for exploiting the diverse resources continue to increase in importance. · Tricks and traps: An assortment of ideas collected from broad experience, including those that work and how to build on them, and those that don’t and how to avoid the same mistakes. · Shadows: A look at techniques for making high-quality shadows with high performance, from those that scale well from low-end hardware to those that expose the newest DirectX 9 features. · Switching to DirectX 9: Figuring out what’s possible and how to do it. · Shaders for the new millennium: Examining the new capabilities of Pixel and Vertex Shaders and figuring out what can be done with the rich, new feature set.
Takeaway:
Participants gain a better understanding of the dynamics of cutting-edge graphics hardware, leaving with a cookbook of ideas and high-performance, high-quality rendering techniques applicable to DirectX 9-class graphics hardware. Special attention is given to ensure these ideas scale well across a range of PC hardware.

Intended Audience/Prerequisite:
Attendees should have a good grasp of the capabilities of modern hardware and direct experience coding the graphics side of DirectX 7 or 8. The greatest benefit will be available to those with some practical experience with DirectX 9 interfaces.

 

[Rookie]

I dont think inquirer is a reliable site,they alwasys spread rumors,such as XGPU2 goes for ATI,MS will make their own CPU/GPU,all,everything can happen at the inquirer,do they really inquire the real?

 

[psurge]

Why would they call it DX9.1? Even if they "skip" DX9 as it was "originally" intended and go with what was supposed to be DX9.1, they should still call it DX9. Given DX9's pre-beta status, and the fact that there is little public info on DX9 and none that i have seen on DX9.1, isn't this rumor basically saying that an unfinalized API is still being changed/improved in unspecified ways?

This isn't exactly earthshattering news...
Serge