Everyone know DirectX 10 is Vista only?

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Nexus

Newcomer
I don't know if it is public knowledge here that according to Microsoft and their .ppt presentation: http://download.microsoft.com/downl...fc4-942b-6e7b1635b214/Intro_to_Direct3D10.ppt
DirectX 10 will be Windows Vista ONLY. Reason is the API only supports WDDM graphic drivers.

To quote the .ppt:

The API takes full advantage of WDDM

° Direct3D10 API is Windows Vista/WDDM-only
Click to expand...
(on Slide 68)

Info is from: http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/74380 (german) which references to the presentation from Microsoft.

Is DirectX 10 (and with it Vista-only games) doomed? Will you buy Vista for Halo only? Please don't miss the bigger picture over all the technical details that go with DirectX 10 talk. Thanks.

Sorry if that info is widely known.
 
i think this is quite public knowledge as i've read it since months on different pages everywhere and in different forees (forums? :D).

it's understandable, as they changed the driver-system for graphics drivers completely (and it's much much better). dx10 is sort of what dx looks like on such a new driver system, thus, it's a perfect match for it. making it backwards compatible would be a huge work, and definitely not worth it as it would be filled with quite some overhead in windows xp. the trick of dx10 is to use this new driver model to allow to do some stuff with much less overhead than it is possible in xp.

i won't buy vista for halo (as i won't buy halo anyways), but i will one day get vista, and i will sure get some nice dx10 hw for it, and i sure will love to play dx10 games on it.

it'll just take some time.



and yes, hardcore gamers will get vista anyways. they won't look 1337 at the next LAN party if they would only run a skinned windows xp with some pseudo-vista-glass-skin.
 
Nexus said:
Is DirectX 10 (and with it Vista-only games) doomed? Will you buy Vista for Halo only? Please don't miss the bigger picture over all the technical details that go with DirectX 10 talk. Thanks.
Click to expand...
I bought Win95 for games. Why wouldn't you move to Vista if all the 'good' games were coming out for it?
 
hughJ said:
What about Crysis?
Click to expand...


safe

the only one they bagged was Alan Wake, and of course Halo 2. Alot more will follow though as DX10 become a priority for developers. Wont happen for quite awhile though. I would expect just about every game publushed by MS from here on out to be Vista exclusives though. Means games like AOE and MSFS.
 
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The limitations of Direct3D 10 (there is no DX10 as only the GPU [and other copro] part is update) will give Direct3D 9 at least 2-3 years in the AAA games. For anything else I expected it would stay for the whole lifetime of Vista.

Would be funny to see how many developers claim the usage of D3D10 before the game is released and if you get it in your hands it still use “onlyâ€￾ D3D9.
 
There have been a few games that have come out in the past year that allow you to play on DX7 or DX9. I would expect to see something similar (DX9 & DX10) for newer games to allow backwards compatability with XP.

Just a thought.
 
Microsoft and Vista

The problem I have with Direct3D10 is that it is used by Microsoft to force Vista on everybody, it is one piece of the Vista puzzle. That was what I meant by talking about the bigger picture.

DirectX was always multi-Windows compatible. You could install DX8 on Windows 95 in the year 2000, just as you installed DX2 in 1996, and the latest DX9 still runs on Windows 98. Now D3D10 will only run on Vista and for me it smells politics. Microsoft is in desperate need to sell Vista, Windows XP was simply too good, and who really needs Vista..? Vista-only games sure are a big selling point.

Sure, WDDM (2.0) is a nice thing, and it plugs nicely in D3D10, but I get the feeling that if Microsoft really wanted to, it could roll out the new Windows Display Driver Model in a future Service Pack for Windows XP. That may sound crazy, but reading:
http://www.ati.com/products/wp/ATIWDDMWhitepaperFinalV38.pdf
makes me more confident it would be possible. The OpenGL Driver in Windows XP is already User Mode, I didn't knew that. ATI already implement many of the nice WDDM features in their Windows XP driver, years ago.. and for me it sounds that Microsoft only picked those features up and put it in WDDM for everyone to fulfill. I'm absolutely no expert on this topic, so please correct me.

What I also don't understand is that Windows Vista with the Basic and the Classic theme/interface supports XPDM (Windows XP Display Driver Model), what is up with that? Does that mean that such a Windows Vista is only DirectX 9 compatible? Does anyone know about that?

What it all points out to is, is Microsoft really doing the graphics world, the gamers, the game developers just a big favour with the new glorious technology D3D10 and WDDM will enable, or isn't there more market politics and force from Microsoft to feed the market Vista, if it wants it or not.

You developers out there, think how many times your Direct3D10 game would sell more if Microsoft would enable Windows XP to be D3D10 and WDDM compatible. Wouldn't that be nice, if it would be possible?

Thanks.
 
DirectX was always multi-Windows compatible. You could install DX8 on Windows 95 in the year 2000, just as you installed DX2 in 1996, and the latest DX9 still runs on Windows 98. Now D3D10 will only run on Vista and for me it smells politics. Microsoft is in desperate need to sell Vista, Windows XP was simply too good, and who really needs Vista..? Vista-only games sure are a big selling point.
Click to expand...
Yes, Vista only games will be a good selling point but how many of this first wave Vista only games will be D3D10 only? If a game has a D3D9 mode you can blame the fact that D3D10 is vista only a responsible that xp users can’t play.
Sure, WDDM (2.0) is a nice thing, and it plugs nicely in D3D10, but I get the feeling that if Microsoft really wanted to, it could roll out the new Windows Display Driver Model in a future Service Pack for Windows XP. That may sound crazy, but reading:
http://www.ati.com/products/wp/ATIWD...erFinalV38.pdf
makes me more confident it would be possible. The OpenGL Driver in Windows XP is already User Mode, I didn't knew that. ATI already implement many of the nice WDDM features in their Windows XP driver, years ago.. and for me it sounds that Microsoft only picked those features up and put it in WDDM for everyone to fulfill. I'm absolutely no expert on this topic, so please correct me.
Click to expand...
First wave D3D10 hardware will only use WDDM 1.0. The two main features (virtual video memory and context switching) are more or less already implemented in every D3D9 driver for Windows XP. Future WDM Versions for D3D 10.x will improve this features. But that’s not the point here. You suggested rolling out the new driver model as part of a service pack. This is absolute possible from a technical point of view but this will cause a support nightmare. After such a service pack user will not only look for a driver for their operating system the need to look for the right version for the service pack the have currently installed. To make things even more worse think about a user who have installed a new driver and then removed the service pack. The next problem is that the new driver model does not only affect gaming. It will affect anything that draw on the screen and there are possible compatibility problems. It is simply not a wise decision to change kernel interfaces with a service pack. This is something you should do with a new version.

What I also don't understand is that Windows Vista with the Basic and the Classic theme/interface supports XPDM (Windows XP Display Driver Model), what is up with that? Does that mean that such a Windows Vista is only DirectX 9 compatible? Does anyone know about that?
Click to expand...
It works the other way. If you have installed a still supported XPDM driver you are limited to the basic/classic interface and D3D9. But a D3D10 driver has to use WDDM 1.0 anyway as they XPDM doesn’t support D3D10. With a WDDM 1.0 driver and the right hardware you can use every theme/interface. Even if you use the classic interface DeD10 will work.
You developers out there, think how many times your Direct3D10 game would sell more if Microsoft would enable Windows XP to be D3D10 and WDDM compatible. Wouldn't that be nice, if it would be possible?
Click to expand...
Maybe one or two copies. You have forgotten another fact about D3D10. It will only work with new D3D10 hardware. As a game developer you can’t write a D3D10 only game without loosing most of your market. You will even need for Vista a D3D9 mode for all the “oldâ€￾ hardware out there. This mode will run fine on XP too. This reduces your problem to people who put a D3D10 hardware in a Windows XP System. The will still be able to play but only in D3D9 mode.
 
digitalwanderer said:
Just you wait until DX10.1 is released, it's gonna improve performance about a quadrillion percent. :cool:
Click to expand...

Not as a general case. You should expect big performance improvements in cases when there is more video ram needed than the card offer or you are using more than one context at the same time. There will be an additional gain because the CPU overhead is reduced again. In WDM 2.1 (required for D3D 10.1) the user mode driver will write directly to the DMA buffer instead of a special command buffer which is copied to the DMA buffer from the kernel driver in WDM 1.0.

The main focus of D3D 10.1 is visual quality. Support for 4xAA will not longer an option and chips have to support blending together with 32 Bit floating point modes, too.
 
I first heard about this (DX10 being Vista-only, that is), on these very forums, about 2 years ago, from Demirug --who, not knowing at the time that he reads Microsoft's mind in the future (a much more difficult task than just doing it in the present), I promptly tried to convince him he was crazy. :LOL:
 
Demirug said:
The main focus of D3D 10.1 is visual quality. Support for 4xAA will not longer an option and chips have to support blending together with 32 Bit floating point modes, too.
Click to expand...

Very interesting tidbit!

Will games be able to disable 4xAA? e.g. It seems UE3 does not play nicely with MSAA due to the deferred rendering technique they use. I guess though could force SSAA... it will be interesting to see how this falls out.
 
geo said:
I first heard about this (DX10 being Vista-only, that is), on these very forums, about 2 years ago, from Demirug --who, not knowing at the time that he reads Microsoft's mind in the future (a much more difficult task than just doing it in the present), I promptly tried to convince him he was crazy. :LOL:
Click to expand...

In the hardware business it is not that hard to know what Microsoft is planning. Because someone has to build this stuff they have to talk about it in advanced.
 
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