News Microsoft announces DirectX 11 at GameFest

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2008/07/23/microsoft-announces-directx-11-at-gamefest/1

Microsoft has unveiled DirectX 11, its next-generation graphics pipeline, at the annual XNA GameFest developer conference in Seattle.

 

I didn't think this was comming out until windows 7 was ready

 

sounds like it should just be called DX10.5 if its not a massive change

 

Well, since it took a long time before there were any (affordable) DX10 cards available, it's probably going to be 2010 before we see any DX11 capable hardware.

I'm certainly not going to hold my breath for that long.

 

If D3D11 was able to utilize multiple GPU's without specific driver support then it would be really big step ahead.

 

'I didn't think this was comming out until windows 7 was ready'

It's not but it's announced now, doesn't mean it's coming next week.

 

It's quite a big change... Tessellation and Compute Shaders (especially the latter) are Good Steps Forward.

 

So... what will be the next move by intel?

Will it claim that Larrabee will support DX11? Or that Larrabee will render DX11 obsolete?

XD

 

Larrabee will support DirectX and OpenGL on some level and since DX10 it's been an all or nothing thing, so I'd imagine it'll have full compliance with whatever the latest DX version is when it's released (that's looking like DX11 FWIW).

 

Don't know what to think on that one :S

Well, i guess we should just wait and see?

 

**** you vista.

 

M$ should really concede apple are better at OS and get it wokring with OSX - rejoice etc

 

Well, thanks for the insightful comments, chaps.

Back on topic, could Compute Shaders make it easier to use the GPU for non-graphical tasks - like physics or folding at home? It certainly seems that way from the article.

 

yes, seems like MS is stepping up to standarise this GP-GPU business

 

Geez. DX11 already? Things are moving way too fast for me. Well, too fast for my wallet I should say.

 

@Flibblebot, nah it's for graphics tasks and will give developers more freedom when it comes to implementing certain effects

 

Well, I heard it's possible to make computer faster at certain tasks with CUDA supported GPU's from nVidia. Like password cracking

 

I suspect that DX11 will receive a warmer reception than DX10 for two reasons..

Firstly, by the time DX11 is out, the takeup of Vista will probably be much higher than it was at the release of DX10.
Secondly, the differences between DX10 and DX11 should be *much* more apparent to the end-user than those between DX9 and DX10.
A side-by-side comparison of some in-game geometry with and without Tesselation will probably do the trick, there..

DX10 just wasn't enough to sway most of us to adopting a performance deficit by switching to Vista on our current hardware, but I think it'll be a much tougher call to make with DX11.
Even if we don't all switch over to Vista entirely, there will surely be a lot more people dual-booting XP/Vista at the least.

 

Please advise: I'm in the market for a new graphics card.. if i buy one now (AMD or Nividia) will i need to upgrade again when DX11 arrives, or will the cards be updated by means of a driver update?

I'm a noob - so maybe that isn't even possible... any ideas?