"DirectX 10 is probably the most important revolution in games development, at least since the introduction of the programmable shader in DirectX 8.0. Because of the way that Microsoft has designed the new driver model, DirectX 10 will only be available for Windows Vista users and there will not be a version released for Windows XP. Along with DirectX 10, Windows Vista will come with DirectX 9.0Ex - this is because pre-DirectX 10 hardware will not work under the new API due to the complete overhaul."
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Member since:2006-10-08
"Not only that, but the major companies tend with the need for CAD (Chrysler/GM/etc) and high end 3d (ILM/Pixar/etc) tend to use a Unix or Unix-like systems. "
As far as I know, SGI systems are very useful for this purpose. They even aren't x86 architecture.
An advantage of "DirectX" 10 could be it's ability to run on the newest x86 hardware (Core 2 Duo etc.) with a high clock rate. So it could compete with the hardware representations of OpenGL that do shading, clipping etc. Maybe it's the choice of industry. We'll see.
Game developers should tend to interoperability to gain more market share (How I love this term!) if they can release a game for different OSes. But "DirectX" does not seem to cover this, so OpenGL or SDL based games would surely be more popular. As far as I see from the article, "DirectX" offers nothing that you can't do with OpenGL, Mesa or SDL, except that it is restricted to MICROS~1 products.
But I'm not very interested in gaming, so I don't care much.
Member since:
2006-04-11
Not only that, but the major companies tend with the need for CAD (Chrysler/GM/etc) and high end 3d (ILM/Pixar/etc) tend to use a Unix or Unix-like systems.
For them, DirectX is a non-starter.
I wouldn't use it, but I am biased against enslavement and would never really consider it anyway.
Edited 2006-12-01 02:35