DX10 cards are officially obsolete.

[Benjamin Gawert]

* William:

Maybe you want to read this:

<http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/33868/DX10-1-DOES-Work-with-This-Gen-DX10-Cards>

"...Microsoft's Sam Glassenberg told Next-Gen in a phone interview,
"DX10.1 fully supports DX10 hardware. No hardware support is being
removed....It's strictly a superset. It's basically an update to DX10 that
extends the hardware functionality slightly."

He said that the update is similar to what Microsoft did with DX9. "We did
make updates to [DX9] that extended the supported feature set.

"All the hardware is still supported, all the games still run, all the
features are still there, we've just simply extended the feature set and
the lifetime of the API," he said...."

This information does not address the point I am making - Straw man
argument! You are trying to introduce an argument that I have not argued
for so you can claim victory and get me off subject. Not interested. You
have not addressed my paragraph.

I have. You said DX10 cards are obsolete because they don't support the
oncoming new standard - and that's just BS.

Did you even had a look on what new functions DirectX 10.1 offers over
DirectX 10? Probably not. So here they are:

<http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...5a-8506e5acf571&DisplayLang=en&displaylang=en>

* TextureCube Arrays which are dynamically indexable in shader code.
* An updated shader model (shader model 4.1).
* The ability to select the MSAA sample pattern for a resource from
a palette of patterns, and retrieve the corresponding sample positions.
* The ability to render to block-compressed textures.
* More flexibility with respect to copying of resources.
* Support for blending on all unorm and snorm formats.

And of these six groundbreaking new features only the second one (shader
model 4.1) is what current DX10 cards are lacking. The others are just
improvements in the DirectX graphics APIs itself (which of course also
require new gfx drivers).

FYI: this is nothing different from previous DirectX releases, i.e. the
step from DirectX 9.0b to DirectX 9.0c which introduced shader model
3.0. Still it doesn't render the ATI cards (i.e. the X800) that didn't
support SM 3.0 obsolete.

And you are aware that DirectX is not only for gfx but a collection of
APIs going from gfx, video, sound, over input methods? Then you probably
noticed that the audio subsystem in DirectX 10.1 did undergo much more
stringent changes.

Again: DX10 cards will not be certified to work on DX10.1 software.

Certified by whom? MS?

What a nonsense. Here are a few facts for you:

First, MS doesn't "certify" any software or hardware for DX
compatibility, period. MS provides a set of APIs (called DirectX) and
nothing more.

Second, DX10.1 software (if they will appear at all, Sam Glassenberg who
is Lead Program Manager on the Microsoft DirectX Team already said
that you shouldn't count on "DX10.1 games") will run perfectly fine with
todays DX10 hardware.

Third, vendors that do use DirecX for their applications and that
certify hardware (i.e. 3D Studio Max from Autodesk) never use the
greatest and latest DirectX version but stay with a stable release.
Besides that most gfx applications use OpenGL anyway.

DX10
cards will run a sub-set of DX10.1, but they will not be DX10.1 certified.
Or DX10.2 or .3 ..... They will run using a sub-set, but they will not be
certified, hence the customer will not purchase them - obsolete.

Again: certified by whom? The GPU vendor? Again, the lack of SM3.0 with
the ATI Radeon X800 didn't stop them from marketing it as DX9 GPU.

You are not including facts addressing the points made, this is a
non-sequitur.

I did. They just obviously don't suit your intentions.

The conclusions presented by you are not supported by the
facts given.

Well, somehow I'm quite sure that Mr. Glassenberg knows is better than
you or the FUD spreader "The Inquirer". But as I said it doesn't fit
your intentions so of course you ignore facts.

Their is some type of disconnect going on here. We are
talking past each other. I am saying one thing, and you are repling to a
different subject.

If you really have this impression then it only shows that you're
lacking the necessary background knowledge because I'm talking about the
same thing like you.

Benjamin

 

[Benjamin Gawert]

* William:

He has money on the table, so he does not like the message.

Yeah, right. Buying a Quadro for playing games, eh? I spend every two
years the amount of a compact class car for a new computer to run
*OpenGL* applications on it. I really couldn't care less on what DirectX
version the card supports.

But if it helps you to ignore facts to defend the nonsense you posted
then go ahead. You're not the first whiner that complains for nothing,
and you for sure won't be the last.

Been their,
done that. Nothing new.

Please don't reflect your personal insufficiencies to others. Thanks.

Benjamin