A heads-up to any developers looking forward to the new features Microsoft is introducing with DirectX 11.1: your players won't be seeing them unless they're running Windows 8.
As is being widely reported on the internet this week, Microsoft developer Daniel Moth offhandedly revealed that the DirectX 11.1 API shipping with Windows 8 will not be retrofitted for any prior operating systems, including Windows 7.
It's the latest chapter in a familiar story for Windows game developers, who by now are growing accustomed to Microsoft using the latest DirectX as an incentive for its users to upgrade to its latest OS. DirectX 10 was exclusive to the newly-introduced Vista when it launched in 2006.
DirectX 11.1 is mainly a performance upgrade, though one significant addition is native support for stereoscopic 3D effects. A full overview of new features introduced in Direct3D 11.1 is available here.
Ok maybe here someone can enlighten me if there is a "real" drawback here. For a layperson in programming like me, most of the features seems to be "nice to have", maybe making the daily routine easier but are non-essential technologies for visuals or other things.
Is that right or would it be really awful to miss out on some of those things? If so, why?
Yeah. Not awful to miss out on the things it supplies. Not for the end user at least.
The "real drawback" for developers is we have to have a Windows 8 machine to develop on now.
A .1 release requires a new OS? This pretty much guarantees no one will use it.
Exactly, these new features don't seem that monumental but that's redundant because now no one will be developing for 11.1 anyway.
My concern now however is what features will be in 11.2, 11.3, etc. that we won't be able to use for years. I understand Microsoft not wanting to make DX10 backwards compatible (new driver model, cleaning house, etc.) but this seems like a very poor decision.
Fragmenting the API like this will just delay adoption of the technology. Bad for developers, bad for players, bad for DirectX.
I'll stick with OpenGL. I just wish they'd replace that horrible Shader language with something that resembled OpenGL...maybe by adding new keywords to be used in list statements and forcing usage of OpenGL data types within the list block.
Why is this news? DX9 didn't work on Windows 95. DX10/DX11 didn't run on Windows XP/2000. Using games and graphics to drive Windows adoption has been the norm at Microsoft for over a decade.
I only hope that with all the dislike for Windows 8, the fact that DX only works for windows in the first place while more games are being ported to mac (and now hopefully linux thanks to steam) we might see more devs shifting from DX to GL.
I say this only so that I don't have to upgrade to windows 8 to get the latest graphical features. But on the other hand, with more games being launched for PC and console, wouldn't eliminating use of DX be a logical step? When you want to release on as many platforms as possible, and only 2/6 of those platforms make use of directX, with one of those platforms also supporting openGL, would it not be more logical to do everything on GL, and then port to the single DX device?
As for where I'm getting the 1/6th from, I'm going on the assumption that Linux, Mac, Playstation and Nintendo make use of openGL, while Windows and xBox make use of DX, while windows can use both GL and DX.
I'm not sayng this will be the end of DX by any means, just that it would make more sense to move away from it with current expansion.
If the market is big enough, you can just opt for DX. However, some kind of neat standard middleware (neither GL or DX) would be nice. In the longer term, this would mean doing away with the DX restrictions and being able to run on XBox and Mac alike.
Is that right or would it be really awful to miss out on some of those things? If so, why?
The "real drawback" for developers is we have to have a Windows 8 machine to develop on now.
A .1 release requires a new OS? This pretty much guarantees no one will use it.
My concern now however is what features will be in 11.2, 11.3, etc. that we won't be able to use for years. I understand Microsoft not wanting to make DX10 backwards compatible (new driver model, cleaning house, etc.) but this seems like a very poor decision.
Fragmenting the API like this will just delay adoption of the technology. Bad for developers, bad for players, bad for DirectX.
...
They're not, right...?
Give in and join the "Dark Side". We have cookies!
I say this only so that I don't have to upgrade to windows 8 to get the latest graphical features. But on the other hand, with more games being launched for PC and console, wouldn't eliminating use of DX be a logical step? When you want to release on as many platforms as possible, and only 2/6 of those platforms make use of directX, with one of those platforms also supporting openGL, would it not be more logical to do everything on GL, and then port to the single DX device?
As for where I'm getting the 1/6th from, I'm going on the assumption that Linux, Mac, Playstation and Nintendo make use of openGL, while Windows and xBox make use of DX, while windows can use both GL and DX.
I'm not sayng this will be the end of DX by any means, just that it would make more sense to move away from it with current expansion.
So... I will keep playing my OGL or DX9 games :)