DirectX 11.2 Won't be Fully Supported by AMD Radeon HD 7000 Graphics Cards

[Someone Somewhere]

All future updates to DX should be Windows 8.1 only. All future games should be Windows 8.1 only there is no need to develop games or DirectX tech for a obsolete OS. And after Windows 8.1 comes out anything older is obsolete period.

The first game company to do this will see zero sales and die.

The rest will realise that it's not a good idea.

 

[redeemer]

Xbox One has DX11.2 support therefore it is a possibility that we will see cross-platform support for this latest API

 

[redeemer]

"Anyway, don't AMD/ATI GPUs tend to be more general purpose than NVIDIA GPUs and therefore more versatile and feature-rich and therefore ahead with supporting the newest Direct X versions."

I do not think this holds true in any thing other than AMD has shows to have had the newer DX ahead of Nvidia, but no games are using it so its almost moot
.
The fact is other than a few times in the past 10-12 years AMD has been a good bit behind Nvidia, In recent years it has been so bad they where able to sell a GK104 mid range chip for $499.99 and the top end GK110 for a absurd $999.99 due to lack of competition. With CUDA, SLI(was superior until recent patches fixed the frame pacing) Folding and Active Vsync and Digital vibrance with over all better driver support to newer games AMD has just not been some thing I would put my money in. I have owned 4 ATI/AMD cards and returned each one with in 1 month and got a Nvidia card to replace it due to incompatibility with the games or programs I uses.

I truly hope AMD can up the ante with the next gen of GPUs and real Nvidia's price back down to what it should be, healthy competition is always good for consumers.

GK104 a mid range chip?? GK110 was always intended to be a tesla variant, furthermore the GK110 is a massive die 550mm2 compared to Tahiti a 350mm2.

AMD has been behind Nvidia for 10-12 years?? You need to stop being a fanboy, remember when Nvidia had no answer to the 7970? How were 7970 prices at that time?

If Nvidia was so much a head in tech Sony and MS would have used them for their next gen consoles

 

[SneakySnake]

No. I can't watch telly and fold with an AMD GPU because it can't handle having two bits of software using the GPU at the same time whereas every Nvidia GPU I have used from a 9500GT to a GTX560Ti didn't have a problem at all running two bits of software at the same time. I think Nvidia GPU's are the ones that are more versatile and as PhysX is a feature that AMD don't have I think they are richer in that department too.

LOL you do realize that your graphics card handles literally hundreds of bits of software at a time.

I run SWTOR, CIV 5, and Dishonored all at the same time on my 7970. If you truly think that AMD cards can't handle two things at once, that means you think we can't even alt-tab out of the game. You truly know absolutely nothing about graphics cards.

Also, there's a little think called Havok that about 95% of all games use to do physics, and it has identical features to Physx. The only games that use Physx exclusively are ones that Nvidia pays lots of $$$ to get Physx branding. There's about 2 decent games in the last few years that use Physx

 

[cinergy]

AMD is the leader of technology and their GPUs put nvidia junk in shame. Both Sony and Microsoft knew that when selecting AMD for their consoles.

 

[InvalidError]

AMD is the leader of technology and their GPUs put nvidia junk in shame. Both Sony and Microsoft knew that when selecting AMD for their consoles.

AMD winning both SoC designs likely has a lot more to do with AMD being the only one between those two to own x86 CPU architectures and all necessary patents/licenses. Intel likely had little/no interest in the tight margins Sony and Microsoft probably demanded so AMD effectively won by default: since no other company was interested or capable in doing it.

 

[Mousemonkey]

No. I can't watch telly and fold with an AMD GPU because it can't handle having two bits of software using the GPU at the same time whereas every Nvidia GPU I have used from a 9500GT to a GTX560Ti didn't have a problem at all running two bits of software at the same time. I think Nvidia GPU's are the ones that are more versatile and as PhysX is a feature that AMD don't have I think they are richer in that department too.

LOL you do realize that your graphics card handles literally hundreds of bits of software at a time./quotemsg]

Oh really? Then why does the driver crash if the F@H client and the TV software are run at the same time then?

 

[Someone Somewhere]

AMD is the leader of technology and their GPUs put nvidia junk in shame. Both Sony and Microsoft knew that when selecting AMD for their consoles.

AMD winning both SoC designs likely has a lot more to do with AMD being the only one between those two to own x86 CPU architectures and all necessary patents/licenses. Intel likely had little/no interest in the tight margins Sony and Microsoft probably demanded so AMD effectively won by default: since no other company was interested or capable in doing it.

Nothing stopping them going for ARM chips - I can imagine a Tegra derivative in there, just with more cores and faster clocks.

 

[InvalidError]

Nothing stopping them going for ARM chips - I can imagine a Tegra derivative in there, just with more cores and faster clocks.

Why did Microsoft and Sony go with x86? Because major game developers more interested in porting their major games to PCs running Windows.

Why is that? Simple:
- do ARM CPUs come anywhere near x86 in terms of processing power? No.
- do ARM SoCs have IGPs anywhere close to a HD7850/7870's? No.
- do ARM-based devices with 8GB RAM currently exist to match next-gen consoles so games can run on them if ported to? No.
- do ARM-based devices have anywhere near the 100s of GBs of storage to install next-gen major games? No, most only have 16GB which is not enough to store any of the larger games.

So, if Sony and Microsoft decided to make their next-gen consoles ARM-based, there would be no other ARM-based devices capable of running them because all other ARM-based hardware out there would be so much weaker than those next-gen consoles.

By going x86, Sony and Microsoft make it easier for high-end game developers to port their games from consoles to the only other hardware environment capable of running them: PCs and vice-versa.

 

[Someone Somewhere]

They can, it's just that for the most part they are built for the extremely low power markets.

Nothing stopping you attaching a SATA controller to an ARM SoC. Or 8GB RAM. Or building in a serious GPU.

Did not being x86 stop them going with Cell?

 

[jeffredo]

Doesn't matter - I'm not getting Win 8.1. Just teh same old Vista DX10 carrot dangling (and I didn't fall for that either - waiting for Win 7).

 

[InvalidError]

Nothing stopping you attaching a SATA controller to an ARM SoC. Or 8GB RAM. Or building in a serious GPU.

You missed my point entirely.

Yes, they can put whatever they want in consoles.

But can you port 30GB AAA titles to phones and tablets? No. Why? Because they have nowhere near the resources to run those games... not enough RAM, not enough storage, not enough CPU/GPU power, etc.

Whatever hypothetical CPU might be used on consoles, the only other widespread platform worth porting high-end consoles to which can match processing power, RAM, storage, etc. is PCs, which makes choosing x86 for consoles the most logical choice to make porting between consoles and PCs easier.

 

[Someone Somewhere]

Yeah, but that doesn't explain why they didn't go with x86 last time.

You can still port them, it's just harder.

 

[smeezekitty]

Well both the XB360 and the PS3 were based on the powerpc architecture.
Somewhat of a strange choice, but it was somewhat mainstream at the time with apple systems using it.

I have always had a fondness of powerpc for some reason. But I think X86 is a good choice because it makes porting easier.

 

[InvalidError]

Yeah, but that doesn't explain why they didn't go with x86 last time.

There are many reasons:
1- high-performance x86 chips were a lot more expensive back then
2- AMD was not as desperate for business and likely wouldn't have accepted Microsoft and Sony's terms either
3- a low-cost APU with sufficient CPU/GPU power was not possible with the technology at that time so no advantage there either
4- the console and PC gaming industries now have to worry about cheap independent games on Android, iOS, Steam, etc. gnawing at their mindshare so they have to port their games faster and cheaper to more platforms to offset slowly dropping price points and likely lower sales per individual platform. I'm expecting easier porting to translate into fewer exclusive 3rd-party titles
5- just about every major game developer has said they were fed up with having to put up with completely different and quirky architectures between consoles and PCs so this time around, if either Sony or Microsoft had decided NOT to go x86 while the other did, it would likely have lost a large chunk of 3rd-party interest

I'm sure there are many more reasons but it basically boils down to: it did not really matter back then since developers were still willing to put up with it.

 

[sonofliberty08]

it is not x86 but x86_x64 (aka amd64),
i hope Sony and Nitendo will go for amd64 with OpenGL instead of DirectX

 

[smeezekitty]

I think x86_x64 is pretty much implicit at this point.
But I agree that openGL needs more support. Get rid of the absurdity of MS and poor backwards compatibility.

 

[cypeq]

Guess what dx9 is still alive and well so... who cares ?

 

[wanderer11]

I don't have Win8 anyway. I'd jsut be happy if most games woud fully support DX11.

 

[antilycus]

Good, now developers can start using a better performing, better open standard such as OpenGL. Unigine shows that OpenGL 4.x both looks better and performs better when compared the DX11.x

 

[InvalidError]

it is not x86 but x86_x64 (aka amd64),

Without Intel's x86 licenses, AMD's x86-64 wouldn't exist.

With AMD and Intel having worked out 64bits extension licensing many years and product cycles ago, they have pretty much become as standard as x86 (except on Atom but those are generally intended for embedded non-user-serviceable devices anyway) so I see no reason to perpetuate the hair-splitting about it.

 

[jackbling]

I just don't get the brand loyalty; YOU HAVE EMPIRICAL DATA AT YOUR DISPOSAL - keep baseless opinions where they belong.

And for all the people hating on ms for 11.2: they are a business, they make money by selling new licenses. Windows 8 has a smaller footprint and doesnt differ significantly from 7.

We all use Directx because it was made developer friendly and had actual financial backing; OpenGL couldnt keep up, and was quickly outpaced.

Directx has facilitated almost 20 years of gaming(direct3d/directx) - i don't even know why i read these.

As the past as shown, both ati and nvidia will have support for 11.2, be it at launch or shortly after.

8.1 hasn't released, manufacturers cannot redesign hardware that is out the door(a driver that brings 11.2 support does not mean the hardware is 11.2 compliant), and this article is being taken a bit too personal.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/bg182880.aspx

 

[InvalidError]

8.1 hasn't released, manufacturers cannot redesign hardware that is out the door(a driver that brings 11.2 support does not mean the hardware is 11.2 compliant), and this article is being taken a bit too personal.

Whether or not hardware is compliant depends entirely on whether or not the drivers can emulate or patch whatever show-stopping features might be missing or not quite right well enough to meet requirements.

What really matter at the end of the day is whether or not the hardware+drivers combination passes compliance tests. Exactly what happens between the drivers and hardware is of little to no importance.

 

[Duckhunt]

OpenGL should off been the standard for everything. Did Direct X help? Yes in some cases but resources could of been directed toward a single open industry standard that could of brought better games at a lower cost. That is what did not happen.

Then we have the idiocy of DRM that is unresolved because we have 1% of the corporation cost as much as 20% of the corporation underlying costs and then we are told that they can't afford to update the Desktop market.

Its the Chicken and Egg problem. If there is no games market for the PC, Then there is less sales for the PC. Why would you update when a 5 year old desktop can handle it, just need a new card if that?

Half the country can't even afford to update because of the in the economy. Were again the 1% are bailed out at the expense of everyone else. Just suck it up.

 

[InvalidError]

Its the Chicken and Egg problem. If there is no games market for the PC, Then there is less sales for the PC.

There is a game market for PC and sales of higher-end PCs for that are still growing despite the longer replacement cycles so no "chicken and egg" problem there.

The part of the PC market that is shrinking is lower-end computers, office computers (those almost exclusively used for MS Office and similar applications), point-of-sale terminals and other similar places that have very little use for any more performance but still represent the bulk of PCs out there - I seriously hope we will never see the day where we need something anywhere near i7-4770 to run Office.