Microsoft Says It's Not Retiring DirectX Despite Reports

[susyque747]

[citation][nom]obsama1[/nom]I wish they would adopt OpenGL, but why would they? It would make porting games to competing platforms very easy (i.e. PS3).[/citation]
MS did embrace Open GL back when Windows XP first released, they even had a screen saver that had a floating Open GL sign. MS quickly changed their tune for Open GL when Linux games started to appear in stores. They then pushed their proprietary DX to kill off Linux games and it worked for a long time but finally Open GL is making a second comeback and I hope evil monopolistic MS and their proprietary DX both die.

 

[A Bad Day]

[citation][nom]susyque747[/nom]MS did embrace Open GL back when Windows XP first released, they even had a screen saver that had a floating Open GL sign. MS quickly changed their tune for Open GL when Linux games started to appear in stores. They then pushed their proprietary DX to kill off Linux games and it worked for a long time but finally Open GL is making a second comeback and I hope evil monopolistic MS and their proprietary DX both die.[/citation]

[citation][nom]susyque747[/nom]What ever MS, take your proprietary DX and shove it up your dark stinky hole. Long Live Open GL.[/citation]

Instead of bashing MS, how about you convince more developers to use OpenGL (or make it more competitive against DX)?

You want to win a format war, you gotta need marketshare and popularity.

 

[bit_user]

[citation][nom]susyque747[/nom]MS did embrace Open GL back when Windows XP first released[/citation]Try Windows NT, from day one.

[citation][nom]susyque747[/nom]They then pushed their proprietary DX to kill off Linux games[/citation]DirectX predated Linux kernel 1.0 or maybe 1.2. But there were no 3D games on linux, at the time, because 3D hardware accelerated VGA cards were in their infancy. I'm talking pre-3DFX, here.

Direct 3D was launched before the first version of GL Quake, even. In fact, Direct 3D was already up a few major revisions before Carmack wrote his famous screed against Retained Mode.

I know all this, because I was keenly interested in Linux, hardware 3D accelerated VGA cards, and Direct3D, at the time. I was very disappointed that Direct3D was held back and did not launch as part of Windows 95. You should get your history straight, before making such claims.

 

[bit_user]

I wish they would adopt OpenGL, but why would they? It would make porting games to competing platforms very easy (i.e. PS3).

And that's exactly why they won't. They want to lock devs into their platform, by forcing them to use their APIs and technologies.

In fact, MS was a member of Kronos, the standards body who took over OpenGL from SGI. But they dropped out a couple years ago, eliminating any hope of them embracing any of the Kronos standards (which includes OpenCL, among many others).

 

[ashesofempires04]

XNA was probably discontinued because Microsoft doesn't want developers building a game with a 6+ year old API set that is entirely out of date compared to the company's modern graphics API. XNA framework is based around a custom version of DX 9, which just doesn't support a lot of the stuff modern graphics cards can do. Everyone wins if developers get an SDK that allows them to take advantage of DX11 functions.

The real worry is that by killing off XNA without replacing it with something newer, MS may accidentally kill off indy-game development for their platform. XNA allowed small-time developers to build for the 360 without having to ask MS for a development kit.

As for DX development being dead beyond graphics, i'm not surprised. There hasn't been any real innovation in the sound space since companies thoroughly mastered the art of 5.1 sound.

 

[anxiousinfusion]

Here's how I see it; DirectX only works on 1 of 3 platforms. Open GL works on all 3. It's time to retire the old proprietary standard.

 

[Raid3r]

How is is about money and time, when all the empirical evidence SHOWS that it's about "competition". They knew they found a honey pot when people opted to buy consoles because of supposed "ease of use". Then they started the same old "exclusive" wars that pander to one console.

Then they just started porting games over to PC and fuck all, why did we not think of this sooner!?!? No extra cash involved "really" and we can charge the same price even though they get NO benefit of using it on their stronger machines!! Then we throw in multiplayer, DRM, and co-op and they will buy it again, because there other gamer friend is on the PC!! BRILLIANT! Consumer loses out and it's just another thing you have to convince yourself you don't want anymore. Deadspace 3 and the whole series is proof of that abuse, ad nauseum with many other series.

P>S> Don't get me started on physics..same nonsense.

 

[Shin-san]

I messed around with XNA, and it's very wonderful. It's a shame it's getting the ax.

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]susyque747[/nom]MS did embrace Open GL back when Windows XP first released, they even had a screen saver that had a floating Open GL sign. MS quickly changed their tune for Open GL when Linux games started to appear in stores. They then pushed their proprietary DX to kill off Linux games and it worked for a long time but finally Open GL is making a second comeback and I hope evil monopolistic MS and their proprietary DX both die.[/citation]

[citation][nom]anxiousinfusion[/nom]Here's how I see it; DirectX only works on 1 of 3 platforms. Open GL works on all 3. It's time to retire the old proprietary standard.[/citation]

Again, DX works just fine in Linux and has for years. Linux takes a little longer to get support for new versions than Windows because the Linux gurus have to port it over, but it gets done.

 

[alextheblue]

[citation][nom]redeemer[/nom]DirectX is what is holding developers back[/citation]
Source please. I'd really like to hear a major developer, indie or otherwise, say that DirectX is what is holding them back.

If you mean to say that it makes it less convenient to port across platforms, I've seen plenty of games with multiple renderpaths. I see no reason that you couldn't have an OGL and a DX renderpath like they have done in the past. DirectX has become popular for a reason - even Carmack admitted DX was better, even though he is sticking with OpenGL.

Now XNA, that's a different story. XNA needs to be retired and have something newer replace it, something that supports DX11 and beyond. That doesn't mean it prevents anything in development with XNA now from being released.

 

[jamesedgeuk2000]

A lot of people seem to forget that until the Direct X 7.0/8.0 era pretty much all games used OpenGL, developers all moved to DX because it was better (iD software being the last holdout) as it was updated much more often so allowed more features and was easier to use.

 

[susyque747]

[citation][nom]jamesedgeuk2000[/nom]A lot of people seem to forget that until the Direct X 7.0/8.0 era pretty much all games used OpenGL, developers all moved to DX because it was better (iD software being the last holdout) as it was updated much more often so allowed more features and was easier to use.[/citation]
Try MS bribe money, the way they bribe developers to release Crapbox 360 exclusives.

 

[dwhapham]

[citation][nom]SneakySnake[/nom]I wish they would drop DirectX, and then everyone would move to OpenGL. If that were the case you could have game's on every platform, and it require virtually no porting (Windows, Mac, Linux). Maybe then Gabe's vision of using Linux for the Steam box could be a reality. No way in hell though MS is gonna let DX onto linux just for him.[/citation]

I develop educational games for Android and MS products using XNA, DirectX, and OpenGL. While there is no holy grail for cross platform game development, XNA is the best I've encountered when it comes to seamless cross platform (Xbox, Windows, and WinPhone). However, you are always going to run into issues with drivers and different hardware. OpenGL doesn't solve that problem.

 

[CaedenV]

[citation][nom]blazorthon[/nom]We already have a large number of DX11 games.[/citation]

there are only 60 games so far, most of which have only just been released in the last year, and very few of which o good job at implementing it. by far, most games released today are still DX9c which came out in 2004 because that is what consoles still use today (for those games that are developed using DX anyways).
When the new consoles are released (and specifically when the NextBox is released) we will see a big spike in games that support DX11, and then about a year afterwards then we will see developers really use the DX11 tools to their potential. Namely this will mean tesselation everywhere (which is awesome, and the youtube videos of it do not typically do it justice), and lighting that supports much richer/deeper black levels. But even DX11 is 3.5 years old already, and will be 4 years old when consoles begin using it. Pinning console developemnt to the DX standards has probably been the 2nd largest thing to hold back game development (the 1st being the extremely limited amounts of ram available in consoles which affects level design).

 

[lradunovic77]

DirectX is what keeps Windwos around otherwise gamers would switch to Linux.

 

[frank_drebin]

"Passion for Microsoft products", LOL

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]CaedenV[/nom]there are only 60 games so far, most of which have only just been released in the last year, and very few of which o good job at implementing it. by far, most games released today are still DX9c which came out in 2004 because that is what consoles still use today (for those games that are developed using DX anyways).When the new consoles are released (and specifically when the NextBox is released) we will see a big spike in games that support DX11, and then about a year afterwards then we will see developers really use the DX11 tools to their potential. Namely this will mean tesselation everywhere (which is awesome, and the youtube videos of it do not typically do it justice), and lighting that supports much richer/deeper black levels. But even DX11 is 3.5 years old already, and will be 4 years old when consoles begin using it. Pinning console developemnt to the DX standards has probably been the 2nd largest thing to hold back game development (the 1st being the extremely limited amounts of ram available in consoles which affects level design).[/citation]

Oh sure, I'm not saying that all of them implement it very well or that many of them are old games, but I think that the number of DX11 supporting games has grown well enough to be called large. Sure, it'll get much larger with consoles and I completely agree with you that the consoles held stuff back severely in terms of outdated APIs and insufficient memory and perhaps even more, but that doesn't change that there is (what I consider to be) a large number of games that support DX11 in some way.

 

[jkflipflop98]

[citation][nom]lradunovic77[/nom]DirectX is what keeps Windwos around otherwise gamers would switch to Linux.[/citation]

That, and Linux is a hot mess to do anything with.

 

[demonhorde665]

no duh hey won't be retiring DX , most every game on the market is programed for it , it'd stupid if they retired it.

 

[technoholic]

OpenGL or DX11, which one is superior in eye candy and/or performance? can anyone tell me? My friend (that is a mac x86 user) arguing with me that Macs are better at gaming due to openGL

 

[gavinwilliams]

[citation][nom]technoholic[/nom]OpenGL or DX11, which one is superior in eye candy and/or performance? can anyone tell me? My friend (that is a mac x86 user) arguing with me that Macs are better at gaming due to openGL[/citation]

Tell ur friend he's wrong. DX11.1 is really good. And common sense will tell you that Windows is a better gaming platform than Mac. I have watched people play games on their Mac, and i have to inwardly laugh at their very low expectations. No Mac on the planet is going to play a game as well as my W8 rig '.' OpenGL is not even in the game.

 

[technoholic]

[citation][nom]gavinwilliams[/nom]Tell ur friend he's wrong. DX11.1 is really good. And common sense will tell you that Windows is a better gaming platform than Mac. I have watched people play games on their Mac, and i have to inwardly laugh at their very low expectations. No Mac on the planet is going to play a game as well as my W8 rig '.' OpenGL is not even in the game.[/citation]
why is that? i.e skyrim looks/performs the same in both my pc and in his mac and it is a dx10 title. does the directx offer better level of detail at the end?

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]technoholic[/nom]why is that? i.e skyrim looks/performs the same in both my pc and in his mac and it is a dx10 title. does the directx offer better level of detail at the end?[/citation]

It really depends more on the individual game than the API AFAIK. If a dev wanted to, they could make an extremely graphically superior game regardless of using DX or OpenGL just like a dev could make a horribly ugly game with either of them.

 

[technoholic]

[citation][nom]blazorthon[/nom]It really depends more on the individual game than the API AFAIK. If a dev wanted to, they could make an extremely graphically superior game regardless of using DX or OpenGL just like a dev could make a horribly ugly game with either of them.[/citation]
Just asking cause there is the myth that OpenGL is better optimized for performance than DX but the latter offers better visuals for the cost of complexity. Read that somewhere like a couple of years ago but is that true? or is that still the case with the latest versions? or do you mean the same level of detail (i.e same visual effects) can be provided by both?

 

[hannibal]

Hmmm.... The situation has been stalled a guite a long time. So it may be so that DX11 offers much more that has been used so far, so maybe it is time to wait untill they really use these old (DX11) tricks untill going forward. DX9 was so well known and effient that it takes time untill game makers can do the same with DX11 instructions. So we have allreasy good tool, just hope that game developers lears to use it. New consoles can help the situation... If they really are DX11 compatible or better.
Wii U is then going to be the odd GPU in the grourp even if it othervice would be faster or at least as fast as next gen Xbox and PS. Interesting to see how long it will remain as the smallest limiting factor in game depeloping?