DX10

[Guest TonyPiech]

Any word when its coming, I thought it would be loaded with VISTA but that's not the case.

[W2DR 1,860]

DX10 is included with all versions of Vista. That's the good news. The bad news is that you need a DX10-compliant video card to be able to utilize any DX10 features. Vista contains both DX10 and DX9c and, absent the proper hardware, everything is run under DX9.Doug

[greggerm 312]

> The bad news is that you need a DX10-compliant video card to be able to utilize any DX10 features....not to mention a DX10 enhanced game or application. Just having DX10 hardware + vista still isn't enough! :)

[acmem 0]

The question also becomes, why are games or other programs so slow to use either dual processors or DX10? Both have been out for a while now, the hardware seems to be surpassing the programmers by huge leaps. Quad Cores are already on the market and advertised as the ultimate gaming processor! WHAT GAMES!? Is it really that difficult for programmers to make patches for multithreading and DX10 or is it a marketing thing?

[FlyingsCool 3]

Yes, multi-threaded programming spreading tasks across multiple processors is not easy, and it's only been a year since the mulitple core processors have been released and perhaps 8 months that people have been buying them in quantity.Thomas[a href=http://www.flyingscool.com] http://www.flyingscool.com/images/Signature.jpg [/a]I like using VC's :-)N15802 KASH '73 Piper Cherokee Challenger 180

[Guest BOPrey]

Actually, multi-thread programming is easy. I have been writing multi-thread applications that ran on multi-processor systems for the last 15 years. When it comes to games, it is a different story. Most games developers don't write code that really touches the "metal". They rely on engines that other companies wrote and have to pay a huge sum in royalty. When multi-core came along, those engine developers has to come up with engines that can private flexible programming environments and at the same time, a robust multi-threading model. However, those two usually don't get along well without the game developers doing more work. To make a long story short. Writing a multi-threaded game program is easy if you do every thing yourself. Writing a multi-thread game engine that can work with many different games is difficult.

[tf51d 284]

In case you guys haven't heard, Phil says, SP1 will include multicore support for FSX, and INTEL is promoting it (FSX SP1 Support) with their introduction of the QX6800. It will work on both Intel and AMD multi core systems!

[Guest Traffic]

Interesting. My understanding, correct me of I'm wrong, is that the flightsim engine is done in house by MSFT so technically, granted with a lot of work, future iterations of the product can potentially be fully multi-threaded and the only thing stopping/slowing them down is resources?

[Guest]

>The question also becomes, why are games or other programs so>slow to use either dual processors or DX10? Both have been out>for a while now, the hardware seems to be surpassing the>programmers by huge leaps. Thats a fact. Hardware is ALWAYS ahead of software.

[Guest brendanstacey]

What about crysis? Its logic that the hardware needs to be released so the software can take advantage of it. So basically its impossible for software to be ahead of hardware.

[W2DR 1,860]

Good point! Anyone got one of those :-)

[Tabs 2,790]

>Actually, multi-thread programming is easy. I have been>writing multi-thread applications that ran on multi-processor>systems for the last 15 years. When it comes to games, it is a>different story. Most games developers don't write code that>really touches the "metal". They rely on engines that other>companies wrote and have to pay a huge sum in royalty. When>multi-core came along, those engine developers has to come up>with engines that can private flexible programming>environments and at the same time, a robust multi-threading>model. However, those two usually don't get along well without>the game developers doing more work. To make a long story>short. Writing a multi-threaded game program is easy if you do>every thing yourself. Writing a multi-thread game engine that>can work with many different games is difficult. Those "engines other companies wrote" are primarily in fact games such as Half-Life 2, Far Cry, Unreal Tournament, Stalker, even FSX for that matter. There's a reason other companies buy the engines behind those games. You make it sound like it's trivially easy to program a better engine as long as you "do everything yourself" whatever that's supposed to mean. Since this isn't the first time I've seen you making such outlandish claims of how easy it is to program multi-core support into games, I'm gonna ask you to provide some credentials this time. Exactly which modern multithreaded 3D game engines have you worked on that qualify you to flippantly go against long articles and white papers by the likes of id Software, Valve, Crytek, and Epic Games explaining why it's so difficult to do in games?

[Mike T 208]

IF that were true, we'd all be running FSX at full sliders at 150 FPS. I think its the other way around, software releases drive hardware purchases.More examples: Vista is software...you need to have new upgraded hardware to run it properly. DX10 is software, you need new upgraded hardware to run it. Exchange 2007 is software but you need new upgraded hardware to run it.I can't think of too many instances where the hardware is sitting around waiting for the software to catch up. I wish that were the case because the FSX question would be a moot point.

[acmem 0]

>IF that were true, we'd all be running FSX at full sliders at>150 FPS. >>I think its the other way around, software releases drive>hardware purchases.>>More examples: Vista is software...you need to have new>upgraded hardware to run it properly. DX10 is software, you>need new upgraded hardware to run it. Exchange 2007 is>software but you need new upgraded hardware to run it.>>I can't think of too many instances where the hardware is>sitting around waiting for the software to catch up. I wish>that were the case because the FSX question would be a moot>point.>I would have to respectfully disagree with you. Although the application programs and operating system you mentioned may be the case, games are far, far behind; FSX is one of those main cases! They have admitted that they did not fully see the future of multi core systems when FSX was in development. Think about it, how many games are currently out that use DX10, ZERO, in development, maybe 3 or 5 at the most. Meanwhile video cards like the Nvidia 8800 GTX and multi core processors are sitting around doing what many cards and single core processors did before them. Game consoles are another case in point; most game developers do not take advantage of all the hardware under the hood until many years after it has hit the market. Articles abound about how it will be some time until you see games take full advantage of the PS3 or 360 hardware. I think it has more to do with management, marketing and executive board members scared to invest resources in developing software for hardware until they clearly see that everyone is buying the hardware in droves. It just gets me upset that respectable companies make so much hype about say, Windows Vista and WOW games like FSX and DX10, people like myself go out spend big $ on new hardware to run Vista, thinking FSX, as advertised, is made to run WOW on Vista and DX10 and 6 months later we still don

[greggerm 312]

>In case you guys haven't heard, Phil says, SP1 will include>multicore support for FSX...It is better said that FSX SP1 will provide *improved* multicore support, not flat-out "support". FSX does currently support and use multicores, but nowhere near enough to make it worth the time to type it. :) SP1 is designed to improve that situation. It has been noted in the postings and blogs that while they have improved it, it is still not at all going to be the case of loading both cores 100% for 100% of the time. Check the blog and materials here for more. eg: from Phil's blog...[blockquote]At load time, we run the terrain loading on threads across the cores. This can result in reduced load times, the actual percent reduction can vary but it could be reduced by as much as 1/3.At render time, we run the terrain texture synthesis on threads across the cores. During flight on multi-core machines, as terrain and terrain textures are loaded you will notice significant multi-core usage. As all tiles are loaded, the multi-core usage will fall off, this is expected. As the terrain is re-lit, approximately every minute, you will see multi-core usage increase. As you bank and load terrain tiles, or as you fly forward and force a load of more terrain tiles, you will see the multi-core usage increase.[/blockquote]I'm probably nitpicking at the details, but just wanted to mention it. :)-Greg