A Hefty Discussion on DirectX

Tekkie Tekkie Muna (Hep hep hep, huwag makulet, sa akin ay makinig) you may want to read on this article first so you’ll understand what is being discussed.

Full article at Bit-Tech <click here for link>

Whether this actually happens remains to be seen, but Huddy certainly seems convinced that the idea of having no API at all is going to put pressure on Microsoft in the future. By getting low-level access to the hardware, games developers could potentially make many more draw calls, and push PCs way ahead of consoles in terms of graphics, which is where they should be, given the hardware we’ve got. However, this could also come at a cost in terms of stability and compatibility.

Either way, it looks as though DirectX’s future as the primary gateway to PC graphics hardware is no longer 100 per cent assured, especially when it comes to cutting edge graphics.

Wala yan. Malabo pa yan. Nabanggit din nila sa article, may pros and cons nga talaga. Pero maganda nga sana kung may “option” din kasi na pwede direct call to the hardware itself. Some big dev teams can make their own fast “in house” api. Yun nga lang, kailangan dapat macater all kinds of gpu architecture else mas magiging prevalent yung “nvidia loving / amd loving title”.
Can they tell if the graphics is two times or 3 times better? how? Sa performance kasi may numbers eh, sa looks I dont know of any.

Consoles also have a major bonus over PCs here, which is their fixed architecture. If you program direct-to-metal on the PlayStation 3′s GPU, then you know your code will work on every PS3. The same can’t be said on the PC, where we have numerous different GPU architectures from different manufacturers that work in different ways.

Sakit sa ulo sa QA side of things to test your app on different PC hardware configuration without a governing API. Heck, ngayon pa nga lang na may standard API, may mga render bugs / crashes pa din mga laro.
Im pretty sure kaya di din nilagyan ng MS yung option na yun is for security purposes. Having the option for devs to have low level access to hardware anytime is a bad idea security wise.
Removing the governing API is a step back imo. Kaya nagkakaroon ng mga “industry standards” para mastream-line yung process. Imo, they should just continue on improving DX..

I’m pretty sure kaya di din nilagyan ng Microsoft yung option na yun is for security purposes. Having the option for devs to have low level access to hardware anytime is a bad idea security wise.

You Think it is that bad to access low level graphics routine? Let me ask you, which runs faster, a game encoded in assembly language versus the same identical game encoded in Visual C++ using the same exact libraries…….
MS wants everyone to go dumb, that is why……. before directx, each one had his own way to solving a particular problem….. but because of the ‘ease of use’ of directx, everybody’s brains went south, ingenuity included for the sake of ‘ease of use’ and standardization of codes.
Yeah, riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

Removing the governing API is a step back imo. Kaya nagkakaroon ng mga “industry standards” para mastream-line yung process. Imo, they should just continue on improving DX..

wrong……. it was MS who made directX to compete with OpenGL……. MS knows they are slower than GL, heck, Voodoo and Voodoo II ran rings around the fastest DirectX exclusive video cards Nvidia had to offer at the time…..
I was there when there was no directX and there were games that ran magnificently using 256KB of video ram using the entire power of the video card, and developers were making things like Vector graphics and Voxel Space to take advantage of the technology at the time.
Using directx did allow the graphics to be separated from the processor, but it did not result in graphics technology going by leaps and bounds……like it used to be before directX.
With DirectX, you are forced to follow a murcielago when you are driving a Veyron Grand Sport and you are not allowed to overtake it…………….. and you are accelerating at a preset pace as dictated by someone outside of the car.
That is the inherent problem of directX….. it is too damn slow and MS already knew this even before they released windows 3.1 when it is compared with OpenGL.
So what did MS do? graphics quality instead of raw processing power. But the problem is its still slow and takes too big a space to display it properly…….. You see the same problem with no apparent solution with today’s games (motion blur….. water splash……. etc……)
I mean, windows 3.1 is 20 years old and it still boots faster using a compaq 386 with 4MB RAM and 40MB hard drive than windows 7 with 16GB RAM and a raptor.
The problem? way too many ‘libraries’ to take care of thousands of routines that display the ‘good looking’ graphics we see……. at what cost? Speed and code efficiency. This is the pitfall of directx games…… it is just way too big, loading too many libraries, and in the end taking up too much space when someone could have done the same thing 4 times smaller, if directX was not born.
I was there when we did not have directX to play games…….. And we had the most enjoyable DOS games that we ever played…… all games after this was pure nonsense…..
Back then people used their brains to solve a graphical problem inherent to limited RAM and processor …..And these games were initially offered as DOS games….. no Directx there.
Remember the original C&C? It still plays way better than most RTS games being put out today…. that is why Red Alert is still being played by many people……. And C&C used Voxel Space to display their games until Generals came…. and as a result, all C&C games after this were utter crap.
The solution? remove directX as the so-called ‘standard’ in graphics…. if DirectX is the standard, then that standard is way too low, too big and too slow compared to what video cards can accomplish without directX.
All in all, its about time somebody ought to bright down the real hindrance to the ultimate graphical perfomance of today’s video cards….. DIRECTX.
Remember, it if is software, it is always slower…….. get it done as close to hardware at you can possibly take it, and I can assure you, graphics will be faster, games smaller but more responsive and at the same time originality of code will rise again, like the way they used to be.

Isa pang problema nilabas ni MS ang windows 95 na directx lang ang support…… ayun….. naiwan na si OpenGL and GLide.

Hindi Win 95 or DirectX ang nag pabagsak ng Glide.. it was 3dfx going bankrupt kaya natigil support sa glide. Also, hindi directx lang ang support ng win95. Supported pa din ng win95 ang Glide. Heck, even Win98 can run Glide titles natively. As for OpenGL.. well buhay pa din naman development for that API sa win platform. Rage was done in OpenGL. Heaven Benchmark can render in OGL. Developers can opt to use OpenGL anytime they want.

Removing the governing API is a step back imo. Kaya nagkakaroon ng mga “industry standards” para mastream-line yung process. Imo, they should just continue on improving DX..

wrong……. it was MS who made directX to compete with OpenGL……. MS knows they are slower than GL, heck, Voodoo and Voodoo II ran rings around the fastest DirectX exclusive video cards Nvidia had to offer at the time….

Its a step back in terms development if you remove the governing framework (be it OpenGL, Direct3d etc). Babalik yung era where one hardware manufacturer would reign supreme in terms of its rendering horsepower. They’d work closely with game developers (to make life “easier” for developers), release its own in house closed technology API that would most probably gimp any gpu that doesn’t have that kind of architecture, then jack up their card’s price.
MS stepped up and released its own unified framework wherein developers and hardware manufacturers would adhere to. Kind of like a neutral ground to all software and hardware developers.. but just like what the article said, Direct3d is pretty much limited as of now..
The thing here is as long as gumagamit tayo ng ms windows for gaming, sad to say, directx is here to stay. Hence my statement “they should just continue on improving DX..”. There are lots of ways to improve D3d.. one way is to make it open. Fact is there are plenty of untapped talent around the world. M$ chose to close it off from them for you know what purpo$e.

Remember the original C&C? It still plays way better than most RTS games being put out today…. that is why Red Alert is still being played by many people……. And C&C used Voxel Space to display their games until Generals came…. and as a result, all C&C games after this were utter crap.

Current C&C’s graphic engine had nothing to with it being crap XD.

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