Talk:Direct3D

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[edit] Some contributions

Hi, I am a spanish wikipedist and after being working on the spanish version I have some contributions to this one. Please, be understanding with my poor English and help me to do it correctly. Thank you. Bedwyr 15:09, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] More version history

Can the version history be expanded? I'm quite sure it didn't start at version 8.


My two cent is that it's better to not go down to the origins. I think it really began to be useful from 8 (maybe 7) but previous versions never cought my attention. I would rather see this page integrated nicely, I personally don't care if it covers the old techs. 83.176.94.254 16:02, 7 February 2006 (UTC)


Direct3D's origins matter, they should be mentioned. e.g. in this article Criticism_of_Microsoft#Acquisitions they mention Direct3D as originally not a Microsoft thing. That would be one quite important thing to write about.. 62.78.150.81 15:56, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Even if it was not initially created by MS, it has been given a new shape by MS (inclusion of programmable shaders, for instance) whch radically affected the gaming scenario. The present versions of dx have changed so much that it hardly retains it legacy. --soUmyaSch 05:47, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
Even if the information is not particularly interesting to some, it IS very closely related to the topic at hand and may in fact actually be useful to someone. At the very least, an overview of what major features are in each revision of Direct3D would be useful. --Random pseudo-anonymous user

[edit] Direct 3D 10

The D3D 10 sections requires some cleanup. It badly lacks a good flow, and lines like it's most definitely not DX10 should be avoided. The line states What's currently referred to as DX10 is really WGF 2.0 atop Advanced VDDM drivers running on post-Vista hardware. WGF 1.0 (atop either flavor of VDDM), as shipping with Vista, is referred to by MS as DX9.L -- it's most definitely not DX10. If DX10 IS WGF 2.0 and WGF 1.0 is DX 9L, where is the confusion that the shipping version of WGF will be DX10? It should either be confirmed with a reference to MS document or reworded to be fully speculative, removing the contradicting claims. --soUmyaSch 16:55, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] To do

  1. Discussion of the D3D 10 graphics pipeline.

--soUmyaSch 08:12, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] DirectX 10 w/ XP?

For the holiday's i'm planning to upgrade my computer. Rather than buy the last great DirectX 9 card. I'm going to buy a DirectX 10 card. But since Vista wont ship until January, will I be able to use the card on a Windows XP system? (I wont be using Windows XP for long considering i'm planning to get Vista the day it ships or close to it)

You will be able to use it, it just won't provide the DirectX 10 render path. It will work fine with D3D9. --soumসৌমোyasch 10:31, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Direct3D 10 and shaders

The article states: "Fixed pipelines[2] are being done away with in favor of fully programmable pipelines (often referred to as unified pipeline architecture), which can be programmed to emulate the same. "

I'd like to note here that programmable pipelines are not the same as a unified architecture. While fully programmable pipelines are a prerequisite for Direct3D10, I don't believe that a unified architecture is a part of Direct3D 10. If I remember correctly, unified architexture just means that there is no longer a distinction between vertex/pixel shaders anymore on the hardware. However, I'm not entirely sure of this so someone with a better knowledge of this might want to comment. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.214.97.106 (talk) 10:55, 20 December 2006 (UTC).

[edit] DX10 Instancing 2.0

This is the feature about DX10 that I found most exciting (being able to render an entire army for the processing costs of one unit is far more obvious a benefit than 4.0 Shaders to me), however it's not mentioned in the features list. I found out about it (and other DX10) features from here: http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/11/08/what_direct3d_10_is_all_about/ , with the specific info on Instancing on Page 6 http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/11/08/what_direct3d_10_is_all_about/page6.html) I'm adding a brief mention under the feature checklist. 4.239.87.164 12:17, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Inaccuracies

1. The header states: Direct3D uses hardware acceleration if it is available on the graphic board. - this sounds as if there was a software fallback when hardware acceleration isn't available. But other than the reference rasterizer, which needs to explicitely enabled using the SDK tools, there is not software fallback.

2. The Immediate Mode / Retained Mode idea has been scrapped in DirectX 5 already. There is no "hierarchy" (scene graph) or animation framework contained in Direct3D anymore. Immediate mode has become Direct3D. Even if this ancient (and unsupported by most drivers) distinction was still relevant, the paragraph shouldn't say "Direct3D is formed by two big APIs", more like "When the earth was still young, Direct3D was divided into a lower-level immediate mode layer and a higher-level layer called retained mode built on top of the immediate mode layer". :)

Cygon 12:21, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] It was me with my little hachet

Someone claims to have hacked DX10 to run on top of Windows XP and possibly Apple Mac. He wants to make a company out of it, but will probably end up in free federal supermax care on DMCA charges instead... Article with links at the bottom: http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39095 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.131.210.162 (talk • contribs)

I think we should wait before reputed sources make an opinion of it, or more information comes out, rather than just the devs word. Coz I think theres something wrong about it. What idea I get is that it will emulate geometry shaders in software. I hate to think what a speed bottleneck execution will hit then. --soum (0_o) 15:32, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

It'd be a good idea to explain or mention how does it works with other programs like 3dS Max and to compare it with rival programs —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 189.151.75.146 (talk) 18:12, August 23, 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Crysis

"The game is also scaleable to deliver a breath-taking FPS experience for older DX9 PCs." --EA

So the statement that it exclusively supports DX10 is false. --M.A. 20:26, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] DX9 vs DX10

DX10 image quality advantages are fake? Oh yes, the marketing crew work very well and show to us a lot of beauty pictures which was build on DX10. We had heard lots of sweet stories about incredible, photorealistic graphics which accessible only with new technology (DX10). But all of highly promotion games of 2007 show no real advantage in image quality of DX10, DX9 mode on these games show identical or near identical picture… —Preceding unsigned comment added by -=Che=- (talk • contribs) 13:26, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Mandatory"?

Mandatory AA 4x? Hum? Means that jagged edges are forever be gone? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Thisaccountisreal (talk • contribs) 21:07, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

No that just means that the graphics card must support 4xAA at least (all dx9 graphics cards currently do). Then the video game is free to use that capability and can rely on its presence on all graphics cards that also support d3d10.1. Before the support was true but was not enforced, with direct3d10.1 the support will be enforced and therefore true.70.112.43.130 (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 05:40, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Rendering techniques

What sort of rendering techniques does Direct3D use? For example, is ray tracing supported? --Abdull (talk) 15:57, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

The best places for this type of information is Microsoft's Direct3D pages. This page is for discussing the article. But, no, Direct3D doesn't do ray-tracing. — Frecklefσσt | Talk 18:09, 9 June 2008 (UTC)