DirectX 9 is released

His Divine Shadow · Post by **His Divine Shadow** » 2002-12-31 10:02am

Has anyone downloaded it? Tried it? Care to give any opinions if so?

Article and discussion:
http://arstechnica.infopop.net/OpenTopi ... 9540907245

EmperorMing · Post by **EmperorMing** » 2002-12-31 10:06am

I'm of the wait and see crowd. No need to use it if the game doesn't need it...

Crazy_Vasey · Post by **Crazy_Vasey** » 2002-12-31 10:22am

It's really only useful to developers right now. I downloaded the SDK but meh, I gave it a look and I'm going to stick with OpenGL. OpenGL is sill way easier to use.

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2002-12-31 12:26pm

Do I need a heart transplant? Why don't I get one just to be safe....

IE
If you don't need it don't do it

His Divine Shadow · Post by **His Divine Shadow** » 2002-12-31 12:40pm

Meh, this is a PC, I did it, it worked anyway.

ArmorPierce · Post by **ArmorPierce** » 2002-12-31 12:47pm

I don't download things when it first comes out. It might have bugs and shit.

Anarchist Bunny · Post by **Anarchist Bunny** » 2002-12-31 02:12pm

I hate openGL. Ofcourse thats because my comp runs on Win2k.

But tonight, if I'm not a complete idiot, should be installing a Radion 7000 that will give me full openGL support I need to kill the entire crew of the starship voyager.

Vertigo1 · Post by **Vertigo1** » 2002-12-31 02:22pm

I think I'll wait and see if its any count.

ArmorPierce: Everything has bugs. Just depends on how bad they are.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2002-12-31 02:37pm

DirectX9 has no meaning until video cards and games start supporting it.

Grand Admiral Thrawn · Post by **Grand Admiral Thrawn** » 2002-12-31 02:47pm

Why should I use it? No games need it. Waste of space.

C.S.Strowbridge · Post by **C.S.Strowbridge** » 2002-12-31 02:59pm

Darth Wong wrote:DirectX9 has no meaning until video cards and games start supporting it.

ATI 9700 already uses it.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2002-12-31 03:56pm

The 9700 supports DirectX 9. No shipping games use it.

As for DirectX 9 itself ... great, yet another iteration of Microsoft's proprietary "standard." Though, I can't blame developers for using it. The OpenGL committee is sure taking its sweet time with the 2.0 spec ...

Crazy_Vasey · Post by **Crazy_Vasey** » 2002-12-31 04:13pm

anarchistbunny wrote:I hate openGL. Ofcourse thats because my comp runs on Win2k.

That shouldn't matter. Every version of windows since Win95 OSR2 has shipped with the exact same 1.1 ICD.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2002-12-31 05:12pm

Waste of space and time with my 56K. Once games start using it I'll get it that way.

Crayz9000 · Post by **Crayz9000** » 2002-12-31 06:39pm

All I can say is that, regardless of video card, I hate DirectX. It's proprietary, it's not an industry standard like OpenGL, and its performance stinks on most video cards.

Hell, I can get 1000+ frames/sec in Unreal Tournament when I'm running OpenGL; I'm hard-pressed for 100 with DirectX. Hell of a difference, huh?

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2002-12-31 07:18pm

Crayz9000 wrote: Hell, I can get 1000+ frames/sec in Unreal Tournament when I'm running OpenGL; I'm hard-pressed for 100 with DirectX. Hell of a difference, huh?

1,000 F/sec? WTF are you smoking? System specs please.

Enlightenment · Post by **Enlightenment** » 2002-12-31 07:28pm

Crayz9000 wrote:Hell, I can get 1000+ frames/sec in Unreal Tournament when I'm running OpenGL; I'm hard-pressed for 100 with DirectX. Hell of a difference, huh?

Frame rates over 60fps are just dick size measurements. Frame rates over 120fps are utterly pointless as consumer-grade monitors can't refresh at that rate anyway; the extra frames just get bitbucketed.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2002-12-31 07:30pm

Crayz9000 wrote:All I can say is that, regardless of video card, I hate DirectX. It's proprietary, it's not an industry standard like OpenGL, and its performance stinks on most video cards.

Hell, I can get 1000+ frames/sec in Unreal Tournament when I'm running OpenGL; I'm hard-pressed for 100 with DirectX. Hell of a difference, huh?

I find that difficult to believe. Unreal Tournament's performance is highly dependent upon the CPU. Granted, I think DirectX is yet another attempt (and a very successful one) of Microsoft's to directly control the gaming market by tying all games to their 3D libraries, but that doesn't mean that it sucks. It has a feature set that basically puts OpenGL 1.4 to shame, but 2.0 is supposed to meet and exceed DirectX 9 in most areas ... if they'd finish up the damn spec.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2002-12-31 07:42pm

DirectX would be fine if it weren't proprietary. If I could make one change to the computer industry, it would be to define a class of software known as "infrastructure" such as file formats, network protocols, certain API's, etc. and make them public domain by law, so that you can't use them to railroad consumers into becoming captive customers.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2002-12-31 07:43pm

Crayz9000 wrote:All I can say is that, regardless of video card, I hate DirectX. It's proprietary, it's not an industry standard like OpenGL, and its performance stinks on most video cards.

Hell, I can get 1000+ frames/sec in Unreal Tournament when I'm running OpenGL; I'm hard-pressed for 100 with DirectX. Hell of a difference, huh?

No, because you eye can't tell the difference. And I seriously doubt you get 1000 fps in any case.

His Divine Shadow · Post by **His Divine Shadow** » 2002-12-31 07:53pm

Darth Wong wrote:DirectX would be fine if it weren't proprietary. If I could make one change to the computer industry, it would be to define a class of software known as "infrastructure" such as file formats, network protocols, certain API's, etc. and make them public domain by law, so that you can't use them to railroad consumers into becoming captive customers.

I'd support that, alot better than the crazy "kill MS and put Gates head on a pole" idea people seem to have

Crazy_Vasey · Post by **Crazy_Vasey** » 2003-01-01 08:36am

The UT engine isn't a very good way to measure performance on hardware that's even close to modern. The engine is very, very old by computer standards and is not optimal for modern graphics cards to say the least. It's from the days when 3DFX ruled the roost (it's optimised for glide) and when CPU's were MUCH faster than graphics cards. It uses very exact culling which was good for slow graphics cards but is pointless now as graphics cards can handle monstrous amounts of polygons no hassle, it just drains the CPU.

Crazy_Vasey · Post by **Crazy_Vasey** » 2003-01-01 08:41am

Durandal wrote:
I find that difficult to believe. Unreal Tournament's performance is highly dependent upon the CPU. Granted, I think DirectX is yet another attempt (and a very successful one) of Microsoft's to directly control the gaming market by tying all games to their 3D libraries, but that doesn't mean that it sucks. It has a feature set that basically puts OpenGL 1.4 to shame, but 2.0 is supposed to meet and exceed DirectX 9 in most areas ... if they'd finish up the damn spec.

If you use ARB extensions (which aren't too difficult to get going and are supported by all cards that support the D3D9 features) OpenGL has nearly all of the functionality of Direct3D, it only really lacks the HLSL which you can get sortof by using Cg.

If you use the card specific extensions you can get features that D3D doesn't have. The NV_fragment_shader is a I believe more advanced than D3D pixel shaders for example.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2003-01-01 01:24pm

Crazy_Vasey wrote:The UT engine isn't a very good way to measure performance on hardware that's even close to modern. The engine is very, very old by computer standards and is not optimal for modern graphics cards to say the least. It's from the days when 3DFX ruled the roost (it's optimised for glide) and when CPU's were MUCH faster than graphics cards. It uses very exact culling which was good for slow graphics cards but is pointless now as graphics cards can handle monstrous amounts of polygons no hassle, it just drains the CPU.

No kidding. I remember running Unreal Tournament on my Voodoo 2 ... it was absolutely gorgeous and smooth as silk. Ah, the memories ...

If you use ARB extensions (which aren't too difficult to get going and are supported by all cards that support the D3D9 features) OpenGL has nearly all of the functionality of Direct3D, it only really lacks the HLSL which you can get sortof by using Cg.

If you use the card specific extensions you can get features that D3D doesn't have. The NV_fragment_shader is a I believe more advanced than D3D pixel shaders for example.

Interesting. I know the 1.4 update added another 13 or so extensions, most of them being ARB, and the others were mostly ATi-specific.

Heh, I remember the days when Direct3D was the laughing stock of 3D API's. Oh well. Carmack uses OpenGL exclusively because he can modify it to suit his needs, so that's a plus.

His Divine Shadow · Post by **His Divine Shadow** » 2003-01-01 02:25pm

Wouldn't Direct X's only real competitor OpenGL be in serious trouble if MS made Direct X "open" to the public like OpenGL?

Ofcourse it's just an idea, doubt MS would do such a thing.