Farewell to DirectX?

[Nikolasz]

As simple as posible, let all hw memory maps be released, and ppl can enjoy small and fast sistem.
programs in Win95/98 did have direct to devices memory acces.
Once some one online has open up cdrom drive to put drink on top tray, ppl got scared. ()

Now we got all hw devices written in super ultra complexed way, and even now im not believer what we need this, simply coz in distant past, we didnt use firewalls those days.

[lizardmech]

I'm surprised they haven't done anything earlier to kill directX. Making DX10 Vista only clearly backfired and presumably hurt gpu sales. Waiting 5 to 10 years for the newest API to get a decent sized userbase because MS only allow it on the newest OS hardly seems practical. Supporting directX when MS is trying to kill PC gaming so it can sell more xbox360s doesn't seem like a good idea either, no one is going to buy high end GPUs to play crap dx9 xbox ports.

[XSAlliN]

DirectX is not standing in our way, we have DX9 and 10, neither of which are being used much as 99% of the time games are console ports.

You don't understand.

Windows being the most popular OS and that by a HUGE percentage, still has the highest monopoly in terms of PC gaming and all that cause of DirectX Hype... Was very well marketed all this years, selling - not just new version of windows but also new video-cards and the results have "never been near to those marketed - not even by a long shoot". Instead of those huge improvements promised - they were always tad better...

- which is kinda like voting for a BS-er, that makes all those interesting promises during his campaign and once elected - most you see from him are: baby steps in that direction...

[Tom128]

For one of a more recent example lets look at microsofts .NET framework. That has to be the biggest offense in software ever. Its slow, clunky, cumbersome and bloaty.

Are you joking? Are you referring to .Net 1.0 maybe? .Net has matured and become an amazing framework. I used to code exclusively in BSD environments, in Perl and C (not C++). Perl is to this day my favorite language ever so I am not just fanboying MS, but the .Net framework kicks ass now.

I view it a lot like Steam. It used to suck and was easy to rip on, but they got their act together and it's great now.

[XRL8]

Im guessing youre a programmer Tom.
Its probably easy and nice to program in NET, however EVERY software i used as a user in it, is SLOW,buggy and irritating.
Easy example.Nero 7 launched in about 0-1 secs on my ssd.Nero 9 is 10secs,on normal HDD its about a MINUTE.
You have to install this hog on your system because programs written in it cant function on its own.
And yea, its bloated, assembly folder takes 600MB on my system, with additional 200MB for software itself.
This assembly GAC cache is probably the reason its so slow, because it somehow "decomposes" itself in there into pieces which creates crapload of small files.

Oh, and often one version isnt fully compatible with the next version.
And one other small proof, when ATI`s control panel moved to net based CCC, EVERYONE HATED IT BECAUSE ITS SO SLOW NOW.

[NEOAethyr]

I hate .net as well, I don't allow it on my systems either .
The only time I do allow it is to install gta4, and right afterwards I del it.

[biohead]

Im guessing youre a programmer Tom.
Its probably easy and nice to program in NET, however EVERY software i used as a user in it, is SLOW,buggy and irritating.
Easy example.Nero 7 launched in about 0-1 secs on my ssd.Nero 9 is 10secs,on normal HDD its about a MINUTE.
You have to install this hog on your system because programs written in it cant function on its own.
And yea, its bloated, assembly folder takes 600MB on my system, with additional 200MB for software itself.
This assembly GAC cache is probably the reason its so slow, because it somehow "decomposes" itself in there into pieces which creates crapload of small files.

Oh, and often one version isnt fully compatible with the next version.
And one other small proof, when ATI`s control panel moved to net based CCC, EVERYONE HATED IT BECAUSE ITS SO SLOW NOW.

but still it's bashing on a language when it's illiterate fools (bad programmers) who run a mockery of it.

[eXa]

What is the problem with .net from and end-user point of view? I havent noticed anything at all from not having it to having it on my machine... For me its just there becasue som games want it.

[nn_step]

Are you joking? Are you referring to .Net 1.0 maybe? .Net has matured and become an amazing framework. I used to code exclusively in BSD environments, in Perl and C (not C++). Perl is to this day my favorite language ever so I am not just fanboying MS, but the .Net framework kicks ass now.

I view it a lot like Steam. It used to suck and was easy to rip on, but they got their act together and it's great now.

I must agree that .NET has considerably improved. However, the low Level API is poorly designed. The Common Intermediate Language is object-oriented and stack-based. That means that data is pushed on a stack instead of pulled from registers like in most CPU architectures. [A serious detriment to efficient implementation]

[Kallenator]

What is the problem with .net from and end-user point of view? I havent noticed anything at all from not having it to having it on my machine... For me its just there becasue som games want it.

What I have noticed at school and home to a degree is that Visual Studio is slow. At least compared to RAD Studio. Even my fastish home computer feels like crap in Visual. Another thing which some people might not like is the fact that if you use .NET the machine that uses the program you have written must have .NET installed. <- This is not a problem, doubt you will have any trouble on Windows machines.

I haven't done much work though so my knowledge is limited. I am still new to programing.
The most recent programing I did was a test program for a circuit board we have developed, to test RS232 and Ethernet. Used Turbotools and Indy. Both free or included in Delphi. I have a lot more hours in Visual, but I gotta say that I like this more even though its a similar to almost identical environment.


Btw how does Wine handle .NET, anyone have any experience with that?

[RejZoR]

Its not DirectX that's getting in the way, it's consoles and lazy publishers who want the damn direct console ports...

[vitchilo]

It's not the API getting in the way, it's the freaking consoles.

All games nowadays are being dumbed down for the 13 years old with a 360.

Enough with this console BS. Time to go back like during the 90s when there were games for consoles and games for PC.

[dasa]

the few games that ran dx10 from what i could see as a gamer it was just a slower way to produce the same graphics as dx9 so maybe there is a little truth to this or maybe it was just all bad coding of the games adding a few dx10 features to a dx9 engine

dx11 brings us tessellation and some further improvements in lighting but how efficient is it? we may never know when microsoft has such a stranglehold on things but i doubt its entirely to blame

[saaya]

what api do mobile games use?
or are those written in assembly?
if they are... then that might explain why SOME devs want to write everything in assembly, cause they have to do it for mobile platforms anyways?

[nn_step]

what api do mobile games use?
or are those written in assembly?
if they are... then that might explain why SOME devs want to write everything in assembly, cause they have to do it for mobile platforms anyways?

That depends on the mobile platform. But the most common is using the java graphic libraries. [Which is slower than any native API]

As for the determining factor on the speed of applications; the choice programming language only has a moderate effect on performance but a major effect on the time to engineer a program that works optimally given the task.

As for why computer applications seem to be taking more and more processing power. It is because programmers these days don't do proper profiling nor proper thinking of the problem set. To be honest I think the return to 30 minute compile time would encourage people to think more carefully before they start hammering out code that looks like it was written by a brain damaged monkey that is higher than a kite.

[Karak]

Modern mobile 3d games use OpenGL ES on all platforms, iPhones uses C and Objective C, Android uses C and Java, Samsung Bada uses C/C++, Windows Phone uses Compact .NET framework(and I guess it can use C/C++ too, not sure about this platform though).

[JohnZS]

This debate has only come about for TWO reasons.

1) Developers are lazy and insist on porting consoles using DirectX9. If developers were to shun DirectX9 and let WinXP retire gracefully and build games from the ground up using DirectX10/11 then we will see much more efficient use of our high end graphics hardware.

2) ATi (and nVidia too) are too lazy to develop drivers which conform to the full DirectX 11 specification and so insist on "Direct to the Metal" API (a throw back to the days of Glide, RRedline and S3MeT3L etc).

John

[Kallenator]

1) Developers are lazy and insist on porting consoles using DirectX9.
John

Not sure I like this statement completely. Cause the developers are on a payroll, so it's not up to them if they wanna spend time on the task or not. I would rather go for:
1) The industry is greedy and don't find it cost efficient to pay Developers to do a proper job on each platform.

[Pontos]

Not sure I like this statement completely. Cause the developers are on a payroll, so it's not up to them if they wanna spend time on the task or not. I would rather go for:
1) The industry is greedy and don't find it cost efficient to pay Developers to do a proper job on each platform.

I was about to say it's more like they don't find it cost efficient to make sure the PC version is done right, but then i realized that there are many sloppy ports from X360 to the PS3 as well.

So it's not about not bothering in the theoretically less profitable platform, but rather not bothering in any other but the most profitable platform.

[STEvil]

I bet M$ is cursing shooting themselves in the foot with the Xbox and Xbox360 about now.

If they had pushed DX10/11 a lot sooner they wouldnt have had to wait for the end of its lifecycle to phase out DX9 as easily. But because they use DX9 a lot of dev's just work in DX9 then dont bother to do anything meaningful with DX10/11.

When the next M$ console roles around it will likely be a DX10/11+ capably unit which will make DX9 (mostly) useless.. finally.

[Krelin]

Sooo, the vibe I'm geting is that gaming is... dying? As one of the comments previously say'd - console gaming nowadays is just for 13-year old kids a la dumb'd down gameplay 'n' isht. While this might be true, that doesn't make the oldschool games the same! At least they have really good gameplay (what it's really ALL about)! And then there was this statement abouth PC gaming -> G92 + DX9 = still the most fun thing out there. Well, totally agree with that. I, personally, am one of the few(?) people, that didn't saw that much change from DX9 to DX10. DX9/10 to DX11 is another story with the whole tessalation thing 'n' stuff, but, well, I'm just a casual gamer...

[XSAlliN]

Sooo, the vibe I'm geting is that gaming is... dying?

DirectX is not "Gaming" - generally speaking, it's just part of gaming graphics - mostly under Windows platforms.

[phantomferrari]

there is a follow up article with mr huddy where he says a lot of what he said in the bit tech interview was taken out of context

that seems more likely since AMD is heavily devoted to opencl


http://www.crn.com/news/components-p...cappj03?pgno=1

[STEvil]

Sooo, the vibe I'm geting is that gaming is... dying? As one of the comments previously say'd - console gaming nowadays is just for 13-year old kids a la dumb'd down gameplay 'n' isht. While this might be true, that doesn't make the oldschool games the same! At least they have really good gameplay (what it's really ALL about)! And then there was this statement abouth PC gaming -> G92 + DX9 = still the most fun thing out there. Well, totally agree with that. I, personally, am one of the few(?) people, that didn't saw that much change from DX9 to DX10. DX9/10 to DX11 is another story with the whole tessalation thing 'n' stuff, but, well, I'm just a casual gamer...

"Console Gaming Dying"

http://blogs.forbes.com/insertcoin/2...-gaming-dying/

PS3 Hacked so badly its not worth playing anymore:

http://blogs.forbes.com/insertcoin/2...-cant-stop-it/

STEAM revenue @ ~$1B

http://blogs.forbes.com/insertcoin/2...llion-in-2010/

[PatRaceTin]

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