http://news.softpedia.com/news/Micr...re-Won-039-t-Support-DirectX-10-1-62482.shtml
SIGGRAPH 2007 is the stage where Microsoft dropped the bomb informing that the currently available DirectX 10 hardware will not support the upcoming DirectX 10.1. Microsoft has yet to confirm this piece of information through channels that are not connected with the Association for Computing Machinery’s 34th annual international conference on graphics technology - SIGGRAPH 2007. However, the Redmond company did present Direct3D 10 at the event and even tackled the upcoming release, version 10.1.
Still, according to a report from DigitalBattle, Microsoft revealed that the upcoming update to be introduced to the current version of DirectX will no longer be compatible with the existing graphics cards. Microsoft made the jump from DirectX 9.x to DirectX 10 concomitantly to the transition from Windows XO to Windows Vista. The company is currently offering DirectX 10 exclusively bundled with Vista, and has faced accusations that it is forcing the migration to its latest Windows operating system in this manner.
Microsoft currently estimates that out of the 60 million licenses of Vista pushed since the customer launch of the operating system at the end of January, approximately 10 million have gone to gamers looking to take advantage of the company's freshest graphics technology. At this point in time, the Redmond company has released a pre-beta version of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 to a select group of testers.
One aspect of Vista SP1's role is to upgrade DirectX 10 to DirectX 10.1. At SIGGRAPH 2007 Microsoft did reveal that Direct3D 10.1, an integer part of DirectX 10.1 will "come soon" with Vista SP1, through the voice of Sam Glassenberg, Lead Program Manager with the Direct3D Team. Glassenberg revealed that all users have to do in order to test drive Direct3D 10.1 is to get their hands on the DirectX August SDK and Windows Vista SP1. Glassenberg additionally stated that Direct3D 10.1 and implicitly DirectX 10.1 will be "supported on upcoming hardware and in Windows Vista SP1."
Also see this:
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,2168429,00.asp
At the SIGGRAPH graphics conference, Microsoft gave a presentation detailing some of the changes coming in DirectX 10.1. Those that are interested can view the presentation slides here. The highlights are as follows:
DirectX 10.1 is a series of extensions to DirectX 10
It's supported by upcoming graphics hardware, but not current DX10 hardware
It requires (and will be part of) Vista Service Pack 1
This is business as usual, as far as DirectX is concerned. DX 10.1 hardware will be backwards compatible with DirectX 10, but current DX10 hardware won't be forward compatible. So games looking to support DX 10.1 still need a DX 10 rendering path to support today's DX10 cards. Think of it like when Microsoft released DirectX 9.0c with added Shader Model 3.0 support. Also, don't worry too much about it requiring SP1 (which isn't out yet). The DX 10.1 SDK only recently was made available, and by the time supporting hardware and DX10.1 are released to end users somewhere in the first half of 2008, SP1 should be readily available.
What are the changes? DX 10.1's goals are to offer the "complete" DX 10, giving developers better control over image quality and making mandatory some of the things that are optional in DX 10. For example, 32-bit floating point filtering is optional in DX10 (16-bit FP filtering is mandatory), but will be mandatory in DX 10.1. Also, in DX 10, the number of multisample anti-aliasing samples is optional—DX 10.1 will make 4x AA mandatory, and require two specific sample patterns. Graphics cards can offer more sample patterns, and developers can query them in their shaders. Graphics cards that are DX 10.1 compliant will have to offer programmable shader output sample masks and multisample AA depth readback. Game developers will be able to index into cube maps and perform bitwise copies from uncompressed textures to block-compressed texture formats.
If that's a bunch of gobbledygook to you, don't sweat it. The main takeaway is this: DirectX 10.1 is a straightforward incremental update to DX 10 that forces graphics vendors to adhere to a few more set standards with regards to image quality and a couple other under-the-hood graphics features, mainly to give games more control over image quality.
SIGGRAPH 2007 is the stage where Microsoft dropped the bomb informing that the currently available DirectX 10 hardware will not support the upcoming DirectX 10.1. Microsoft has yet to confirm this piece of information through channels that are not connected with the Association for Computing Machinery’s 34th annual international conference on graphics technology - SIGGRAPH 2007. However, the Redmond company did present Direct3D 10 at the event and even tackled the upcoming release, version 10.1.
Still, according to a report from DigitalBattle, Microsoft revealed that the upcoming update to be introduced to the current version of DirectX will no longer be compatible with the existing graphics cards. Microsoft made the jump from DirectX 9.x to DirectX 10 concomitantly to the transition from Windows XO to Windows Vista. The company is currently offering DirectX 10 exclusively bundled with Vista, and has faced accusations that it is forcing the migration to its latest Windows operating system in this manner.
Microsoft currently estimates that out of the 60 million licenses of Vista pushed since the customer launch of the operating system at the end of January, approximately 10 million have gone to gamers looking to take advantage of the company's freshest graphics technology. At this point in time, the Redmond company has released a pre-beta version of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 to a select group of testers.
One aspect of Vista SP1's role is to upgrade DirectX 10 to DirectX 10.1. At SIGGRAPH 2007 Microsoft did reveal that Direct3D 10.1, an integer part of DirectX 10.1 will "come soon" with Vista SP1, through the voice of Sam Glassenberg, Lead Program Manager with the Direct3D Team. Glassenberg revealed that all users have to do in order to test drive Direct3D 10.1 is to get their hands on the DirectX August SDK and Windows Vista SP1. Glassenberg additionally stated that Direct3D 10.1 and implicitly DirectX 10.1 will be "supported on upcoming hardware and in Windows Vista SP1."
Also see this:
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,2168429,00.asp
At the SIGGRAPH graphics conference, Microsoft gave a presentation detailing some of the changes coming in DirectX 10.1. Those that are interested can view the presentation slides here. The highlights are as follows:
DirectX 10.1 is a series of extensions to DirectX 10
It's supported by upcoming graphics hardware, but not current DX10 hardware
It requires (and will be part of) Vista Service Pack 1
This is business as usual, as far as DirectX is concerned. DX 10.1 hardware will be backwards compatible with DirectX 10, but current DX10 hardware won't be forward compatible. So games looking to support DX 10.1 still need a DX 10 rendering path to support today's DX10 cards. Think of it like when Microsoft released DirectX 9.0c with added Shader Model 3.0 support. Also, don't worry too much about it requiring SP1 (which isn't out yet). The DX 10.1 SDK only recently was made available, and by the time supporting hardware and DX10.1 are released to end users somewhere in the first half of 2008, SP1 should be readily available.
What are the changes? DX 10.1's goals are to offer the "complete" DX 10, giving developers better control over image quality and making mandatory some of the things that are optional in DX 10. For example, 32-bit floating point filtering is optional in DX10 (16-bit FP filtering is mandatory), but will be mandatory in DX 10.1. Also, in DX 10, the number of multisample anti-aliasing samples is optional—DX 10.1 will make 4x AA mandatory, and require two specific sample patterns. Graphics cards can offer more sample patterns, and developers can query them in their shaders. Graphics cards that are DX 10.1 compliant will have to offer programmable shader output sample masks and multisample AA depth readback. Game developers will be able to index into cube maps and perform bitwise copies from uncompressed textures to block-compressed texture formats.
If that's a bunch of gobbledygook to you, don't sweat it. The main takeaway is this: DirectX 10.1 is a straightforward incremental update to DX 10 that forces graphics vendors to adhere to a few more set standards with regards to image quality and a couple other under-the-hood graphics features, mainly to give games more control over image quality.