DirectX 10: A toast for gamers!

DX10 is a set of APIs (an API is a layer of software that tells other
software and hardware how to interact with it) that enables next-
generation gaming; by “next-generation,” we mean beyond what
consoles would be capable of in the years to come. DirectX 10 will
offer a variety of new features and new tricks to old tasks which
will take the visual fidelity and the performance of games built
using the API to a new level. With DX10 in particular and Vista in
general, Microsoft has shifted the onus of graphics rendering from
the processor to the graphics card.


You’ll see more detail in all characters

showed character faces with pockmarks, handlebar moustaches, detailed lips and eyes, and realistic facial expressions. DX10 also offers better shadows. For DX9 games, you might have noticed that turning on shadows for every character on screen can quickly bring the frame rate to its knees. This is because shadow calculations were done using the CPU. Now this code path can be moved to the
GPU and the result will be more detailed shadows and shadows that do not make the system crawl.


Note the pock-marked skin

Richer scenes:
DirectX10 allows for better volumetric effects. This feature was
ably showcased by upcoming DX10 game Alan Wake, where one can


Games like Alan Wake will bring surreal lighting to your desktop.


see clouds and weather effects never seen before—including an extremely realistic thunderstorm and a tornado. DX10’s volumetric effects allow for thicker clouds and scattering of light DirectX10 also offers more accurate reflections allowing modelling of choppy seas and water bodies.


Can you tell the difference?

Other benefits offered by DirectX 10 include:

1. A brand new Geometry Shader added between the vertex and
pixel shaders.
2. Increased efficiency (Microsoft claims performance improve-
ments up to six times that of DirectX 9 hardware running on
Windows XP because of this)
3. Less overhead on the processor will let a game put more objects
on screen.
4. Virtualised memory for the GPU. The video card will be able to
use space in system RAM to store information that does not fit
on local video card memory.
5. Shader Model 4.0, which has a broader instruction set and
offloads more work to the GPU.
6. Everything is now programmable and done with shaders.
7. Video cards will all have the same basic architecture; no more
worrying about what one DX10 card offers vis-à-vis another
8. Modelling fluid-like behaviour in for particle systems.
9. Increase in memory texture. Textures were 2048 x 2048 or 4096
x 4096 in DirectX 9; in DX10 they’re 8192 x 8192
XInput. You can now use Xbox 360 peripherals with Windows
Vista.
10. More life-like materials and characters with:
— Animated fur & vegetation
— Softer / sharper shadows.
11. Richer scenes; complex environments
— Thicker forests, larger armies!
— Dynamic and ever-changing in-game scenarios.
12. Realistic motion blurring
— Volumetric effects
— Thicker, more realistic smoke/clouds
Other
— Realistic reflections/refractions on water/cars/glass.
13. Reduced load on CPU
— Re-routes bulk of graphics processing to GPU
— Avoids glitching and system hangs during game play.