Am I the only one who finds DX9 not all that extremly different than DX11...
...Individual states have been replaced by state objects, cbuffers instead of constant registers, and so on...

The entire programming model is different. State objcets, CBs, views - DX10 is a very different language than DX9. The code is structured differently, the API is tighter, resulting code is cleaner and shorter, easier to debug.

Is it easy to switch from DX9 to DX10? For me it was, but I know a lot of people that had difficulty with some newer concepts(views, for example).

Question is, should newbies bother with DX9?

There are some good open-source DX11 frameworks, some good beginner level DX10 books, there's really no reason to start with DX9.

You're not the only one. The kind of thinking you need to do about how you manage your objects and (many, but not all) of your states is very similar if using shaders and vertex buffers/declarations for everything in D3D9. Some states and other API differences can lead to a fairly large restructuring of code, however; particularly if using Effects in D3D9.

Ah yes, thats a good point, I've been using my own effect/mesh/sprite/font classes build from Direct3D-"primitives" in the recent project before switching to DX11, I think that played a big part too. If you aren't relying on the D3DX-stuff and do everything by hand, upgrading is a lot easier, since otherwise you'll have to come up with a solution for those things from ground up - and it doesn't make things easier if you've been used to have your D3DXEffect and D3DXMesh interfaces and now not only need to get the API to work, but also have to write those things before you can even see if what you've been doing is working at all.

The entire programming model is different. State objcets, CBs, views - DX10 is a very different language than DX9. The code is structured differently, the API is tighter, resulting code is cleaner and shorter, easier to debug.

Is it easy to switch from DX9 to DX10? For me it was, but I know a lot of people that had difficulty with some newer concepts(views, for example).

Don't get me wrong, I do also see that API as much cleaner/better (IMHO) to work with, but as I said, for me that changes where rather trivial. I didn't see that much difference in setting a state object VS setting the individual states. I must add, I've been using an API agnostic graphics wrapper interface that I've only had to implemented out for DX11, as well as a low-level render queue for processing state settings, so I quess that aided a lot. This also allowed me to directly view my progress in the game I've already made. I suppose, if you'd been used to using directx-commands directly in "high-level" game code, it would probably be more difficult.

Question is, should newbies bother with DX9?

There are some good open-source DX11 frameworks, some good beginner level DX10 books, there's really no reason to start with DX9.

I do agree that it was probably better to start with DX11 now on, for the cleaner API, etc... . Time spent on learning DX9 sub-FFP I don't belive to being lost though, especially if you plan on supporting Windows XP, since it teaches you the key concepts that are similar in any graphics API.

Don't get me wrong, I do also see that API as much cleaner/better (IMHO) to work with, but as I said, for me that changes where rather trivial. I didn't see that much difference in setting a state object VS setting the individual states.

Well, it's still Direct3D and it's still a graphics API, so the basic principles will be very similar ;) But besides this, the changes were quite big. Or maybe it's more fair to say that they weren't big, but there was a lof of them.

I know a reason, just for the passion of learning and knowing things and the challenge.

I know for a fact that some so called programmers feel complete and comfortable just making calls to methods that they don't know how they work(sometimes there is no way around this, we all end up doing this at some point). D3D9 is extremely easy D3D11 is even easier, so if you're just interested in the final result of things pick the easiest one or else if you're like me learn them all their differences, pros an cons, try to make a software rasterizer learn assembler, for god-sake! we're programmers, we like to learn how to do things the easy way and the hard way.

D3D9 does not die if you keep using it, in the end is all the same, sometimes I use visual c++ 6.0 just because I like it, I also use turbo C or turbo pascal and even turbo assembler. because I like the feeling of going back and do stuff I like. if you're a beginner learn all you can don't limit yourself, try the hardest stuff you can manage and while you're at it try also to be up to date.

It sounds that some of us can probably agree on some points:

- New programmers wanting to learn Direct3D now have no real reason to waste their time learning 9.0c first, because by the time they manage to make their first game, WinXP and 9.0-only cards will be really sparse.

- Existing 9.0c engines (shader-based) don't have to be redone in 10/11 yet unless there is a real need for some 10/11 features. That wouldn't actually help much, but would limit the target audience (albeit not drastically).

newbies use D3D9, maybe because still there are more tutorials and books on D3D9 than D3D10/11 and for very smaller or startup projects,IMO d3d9 is easy to use and setup.but yeah learning FF pipeline is waste of time now.

I think D3D9 is still so prevalent among newbies because of how easy it is to get into and no real reason to use 11. D3D9 isn't really that bad. Unless you're doing really fancy things in 3D (something a newbie would not be doing), you don't even need shader levels higher than 3. When you also consider that most AAA studios are still pushing out D3D9 games with optional D3D11 binaries, it just doesn't seem all that imperative to go there.

Even considering their odds of releasing a game before XP becomes insignificant, it might just not seem worth the risk. They might end up with a Terraria or something pretty early on. As I recall, that game was something made as something of a learning experience for the developers.

Yea, D3D9 is still great. But I wouldn't really suggest it for people who want to start learning D3D these days. Sure, it's faster to start with than with 10/11. BUT - that applies if you use the FFP and you won't be able to stay with that for a long time. If you want just to try something, see how it works, but have no serious plans with D3D in the future, then you may use 9.0c, why not. But if you really want to learn it and become quite good at it once, then starting with this old version will actually turn against you in the long run, because you will need to learn again and again from the start.

You'll get into 9.0c with FFP, you'll make your first simple testing applications or maybe simple games. Then you'll realise that you need shaders and you'll learn HLSL and all that. And then 9.0c will maybe really become dead (even deprecated by MS) and you'll have to learn DX11.

While if you start with DX11, you'll have a slower start, but you won't waste time later on learning something else.

In this sense, I kinda agree with the first post. But in general I don't agree with the title of the thread - because as I already said, existing D3D9 users don't have to be motivated enough to move to 11, if they are used to 9, know how to use it effectively, want their game to be as compatible as possible etc.