Very interesting read Of course, some of us already knew a lot of that stuff, but it's interesting to see it all come together.

Quote:In addition, he noted that some fixed-function pipeline features would be removed from the API. These include:

* vertex lighting
* fog
* alpha test
* triangle fans
* point-sprites
* flexible vertex format

So, it looks like the FFP *will* still exist in DXNext, but just a basic version of it. This is probably a good idea to deprecate the FFP gradually, instead of taking it all out at once. Completely removing the FFP would steepen DirectX's learning curve many times over, IMO.

Quote:As these features ride off into the sunset however, a bevy of key new features will be folded in. Some of these are:

* Improved state management
* High-definition rendering formats (high dynamic range lighting)
* Normal map compression
* Texture compare filter

[smile] That would be really nice to have OpenEXR in WGF, and I'm sure people will be using high-resolution normal maps more than ever.

The Common Shader Core (the integration of both vertex + pixel shader) sounds very interesting, as scheermesje pointed out. Also, the LDDM is awesome, particularly the seamless hang recovery. You can send faulty commands to it, allocate megabyte upon megabyte of video memory...pretty much abuse the crap out of the graphics card - and it will fully recover for you.

Quote:Original post by Pipo DeClown
Wait, I'm a bit slow, is DX10 called DXNext? (If that's the short)

So far, yes.

Quote:As for Windows Longhorn. I don't understand a bit of it, but HOW can an OS change sooo much? Is it possible for software to abuse hardware THAT much?

That's good. I've paid for my hardware, and I want it to be used...efficiently, of course [smile].

Hopefully, longhorn will do just that.

Quote:Dustin: why aren't you DirectX moderator yet? ;P

From my current position, I think it's actually better for him not to be. Not that he doesn't deserve it, he surely does. It'll just prevent him from helping people as much as he's doing right now. Moderation sucks a lot of time, especially on this forum.

Ask me, I daily edit a bazillion of posts to add source tags, fix links, ...etc. Must think of a way to automate that....[smile]

Quote:Original post by Pipo DeClown
Wait, I'm a bit slow, is DX10 called DXNext? (If that's the short)

DX10, XNA, DXNext...for all practical purposes, they're interchangeable. WGF + Avalon can be thrown into the mix, too, since they're built on D3D.

Quote:

And yes, Direct3D shouldn't be a shader-only API, at least not in the near future. I can'nt really imagine OpenGL being shader-only, that would mean the OpenGL base would exist of nothing.. urr.. err.. huh?

Actually, they're moving that way to accomplish what OGL tried to do with extensions: Make it so that developers could implement anything they wanted in hardware, without waiting for an API update. Doing it this way is so far ahead of the OGL extension model though that it makes the ARB's original design look amateurish (which is saying a lot, since OGL is a very well designed API). If they completely strip the FF API, you can pretty much guarantee that they'll ship a shader that'll do everything it does anyway, making it so that you don't have to worry about it.

I like it this way; I'd like as little between me and the hardware as possible.

Quote:
As for Windows Longhorn. I don't understand a bit of it, but HOW can an OS change sooo much? Is it possible for software to abuse hardware THAT much?

Honestly, this is just one part of the advances in longhorn. When MS says it's the biggest, most important OS release they've ever done, they're not bullshitting. Longhorn brings more to the table for mainstream desktops than pretty much anything since Windows95 first introduced the average person to a PC in the first place. Take a look at the WinFS design guide; the whole operating system is like a big collection of objects. It's quite an engineering feat; lets just hope all that fancy stuff doesn't interfere with performance.

Quote:
Dustin: why aren't you DirectX moderator yet? ;P

Because Coder has a wife and 75 illigitimate children to take care of, of course.

WinFS is built on SQL server so far. Imagine how fast a file search is (hint: fast as hell). It puts indexed file searching to shame. But yes, Longhorn is very cool. Avalon especially. It holds a lot of interesting stuff for a programmer (hint: good stuff). Of course, I'm under NDA, so I can't tell you;) You'll just have to wait.

Yeah, and if you read through some of the blogs over on channel 9, you'll find slews of info that makes most programmers wet themselves.

Here's a hint: Search for "Phoenix".

I bet Norton FastFind would still put LongHorn to shame though.

Seriously, every OS version after Win98 has made searching get slower and slower. On my work PC it's faster to boot into Win95 (dual boot), find the file then reboot back into XP, than to let XP try and find the file! I don't want to look in zip files FFS!