I was just wondering if anyone knows when DX10 is expected to be released. Right now I've only done stuff with DX8.1, and if DX10 will be out resonably soon I might just hold off from learning DX9 and go straight to DX10. I tried quickly looking it up on microsofts website, but didn't find anything so I thought I'd post here. Thanks in advance.

The GF8 shows up around the middle of this year, and you should be able to use DX10 with the latest Vista beta at that point. Vista will probably be released late this year.

Quote:Original post by deadlydog
I was just wondering if anyone knows when DX10 is expected to be released. Right now I've only done stuff with DX8.1, and if DX10 will be out resonably soon I might just hold off from learning DX9 and go straight to DX10. I tried quickly looking it up on microsofts website, but didn't find anything so I thought I'd post here.

Well there is a little preview D3D10 SDK in the latest December release - definitely check that out.

It is important to note that D3D9 is not going away anytime soon, so there would be no harm in persuing that, either.

Here are a few useful threads:
A Comparison of D3D9 and D3D10
Overview of D3D10

Quote:The GF8 shows up around the middle of this year

I was just wondering... Will the GF8 (or any D3D10 hardware) properly support DirectX9 too? I cannot imagine it would not, but with the Geometry Shaders and stuff like that I'm not entirely sure some DX9 features wouldn't be 'emulated', like the FFP is rumored to be on current hardware.

So I guess my question comes down to "Is D3D10 a true superset of D3D9, from a hardware point of view?"

Quote:Original post by remigius
So I guess my question comes down to "Is D3D10 a true superset of D3D9, from a hardware point of view?"

From what I've looked at the required caps/formats listing, yes - D3D10 is a true superset of D3D9. For some reason I'm thinking of that song "Anything you can do I can do better..." [smile]

There's a demo in the CTP for emulating the "old school" FFP in D3D10, and that does strictly use a form of emulation (various features of the VS/GS/PS). Emulating a lower shader model from a higher level isn't hard (the other way around is!)

As Dustin said - D3D9 isn't going to suddenly vanish. There's not only more than enough time to get use out of it, but it's also a convenient "step up" to the world of D3D10. Sure, you get shaders in D3D8.1 - but not like you do in D3D9 [wink] D3D9 and some SM3 hardware can get you pretty close to, at the very least, a D3D10 way of thinking about graphics.

Quote:I think round about the 3rd quarter of this year

Agreed... The official word I heard on the last beta chat I sat in on was "Second Half 2006" - but they're being pretty tight about committing themselves to any specific dates. From what I've picked up, they're using some new quality-based metric for releases... A release is defined by a certain number of features and level of quality, once it gets to that point it can be released. Rather than just releasing the "best so far" at a predefined date.

hth
Jack

Quote:Original post by deadlydog
I was just wondering if anyone knows when DX10 is expected to be released. Right now I've only done stuff with DX8.1, and if DX10 will be out resonably soon I might just hold off from learning DX9 and go straight to DX10. I tried quickly looking it up on microsofts website, but didn't find anything so I thought I'd post here.

Thanks in advance.

I would just learn with dx9, learning a new API isn't really that hard if you know graphics. Take you a week.

Quote:Original post by d000hg
But since it'll be ages before even a significant majority of us have Vista and D3D10 GPU, it depends if you want anyone to be able to play what you make...

This is a good point. But there is a lot to be said for preparing for D3D10/Vista. There's plenty of mileage in that alone [wink]

Dustin linked in my article earlier in this thread, but at the end of that I tried to cover some general "getting ready" tips. Theres also a fair bit of guidance in the official D3D10 SDK helpfile.

If you have Vista and can spare the time to "play" with D3D10 then it'd be useful - you can get a rough idea of what a D3D10 application might look like. With that in mind, you can design your D3D9 software so that it's going to less trouble to upgrade if/when the time comes.

To summarise: Learn D3D9 now, but in learning it skip things like Assembly shaders (go straight to HLSL) and avoid the fixed-function pipeline where possible. Write all your rendering (even the trivial parts) as shaders and/or Effects files.

hth
Jack