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[BuddyC]

It's now called DirectX Next.

http://www.beyond3d.com/articles/directxnext/

While the next major revision for DirectX is not expected until Longhorn’s launch, Microsoft’s DirectX group has been briefing developers on what’s in store for “DirectX Next” with presentations at Microsoft Meltdown and other developer conferences. Recently, this presentation was made available to the public via Microsoft’s Developer Network. The intent of this article is to give a more thorough treatment of the features listed for inclusion with DirectX Next and hence explore the types of capabilities that DirectX Next may be offering.

While the first 7 revisions for DirectX were met with mostly evolutionary enhancements and additions focused on very specific graphics features, such as environment and bump mapping, DirectX8 broke the trend and introduced a number of new, general-purpose systems. Most notably being the programmable pipeline, where vertex and pixel shading was no longer controlled by simply tweaking a few parameters, or toggling specific features on and off. Instead, with DirectX8 you were given a set number of inputs and outputs and were pretty much allowed to go nuts in between and do whatever you wished, as long as it was within the hardware’s resources – at least, this is how vertex shading worked. Pixel shading, on the other hand, was extremely limited, and really not even all that programmable. You could do a handful of vector operations on a handful of inputs (via vertex shader outputs, pixel shader constants, and textures) with one output, the frame buffer, but that’s about it. DirectX8.1 provided some aide in this respect, but it wasn’t until DirectX9 that everything really started to come into place.

 

[neptunes]

yes, I WAS RIGHT!

(well the whole thing about dx 9 part)

 

[Mr. Lemming]

Should have been DirectX X

 

[adrockthekid]

Three cheers for me not having to worry about hardcore technical shit at work!

 

[nubbe]

Nothing new here....

 

[Suerte]

Direct neXt would have been better

 

[gofreak]

This article is old. It's being referred to as DirectX Next now, but when it becomes available the name will change. Don't know if it'll be to DirectX 10 though..they may switch to a different naming convention in order to avoid ever increasing double digit numbers. Maybe make it a yearly release? So DirectX 2005?

 

[BuddyC]

it may be old, but everything is new again on NeoGAF!

 

[StrikerObi]

But, but, WHAT ABOUT XNA!

 

[BuddyC]

But, but, WHAT ABOUT XNA!

WHAT ABOUT TOM BOMBADIL

 

[akascream]

Like its going to be called DXNext all the time. How would you distinguish between past, current, and future revisions? It's obvious they are changing what they call thier API. XNA anyone?

 

[tedtropy]

Do any modern or upcoming games even use OpenGL anymore? I imagine DOOM III will, what with Carmack's past grude towards DX...

 

[gofreak]

Like its going to be called DXNext all the time. How would you distinguish between past, current, and future revisions? It's obvious they are changing what they call thier API. XNA anyone?

No no no. God. XNA and DirectX are two different things. And XNA does not supercede DirectX as some seem to believe. They're just two totally different things.

 

[akascream]

howso?

 

[CrimsonSkies]

Holy crap. The new Direct X sounds incredible.

 

[gofreak]

howso?

DirectX is an API. XNA is a concept of allowing tools work together easily - a protocol that tool developers might want to adhere to to make the lives of developer's easier. It's more of a movement, a concept, than a single manifestation like DirectX. They're both designed to make development easier, but they're very different. One doesn't replace the other.

 

[akascream]

You make XNA sound like a buzzword rather than an API or middle ware.

 

[DopeyFish]

its not an api nor is it middleware, i dunno how to explain

 

[GigaDrive]

DirectX 10 has been called DirectX Next for months now. I think even back into 2003.

the real question is, DX10 / DX Next timing, and will Xbox 2 / Xenon be too early to get DX10 in hardware.

 

[CrimsonSkies]

"the real question is, DX10 / DX Next timing, and will Xbox 2 / Xenon be too early to get DX10 in hardware."

Why in the world would in late 2005 a machine launched by Microsoft not have Direct X 10 in it? Someone explain this logic to me?

 

[GigaDrive]

I hope you're right CS, and no reason for you not to be. however some have raised the issue so I thought i'd throw it out there to see if it could be quickly shot down

it's not so much if Microsoft will have the specs / API ready, is if it can be implemented in hardware by ATI... ATI does not yet have a VS/PS 3.0 in hardware, which is part of the DirectX9 spec.

 

[BuddyC]

DirectX 10 has been called DirectX Next for months now. I think even back into 2003.

the real question is, DX10 / DX Next timing, and will Xbox 2 / Xenon be too early to get DX10 in hardware.

Yea, the story was posted in December of 2003.