Today marks the dawn of a new era. The
Direct3D10 Technical preview has been launched bundled together with the latest
DirectX 9 SDK update.
The Direct3D10 Technical Preview
"The Direct3D 10 Technology Preview showcases the newest set of graphics
APIs for games and other high-performance multimedia applications on
next-generation graphics hardware. This technology preview provides reference
material, conceptual content, developer libraries, tutorials and samples that
demonstrate how to use Direct3D 10. Additional content will provided in upcoming
SDK releases.
Samples and applications built with the Direct3D 10 December 2005
Technology Preview require the Windows Vista December 2005 CTP to run. The
Windows Vista December 2005 CTP is available to MSDN subscribers.
Instantiating a Direct3D 10 hardware device requires Direct3D
10-capable graphics hardware with a Windows Vista Display Driver Model (WDDM)
driver. As of the release of this Technology Preview, such hardware is not
publicly available. A software fallback (the Direct3D 10 reference rasterizer)
is provided.
For more information (including known limitations of this Technology
Preview), refer to the Microsoft DirectX SDK ReadMe.
To access the Direct3D 10 documentation, click the Start Menu, choose
All Programs, Microsoft DirectX SDK (December 2005), and select "Documentation
for Direct3D 10". To access the ReadMe, click the Start Menu, choose All
Programs, Microsoft DirectX SDK (December 2005), and select "Microsoft DirectX
SDK ReadMe"."
A summary of that will bring you to the conclusion that without armed
with the Vista operating system you won't be able to play with this
remarkable API from Microsoft. Also if you can you might notice a
significant performance hit due to the fact that it's running a
reference rasterizer which means that it's emulating hardware and not
physically doing the processing on the GPU.
It's getting there though and I hope that we see many more of such
community involvement from the guys on the DirectX team and thanks to
David Weller for the heads up.
Till next time.