Direct x 10.1

Saturday, April 12, 2008

DirectX 10.1 will be the last and final update to the DirectX 10 application programming interface (API). The DirectX 10 will be exist in two versions only, 10.0 and 10.1 only, said Richard Huddy, worldwide developer relations manager of AMDÂ’s graphics product group at a conference recently. The end of DirectX 10 means that Microsoft will start focusing on DirectX 11 after the DirectX 10.1 update is released. Meanwhile, the developers of graphics processing units (GPUs) will not need to add anymore new functionality to their products and will therefore have to focus on performance, rather than on innovation of functionality.

However, Microsoft encourages graphics companies like ATI and NVIDIA to keep on focusing improve the DirectX 10 performance rather than adding more features for the next few years, at least until the launch of DirectX 11. This could potentially pave the way for NVIDIA and ATI to work on multi-GPU graphics cards without the need to keep adding functionality.

Meanwhile. the end of DirectX 10 development has increased uncertainty whether ATI, graphics product group of AMD, and Nvidia Corp will change their DirectX 10/10.1 architectures going forward, or will rely on making large chips using thinner process technologies with higher amount of execution units as well as improving multi-GPU technologies.

Beside that, The DirectX 10.1 will be featured in Microsoft Windows Vista service pack 1, which is due to release on in Year 2008. Plus more, Microsoft  also release several DirectX9 shader models, including versions 2.0, 2.0a, 2.0b and 3.0 for DirectX 9 version.

Via XBitLabs