The release of DirectX 10.1, an API layer that will be rolled out with Windows Vista Service Pack 1, is quickly approaching. When asked about the advantages of picking up a DirectX 10 graphics adaptor today, versus waiting for NVIDIA or AMD DirectX 10.1 products, Microsoft's senior global director of Microsoft games on Windows, Kevin Unangst, replied: "
DX10.1 is an incremental update that won’t affect any games or gamers in the near future."
Microsoft isn't the only developer downplaying DirectX 10.1: "
We pride ourselves on being the first to adopt any important new technology that can improve our games so you would expect us to get with DX10.1 right away but we've looked at it and there's just nothing in it important enough to make it needed. So we have no plans to use it at all, not even in the future," said Cevat Yerli, CEO of Crytek.
NVIDIA also has a response for AMD's DirectX 10.1 support, a feature of AMD's new HD 3800 series that the company has been rather vocal about. NVIDIA's corporate roadmap details plans to include DirectX 10.1 in its ninth-generation GPU architecture, codenamed D9. However, the first D9 processors will not debut until next year and the company describes DirectX 10.1 as "
a minor extension of DirectX 10 that makes a few optional features in DirectX 10 mandatory."
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