Microsoft plans to introduce a new DirectX 9.0 version. The INQIRER managed to get the name and the company plans to call it DirectX 9.0L.
You will remember that Nvidia was pressing Microsoft to call its last revision of DirectX, DirectX 9.1 but Vole decided to simply add a letter C to its existing DirectX 9.0 name. This currently available DirectX 9.0c features support for Shader model 3.0 and Nvidia though that upgrade from Shader model 2.0 would deserve at least 9.1 prefix.
Now the Vole plans to do the same thing. It will call its next generation DirectX featuring Shader model 4.0, DirectX 9.0L.
We don't know when the company plans to make this new marchitecture available but we expect that this will happen sometimes trough 2006. It's still too early to shift to Shader Model 4.0 as Nvidia and ATI won't have Shader model 4.0 hardware until middle of 2006.
It's interesting that ATI has to upgrade to Shader model 3.0 in a few weeks time and Shader Model 4.0 within a year from R520 aka Radeon X1800 RV530 aka Radeon X1600 and RV515 aka Radeon X1300.
News source:
ieXbeta
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