DirectX 10 Hardware Is Now Obsolete
ela_gervaise writes "SIGGRAPH 2007 was the stage where Microsoft dropped the bomb, informing gamers that the currently available DirectX 10 hardware will not support the upcoming DirectX 10.1 in Fista SP1. In essence, all current DX10 hardware is now obsolete. But don't get too upset just yet: 'Gamers shouldn't fret too much - 10.1 adds virtually nothing that they will care about and, more to the point, adds almost nothing that developers are likely to care about. The spec revision basically makes a number of things that are optional in DX10 compulsory under the new standard - such as 32-bit floating point filtering, as opposed to the 16-bit current. 4xAA is a compulsory standard to support in 10.1, whereas graphics vendors can pick and choose their anti-aliasing support currently. We suspect that the spec is likely to be ill-received. Not only does it require brand new hardware, immediately creating a minuscule sub-set of DX10 owners, but it also requires Fista SP1, and also requires developer implementation.'"
Its ok for the gf's lappy now, bit of fettling*, such as ATi driver update, bit of make it less pretty mode and the fact I ignore it means its ok.
*I'm fully aware the best bit of fettling I could do is 'downgrade' to xp, but I'm going to see if it can actually work well enough to get a stay of execution.
Seems like another attempted step to turn the PC into the Microsoft Gaming Platform, one (at an admittedly cursory glance at the requirements) with little backwards or forwards compatibility.
Even if Fista SP1 does have DX10.1 - which would be an odd move given that no commerically available graphics hardware on the planet is yet compliant - I'd expect it would either be as an optional component, or Fista would have the other patches available separately.
Their announced supported lifecycle is 5 years for consumer products, with provision for 12-24 months for un-SP'd software, and double both of those for business customers, which indicates there will still be auto-updates for pre-SP1 Fista for quite some time.
DirectX 10 Hardware Is Now Obsolete
