directx10 posts

Microsoft launched its Windows Vista PC operating system in January 2007 for consumers but their latest PC OS has been slammed with tons of bugs and compatibilty issues. Nearly all PC games still run under Windows XP with only a few currently supporting Vista natively via the DirectX10 graphics API.

Now it appears that the next major Windows OS release could be on store shelves and inside new PCs inside of a year. News.com is reporting that during a presentation at Microsoft's annual WinHEC conference slides were shown that seem to indicate Microsoft is aiming to ship the OS, currently known only as Windows 7, in mid-2009 in time for PC makers to place them in their rigs for the 2009 holiday season.

Officially Microsoft has yet to set a release date for Windows 7, perhaps because it got burned when it had to delay Windows Vista from a planned fall 2006 commerical release to January 2007. Microsoft has yet to say what PC game specific features Windows 7 will have but the company has already revealed plans for DirectX11, the next version of its game graphics API. It's likely to be included in the Windows 7 launch (although it's already been announced that DirectX11 will be compatible with Vista).

Earlier today we reported that Funcom had announced plans for a commercial expansion pack for their fantasy MMO Age of Conan. The developer also announced plans for free content for current subscribers to the game and we now have some screenshots that show off what they have planned.

Along with the free content screenshots, Funcom also released some visuals from the upcoming DirectX10 graphics upgrade, along with some comparison screenshots from the DirectX9 version. Volumetic fog, HDR, specular reflections and other features will be added to the game with the DirectX10 version is released. So far there's no word on when the new content or the graphics upgrade will be available for download.

One of the big dissapointments in the launch last May for Age of Conan was the last minute announcement that the fantasy MMO would not have a DirectX10 version at launch. Today developer Funcom announced that members of the press will be able to see the DirectX10 graphics for the game next week in a behind-closed-doors session at the Games Convention in Leipzig, Germany.
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The general public who attend the show will also get to see some upcoming new content for the game including " brand new and never-before-seen locations, content and features." Also a demo on how the game can be played via a gamepad with software from Blue Orb and a three-monitor setup from TripleHead2Go. Funcom will also give out their cool inflatable Age of Conan swords and free trial accounts for the game with limited edition DVDs of Age of Conan. This is apparently the first time that Funcom will give out free trial accounts for the title.

Officially the launch of Funcom's long awaited MMO Age of Conan is set for tomorrow, May 20. The game's Early Access program has had its share of issues but it looks like a feature that has been previously hyped up before the game's release won't be available for Age of Conan's launch after all.

The news came this morning in the form of a press release that, in journalism terms, attempted to "bury the lead" with news that the Age of Conan collector's edition had sold out and that Funcom had shipped out 700,000 total copies of the game in stores. However the really important, and disappointing, news was mentioned at the end: The game will not launch with a DirectX10 graphics version as previously announced. It will only have support for DirectX9. The press release states that the DirectX10 version will debut around the time of the German Games Convention in Leipzig, Germany in late August.

A few weeks ago Ubisoft announced that it would release a patch for their PC ports of their highly successful stealth action game Assassin's Creed. However, instead of fixing bugs or adding new features, the patch is to remove the support for DirectX10.1 graphics. According to the initial announcement about the patch the DirectX10.1 support in the game added "a render pass during post-effect which is costly."

While the patch has yet to be released as of this writing, some are accusing Ubisoft of playing hardware politics with this proposed DirectX10.1 removal from the game. Why? Because at the moment the only graphics cards in stores that support DirectX10.1 are cards from AMD's ATI unit (specifically the Radeon HD 3000 hardware). Performance issues with Assassin's Creed were reported on NVIDIA graphics cards. The problem is that Assassin's Creed is part of NVIDIA's "The Way It's Meant To Be Played" marketing program where the company makes deals with game publishers to add their logo and ad support for a number of PC games.

So did NVIDIA ask Ubisoft to remove the DirectX10.1 feature from Assassin's Creed? Officially the answer is, "No." TG Daily contacted both Ubisoft and NVIDIA reps and both denied any sort of external influence, saying that the decision was made by the game's development team. The author feels that the game simply was not finished in terms of proper code and that the programming team put in the DirectX10.1 support without making sure the game would work on normal DirectX10 hardware. It just goes to prove that developing PC games without taking the tons of different hardware combinations can still be tricky.

Wii gamers may have Mario Kart Wii to look forward to this week and Xbox 360 and PS3 owners can grab Grand Theft Auto IV. PC gamers and PC hardware junkies, however, have their own holy grail this can get a hold of this week . . . and it's not even a game. After two years of waiting, Futuremark has finally released its latest high end PC gaming rig benchmarking tool to the masses. 3DMark Vantage is their first benchmark tool that fully supports Microsoft Vista's DirectX10 graphics API (indeed this program will only work on Windows Vista machines). The benchmarks support features like Shader Model 4.0, post-processing effects, physics effects and much more. In addition to GPU testing it also benchmarks multi-core CPU features like AI and more.

If you want 3DMark Vantage there are actually four different versions you can get. If you just want to benchmark your home gaming PC once, you can get a free key for one trial run of the program. You can also purchase a Basic package for $6.95 that let's you use the "Performance" pre-set level as many times as you want. For $19.95 you can purchase the Advanced versions that gives you access to all four pre-set benchmarks along with six new feature tests and allows you to customize every setting on the program. For professional game developers and hardware companies Futuremark is also selling a Professional version for a whopping $495.