Sometimes I just think people should be over-whelmed by all the goodness in the ATI Radeon™ HD 4000 series.

In it, we have:

…but I guess not everyone understands what DirectX 10.1 is yet and why it’s such a big deal. So, let’s take a closer look at DirectX 10.1.

What does it bring?

Well, it’s a pure industry standard – that’s the first thing. And why does that matter? Well, with industry standards, the gaming ecosystem is in good shape and moves forward in a consensual way. Having a standard way of asking for features means game developers know what’s what and can target the important different levels (important different levels? Not sure what you mean) of hardware. DirectX 10.1 has everything that DirectX 10 has and more. It offers a handy list of technical features which typically allow games to run faster and look better than under DirectX 10. It often means gamers get both at once.

On top of that, it’s the way of the future – at least it would appear that way for the next five years or so. DirectX 10 and DirectX 10.1 are both required features for DirectX 11. That means that all DirectX 11 hardware has to support DirectX 10.1. It’s not optional – it’s required. So industry players can say what they like, but everyone knows that sooner or later they’ll have to support DirectX 10.1. And that’s important because it means that they too will have a reason to want games ported to what is now the most modern of graphics APIs…

We know from looking at games that DirectX 10.1 has the power to make games run faster and make them look better. Assassin’s Creed ran an astonishing 25% faster when it used DirectX 10.1 and while I can’t claim that this will always be the case, it certainly points to a very significant technical advantage.

Last week, two more pieces of PC software arrived which show the power of DirectX 10.1:

1. There’s a very pretty little demo from a game engine company called Unigine. It uses DirectX 10.1 to improve the quality of its imagery quite dramatically. It does so by anti-aliasing foliage. What used to look like a twinkling sparkly mess of plant life now suddenly becomes graphically pure and smooth. The difference is quite extraordinary – and very welcome. Unigine’s CEO, Denis Shergin, said simply, "That’s given us our first ever chance to get perfect anti-aliasing on foliage, something which has been on our wish list for far too long." Check out this screenshot.

1. And there’s an important game update that arrived this week too. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky has been  updated to use DirectX 10.1 and it makes quite a difference! The patched game runs faster using DirectX 10.1 than it does when using DirectX 10, and this version also looks better than ever before. It has softer more realistic shadows. It too has near perfect foliage, all of which gives it a realism rarely found in games. The new patch is available to all players of the game, and we’ve worked hard with GSC Game World to make sure that all gamers get the best experience possible, but the finest improvements have been possible only on DirectX 10.1 hardware.

The difference is striking, and like the first introduction of anti-aliasing, it’s most obvious when the scenery is moving in subtle ways. As players, that’s when we tend to be most critical of image quality. On top of that, the additional quality will give a tangible advantage to gamers using AMD’s ATI Radeon™ HD 4000 series – because in my opinion, AMD hardware is the only hardware which is able to truly realize the game designer’s original vision. It’s not that we’re giving an "unfair" advantage – it’s just that games played on AMD hardware just look great. Gaming on AMD hardware will often mean you can pick out your enemies more easily and sooner that you can on alternative hardware. Superior image quality represents a fair advantage.

Plus having higher frame rates is always good news. Play at 20 frames a second against someone gaming at 30 fps and you’ll soon see what I mean – though the differences don’t have to be that large to be significant. Higher frame rates represent a fair advantage. DirectX 10.1 typically gives higher frame rates than DirectX 10, and the 10% speed up that we’ve seen represents a significant advantage for users of AMD’s ATI Radeon™ HD 3000 series and ATI Radeon HD 4000 series.

The S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky patch represents another step in the development of game technology towards perfect image quality – and I’m proud to have been involved in the team that made it happen. Kudos to Holger, Nick, Jon and Eric all from AMD who helped make it happen! And kudos to Igor and the others from GSC Game World for producing the first ever PC "Deferred rendered game to fully support anti-aliasing." These are amazing achievements for a game which had already won Voodoo Extreme’s "Best of E3 2008" awards for best graphics!

I started this blog with a question, "What does DirectX 10.1 bring?" I hope the answer is clear:

• It brings games players closer to reality
• It brings faster, prettier graphics
• It brings realism to life

It’s no wonder I love my job! Take a close look at the ATI Radeon™ HD 4870 to understand why…

Richard Huddy is the Worldwide Developer Relations Manager at AMD and an evangelist for graphics and gaming.  His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.