Why we should get excited about DirectX 11
As an admitted gaming technology geek, it’s hard not to get excited about the advancements in game technology. As many of you know, DirectX 11 is just around the corner, offering a dazzling array of new toys for game developers and people like me to play with. But as excited as the developer in me is about DirectX 11, I’m even more excited as a gamer, and you should be too. That’s because DirectX 11, in combination with new graphics hardware, and in some cases Windows 7, brings significant changes to the computing experience, changes that mean upcoming games and other applications are about to get a lot better. Let me explain how.
Microsoft, and those of us in the graphics business, have been openly talking about DirectX 11 for around a year now – in fact, to be honest we’ve been talking about it since even before Windows Vista shipped at the very end of 2006! It takes a long time to put together a new version of DirectX and there are often tough decisions about what to leave out while finalizing any one version. So we often agree that the parts which are being left out in the ‘current’ version will find their way into the next version.
So let’s take a good look at what’s in DirectX 11. I’m not going to go into painful technical detail; instead, I will try to look at the consequences of those technical details. One important note, unlike DirectX 10, DirectX 11 isn’t tied to Windows 7, so those of you sporting a Windows Vista system will get to reap the rewards as well.
There are three main areas of impact in DirectX 11:
1. A beast called the tessellator has been added which enables games developers to create smoother, less blocky and more organic looking objects in games. This is the change you’ll probably be most aware of. And it’ll show up when you look at the silhouettes of hills and mountains or the profiles of characters in games. Where artists previously had to trade off quality for performance, now artists will have the freedom to create naturalistic scenery. We’ve gotten used to seeing strangely blocky ears and noses on our opponents. But the new generation of games should allow those opponents to scare the heck out of us instead. The tessellator represents a natural next step in gaming hardware (in fact the Xbox 360 graphics chip that AMD designed already has a tessellator, and AMD graphics hardware has featured tessellator technology starting with the ATI RadeonTM HD 2000 series right up to the latest ATI RadeonTM HD 4000 series cards today).
[An example of tessellation giving characters more definition.]
2. Games programmers will also be given a radically new way to program for AMD graphics chips. The second new beast in the menagerie is the excitingly named “Compute Shader”. It allows games programmers to treat the GPU in a much less graphics-oriented way; indeed, they can almost treat it like a highly parallel CPU. [The buzzword for this is "GPGPU" , see http://blogs.amd.com/play/2008/11/05/the-gpgpu-chronicles/ for details.]
Up until DirectX 10.1 a graphics programmer always had to think in terms of triangles – but the compute shader changes that and allows the programmer a much freer expression of their thoughts. If you try to solve a problem of artificial intelligence or physics, you probably don’t think the problem through in terms of triangles. So the compute shader is a more natural way for the programmer to approach his or her task. On top of that it allows access to some of the features that would otherwise have been hidden away inside our present and future chips and for that reason it will often allow significantly more efficient implementations than heretofore (that means “higher frame rates” to you and me 
).
3. DirectX has been sliced and diced and the internals redesigned to ensure that it is much more efficient at using the horsepower present in multiple CPU cores. This will be a huge win on chips like our AMD PhenomTM II quad and triple core processors [http://www.amd.com/gb-uk/Processors/ProductInformation/0,,30_118_15331_15332,00.html] and it will provide the opportunity for both higher frame rates and games which are more realistic, because they contain dramatically more detail.
There are numerous other, less important changes aimed to make the games programmer’s tasks easier. Some so small that you’d have to be a games programmer to care, some (like improved texture compression) are big enough to help out significantly with performance in corner cases.
Quite often you get to hear rather bland but optimistic statements about the future versions of DirectX. “It’ll be faster and better” – but you don’t get to hear much in the way of substantial justification.
This time around I hope it’s abundantly clear – I predict that:
- We’ll see higher frame rates because the way DirectX 11 uses CPUs will be more efficient.
- We’ll see higher frame rates because games developers will be able to use our GPUs more like CPUs.
- We’ll see smoother, more realistic characters and more realistic terrain as we move away from blocky polygonal representations to the kind that are used in movies.
- And a side-benefit, that will help PC gaming generally, is that the new version is easier to use, so it will help to keep game development costs down.
On top of that there’s something worth mentioning here about the evolution of computer graphics. Every generation of DirectX has been designed to be an improvement upon the previous generation. We always make a point of including all the old functionality (so that you can run any of your existing games). This time is no exception; the nearest thing to DirectX11 is DirectX10.1. And it won’t come as a surprise to anyone that I can’t resist mentioning that this means that owners of ATI RadeonTM HD 4000 series graphics have a distinct advantage, since AMD is the only major supplier of graphics chips that supports DirectX 10.1 http://ati.amd.com/products/Radeonhd4800/index.html . DirectX 10.1 is the closest you can get to DirectX 11 until Windows 7 ships.
When it does ship though, get ready for a significantly improved gaming experience thanks to the combination of DirectX 11 features enabled by phenomenal new DirectX 11 hardware from AMD.
Richard Huddy is Sr. Manager Developer Relations at AMD. 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.
For Richard Huddy,
My HD4850 have tessellation 3.0, and it´s work´s in games DirectX 11?
It´s fair than tessellation works in HD3000 and HD4000 séries in DirectX 11, right?
I don´t By a new card for tessellation, but I have it!
Thanks
To Richard Huddy,
If i using quad-core(intel q9550) cpu and hd4870x2 then the dx11 gives some performance and better visual effects??
Rando,
Using a quad core CPU (which ever one you choose) will a good way to get great performance from DirectX11 games. But if you want the very best visual quality then you will also need DirectX 11 hardware.
heh probably not, because i believe the 360’s tessellator isn’t DX11 standard, just like the HD series tesselators, so unless the developer specifically codes for it, tessellation isn’t going to happen.
So, the tesselation unit included in the 4xxx’s (and promoted to hell by AMD) basically does not, and never will, do anything? It’s more than a little annoying to hear this as someone who bought a 4870.
The author does a great job of arranging this vast body of knowledge into one blog. I do agree w/the other reviewers on that point.
An interesting overview, thanks. It will be interesting seeing this cards out in the wild and how they actually perform.
You mentioned that DX11 exposes the GPU at a more flexible level, should I read into this that DX11 is the preferred / optimal way to harness this power in non visual programming (computational fluid dynamics) and such – or is OpenCL still the way to go?
Kristian,
I guess I don’t think there’s much to drive you either way on the choice between OpenCL and DIrectX. If you’re coding in DirectX then DirectCompute is the obvious choice. If you’re running OpenGL or not using the graphics pipeline at all then you may prefer OpenCL.
For AMD we’re committed to supporting both of these open standards, and I’d positively encourage you to explore either option – which ever suits your needs best. But please don’t waste your time on proprietary standards – that’s just a dead-end when there are perfectly good standards with great support as an alternative.
RichardH
Is there going to be a port of DirectX 11 to linux seeing as it requires special drivers to use certain hardware features of the video card?
Now all we need is a playable tech-demo for dx11 that should include both urban areas and jungle/shore area a´la Crysis…Not to mention that if this really is going to improve graphics, physics and cpu performance as drastically as claimed, usage of it should be made as a standard at the gaming industry.
And while we are at it, lets categorise all major graphics styles used in modern games and slam a commonly used, required standard for all the categories in order to make sure that we really get what we are promised and paying for.
Demos that i have seen so far about dx.11 are very compelling, but please do remember how it all turned out with dx.10 and its fantastic new graphical capabilities and performance boost it was supposed to offer. After all we have seen only tech-demos and sadly thats all they are.
Even if this new generation of gpu´s would manage to offer everything that engineers and marketing sections are promising for us, it does NOT mean that gamestudios around the globe would start to support it any better than dx.10 was/is supported right now.
All in all, i´m very sceptic about this until i see atleast couple of high end games hitting the shelfs and reaching high scores at reviews…Hopefully more people would do the same, theres no point in tossing out our money for anyone, despite how intriguing promises they make, atleast until we see some decent results. This way we wouldn´t support nonsense products sold solely based on fictional capabilities empty promises.
Richard Huddy, thank you for the blog and clarifying many things for me and others.
Will DirectX be the end of Stream vs CUDA question for people who want to use a video card not just for games but for other applications or we will have to wait for OpenCL or something?
Will the new generation of GPU be more power hungry, heat up to 100+ C, and make the cooler sound like a turbo jet?
Why can’t AMD/ATI enable all DirectX11 features in its 4800 or even earlier cards by updating BIOS and/or drivers?
If even latest AMD/ATI video cards do not fully support DirectX 11 it does not make sense to buy a new expensive card now because as soon as “DirectX 11 compliant” video cards appear on the market the price of older (now latest) cards will dramatically drop as most folks will be looking for DirectX 11 card. Even though it will take a long time for software to adopt DirectX 11 everybody will be looking for “future proof” hardware.
I am in the process of building a new system for myself on i7 (sorry AMD) and wanted to buy a 4850 card (the primary purpose of the computer is HD video editing) with a quiet cooling system. But now spending $100+ for a new card feels like a waste. Anyway I will probably still go for 4850 as I am not a gamer and hope the video system performance will be sufficient for me for at least 3 years.
I still have ATI All-in-Wonder card but it is an AGP card and useless for new platforms.
Boris,
>Richard Huddy, thank you for the blog and clarifying many things for me and others.
You’re welcome – thanks for taking the time to read my blog.
>Will DirectX be the end of Stream vs CUDA question for people who want to use a video card not just for games but for other applications or we will have to wait for OpenCL or something?
Well, yes, I think it will be the end of proprietary APIs etc (so, yes, that includes CUDA). There’s simply no good reason to use a proprietary API which locks you in to one vendor’s hardware when there’s a good solid well supported alternative based upon open standards.
>Will the new generation of GPU be more power hungry, heat up to 100+ C, and make the cooler sound like a turbo jet?
No. If you want you’ll be able to choose a card which consumes less power and runs quieter than what you presently have. But that decision is always a trade-off where you decide how much horse-power you want and how noisy or power-hungry you’re willing to be. We give you the opportunity to choose, and the actual choice is yours…
>Why can’t AMD/ATI enable all DirectX11 features in its 4800 or even earlier cards by updating BIOS and/or drivers?
That’s simple. DirectX 11 has capabilities (like “DX11 Tessellation” and “Shader Model 5″) which simply aren’t supported by our previous hardware. There’s no way to fake these things up in the driver – you need real DirectX 11 hardware to get these capabilities.
>If even latest AMD/ATI video cards do not fully support DirectX 11 it does not make sense to buy a new expensive card now because as soon as “DirectX 11 compliant” video cards appear on the market the price of older (now latest) cards will dramatically drop as most folks will be looking for DirectX 11 card. Even though it will take a long time for software to adopt DirectX 11 everybody will be looking for “future proof” hardware.
Well, again, that’s a choice you’re free to make. We’re offering some stunning value on our HD4800 series at present so those can be great choices, but, yes, if you want the world’s best experience on Windows 7 and DirectX 11 then you might do well to wait a little longer!
>I am in the process of building a new system for myself on i7 (sorry AMD) and wanted to buy a 4850 card (the primary purpose of the computer is HD video editing) with a quiet cooling system. But now spending $100+ for a new card feels like a waste. Anyway I will probably still go for 4850 as I am not a gamer and hope the video system performance will be sufficient for me for at least 3 years.
The HD4850 is a great choice – it’s what I use in my home machine. Great for games, very reasonable power and noise levels, and it supports DirectX 10.1 which helps with quite a few of the best games from 2009.
>I still have ATI All-in-Wonder card but it is an AGP card and useless for new platforms.
Agreed. For AGP users it’s a great card, but for most of us it’s a little dated now.
>Richard Huddy, thank you for the blog and clarifying many things for me and others.
You’re welcome. And my thanks to you for taking the time to put together some interesting questions on the subject…
Thanks,
RichardH
I made the switch from nVidia to ATI about 6 years ago and have never looked back. I always felt that ATI always had superior image quality and has been on the edge of technological development.
Great job ATI, I’m a fan for life!
Inky,
I personally made the switch from NVIDIA to ATI a little over 7 years ago and I agree that you and I both made the right choice. And when it comes to raising the bar on image quality you’ll find our new DirectX 11 hardware to be utterly awesome. I’ve been very impressed by both the numerous tech demos I’ve seen which show individual features off, and by teh games which are coming.
Indeed, if you like the quality of our pixels then you’ll love Eyefinity. Running 3 or more displays at the same time is soooooo sweet!
RichardH
am not really a fan of ATI but, i was planing on buying a ati 4870×2 card.
i want to buy this card but recenty i heard about the new upcoming dx11 Ati/nvidia gpu’s.
Each time i buy a new card the next few months,Ati/nvidia always seem to release a new card.
my only wish is that ati & nvidia stop making new cards every 8-10 months.
i am a person who cant resist new Gpu’s and always see myself buying a new 1.
should i wait for the new cards to arrive for dx11 or should i go for the 4870×2 from ATi?
My recommendation has to be based on budget – but given that I do not know your budget or which types of games you play – the best bang for the buck GPU on the market from any vendor is the ATI Radeon HD 4770…. I suggest that card…