BD: DX10 - tell us in once sentence why should gamers care?

Chris: We consider DirectX 10 to be the biggest leap in graphics performance since we introduced DirectX with Windows 95, and expect it to be a revolutionary new technology for game play.

BD: Why should non-gamers care?

Chris: DirectX 10 will deliver the highest quality graphics and best performance on the Windows platform, resulting in incredibly immersive experiences for everyone.

BD: It's a simple fact that many of today's top games are running on the Doom3 engine, which of course uses OpenGL - what are a few of the advantages a developer can have using DX10?

Chris: We rebuilt DirectX 10 in Windows Vista from the ground up in order to provide a rich, incredibly detailed experience for gamers and industry partners, while delivering many times the graphics performance and increased stability over previous versions of Direct3D. DirectX 10 will greatly improve graphic fidelity via Shader Model 4.0 which will allow developers to create more complex environments and characters as well as include more items on the screen.

While there are some games based on the Doom3 engine, the overwhelming majority of games are built using DirectX, including games based off the Unreal Engine or the Source Engine – Even id uses DirectX for versions of their games running on Xbox and Xbox 360. That said, all OpenGL applications should run on Windows Vista, provided that you have the latest drivers for your video card and the latest patches for the application. As of now, hardware vendors are developing installable client drivers (ICDs) that enable support for hardware accelerated OpenGL.  

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