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DirectX
Future Outlined
What will consumers think about Microsoft's new
versions of DirectX technology? Actually, Microsoft hopes they won't
think about it at all. DirectX 7 is scheduled for release later this
fall, while DirectX 8 is due out next year. Both promise to
significantly improve the look and sound of 3-D games. However,
Microsoft officials would like retail customers to equate their
refined gaming experiences with a more robust Windows operating system
and the better design skills of game developers rather than focus on
the technology of DirectX. In fact, making DirectX a streamlined part of the
game install is as much a goal for developers as building in the
latest technology improvements, said Kevin Bachus, a Microsoft product
manager for DirectX. Indeed, Bachus said the goal for DirectX is for
it to be transparent to consumers. "When DirectX works it should
be invisible," said Bachus. "It should not be something
consumers care about or know about." Bachus said Microsoft is working simultaneously on
the two new versions of DirectX. Version 7 will contain enhancements
to 3-D sound and graphics along with overall speed improvements. It is
scheduled to be available in time for a new crop of graphics chips
that will hit the market this fall. DirectX 8 is intended to provide a leap forward in
the gaming experience. Once DirectX 7 is released, the DirectX team
will focus exclusively on version 8, which Bachus noted will show off
some of the first fruits of a technology agreement between Silicon
Graphics and Microsoft. But first, DirectX 7. Bachus said the portions of
this version will be released, along with updates from DirectX 6.1, in
the Microsoft Windows 98 Revision 2. (New versions of DirectX are also
distributed by game developers on CD-ROMs and can be downloaded from
Microsoft's Web site at www.microsoft.com.) Speed is the name of the game with DirectX 7, Bachus
said. Microsoft has optimized the new version to run about 20 percent
faster, and even games developed for DirectX 6 will perform better
with the new runtime, he added. To improve the realism of 3-D
graphics, DirectX 7 will add support for hardware-assisted
transformations. The result will be faster 3-D operations, Bachus said. DirectX 7 also will include enhanced audio features.
Bachus said Microsoft will provide hardware acceleration support of
direct music. Processing direct music on the sound card will improve
overall game performance, he added. As for DirectX 8, Bachus said to
expect vast improvements in visual quality. For one, the Microsoft
development team will add support for scene graphs, a way to describe
3-D scenes as objects instead of triangles. This feature will allow
developers to create complex 3-D environments that are more flexible
and easier to program. In addition to improvements in graphics quality, the
DirectX team also will work to further develop the sound quality of
games. The group plans to support environmental modeling for audio,
which provides more realistic reproductions of sounds in various
settings. Microsoft also will work to enable multichannel audio and
AC-3 (Dolby Digital) in this version. "Our competition is real
life," Bachus said. "Anything that approaches the quality
around you is what we will be trying to enable." To make games easier to install and use, Microsoft
expects to add a new technology called Game Manager in the next
version of Windows. Game Manager essentially would provide the kind of
front end consumers now experience with a video game system. As
demonstrated at Microsoft's Windows Hardware Engineering Conference,
Game Manager automatically takes over when a new game is inserted into
a CD-ROM drive. The manager installs the game and all necessary
components and then gives the user a chance to set up special profiles
for gaming devices used with that game. This means there's no need to
reset the profiles every time the game is started on the computer. The
goal, Bachus said, is to simplify the game start-up experience and
remove confusing choices for consumers. |
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