Microsoft drums up the DX10.1 SDK
Thrax
🐌Austin, TX Icrontian
While we've just barely come to terms with the offerings of DirectX 10, Microsoft is already touting the 10.1 revision in the form of a beta SDK. A few interesting things arise as a result of this release:
<ul>
<li>DirectSound is finally ousted in favor of XAudio 2, which is the sound engine used on the XBOX360. We can only presume that Microsoft is hoping to encourage cross-platform development between their two offspring. As an end-user, we can hope that XA2 works towards reversing the gross negligence of hardware DSPs, 5.1 sound fields, and other advanced sound technologies on Vista.</li>
<li>Shader model 4.1 is introduced.</li>
<li>Better resource-handling for 3D graphics.</li>
<li>Dynamic MSAA pattern sampling</li>
<li>The SDK requires Windows Vista SP1</li>
</ul>
And perhaps it is the last thing that is most interesting. The steady hum of "SP1" in the Redmondverse is growing, and seeing a public SDK release that requires it suggests that Microsoft's wunderpatch just may be closer than everyone has been predicting.
If'n you're the sort who likes to tinker with the seedy underbelly of APIs, point your clickers in this here direction: Git ye some SDK, ya hear?
<ul>
<li>DirectSound is finally ousted in favor of XAudio 2, which is the sound engine used on the XBOX360. We can only presume that Microsoft is hoping to encourage cross-platform development between their two offspring. As an end-user, we can hope that XA2 works towards reversing the gross negligence of hardware DSPs, 5.1 sound fields, and other advanced sound technologies on Vista.</li>
<li>Shader model 4.1 is introduced.</li>
<li>Better resource-handling for 3D graphics.</li>
<li>Dynamic MSAA pattern sampling</li>
<li>The SDK requires Windows Vista SP1</li>
</ul>
And perhaps it is the last thing that is most interesting. The steady hum of "SP1" in the Redmondverse is growing, and seeing a public SDK release that requires it suggests that Microsoft's wunderpatch just may be closer than everyone has been predicting.
If'n you're the sort who likes to tinker with the seedy underbelly of APIs, point your clickers in this here direction: Git ye some SDK, ya hear?
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