DirectX 11 and Windows 7 Means for Gamers

What DirectX 11 (and Windows 7) Means for Gamers ?
WHERE DIRECTX WENT WRONG
DirectX 10 releases since Windows Vista have been largely uninspiring, with the only success story really being Far Cry 2, a game with a decidedly mixed reputation. Crysis generally runs better in DirectX 9 mode with very little trade-off in image quality, and it seems like only hardware review sites actually run it under DirectX 10.

Simply put, DirectX 10 flopped because it was tied to Windows Vista, which has been unable to escape the pall its horrible release cast upon it. Nearly every example of "this is why DirectX 10 is better" has been a failure, only further exacerbated by game releases that were artificially tied to it. Even now, Capcom has actually come out and said the only reason Resident Evil 5 has a DirectX 10 codepath is for Nvidia's 3D Vision; Capcom admits there's no difference in visual quality between DirectX 9 and DirectX 10 in the game. That's what Microsoft has led us to expect from their "next generation" graphics engine.

WHY SHOULD YOU CARE ABOUT DIRECTX 11?
Well, surprisingly, DirectX 11 brings features to the table worth getting excited about, and it's entering an environment that's far less hostile than that faced by DirectX 10. While buzz leading up to the release of Windows Vista and the fallout thereafter pretty much buried DirectX 10, Windows 7 is getting great buzz. Better still, DirectX 11 is offering more tangible reasons to support it and be excited about it, and has a better slate of titles coming up for it. Unlike DirectX 10, DirectX 11 also doesn't make a clean break with the previous generation, and will be available for Windows Vista as well.

The one good thing DirectX 10 did was push for unified shaders in graphics hardware. Now let's see what DirectX 11 is going to do with them and the rest of the chip.

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