In a lengthy interview with ExtremeTech, David Blythe and Chris Donahue of Microsoft divulge some of the intricacies inherent in the tenth iteration of DirectX, the API powering much of Vista's gaming OS aspirations. Interestingly, there are several features being implemented that aren't even present in next-gen consoles yet, though the interviewees are quick to point out that, aside from the PC version of Halo 2, there will be very few games in the next few years that specifically require DirectX 10 to run.If talk of unified shaders and procedural rendering gets your heart racing (those vertex buffers are hawt), you'll find the interview pleasing in a multitude of ways. Even if you don't particularly care for the technical jargon, you may still find some merit in pulling back the curtain and seeing just how much thought and effort go into creating the tools necessary for a game developer to realize a specific vision. Of course, that often leads us to wonder which aspect of game design holds the greater influence -- do technical features come about because of the needs of the graphic designer, or does the artist gain new ideas as technology improves?
[Via ars technica]
