WINE Developers Start On Direct3D 10 Support

[phoronix]

Phoronix: WINE Developers Start On Direct3D 10 Support

Word out of WINE HQ this morning is that WINE 1.1.7 has been released. This development release has major changes that consist of improved device management for DOS drives, many Richedit fixes, many Windows installer fixes, and the first steps of a Direct3D 10 implementation...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=NjgxMA

[ethana2]

Gahh, Direct3D is the job of the GPU drivers, /not/ some API translation shim.

This should not be done by WINE, this should be done by Gallium, or heck, nVidia and ATi.

[Louise]

Gahh, Direct3D is the job of the GPU drivers, /not/ some API translation shim.

This should not be done by WINE, this should be done by Gallium, or heck, nVidia and ATi.

I don't think that is possible, as the Windos program runs inside WINE.

How should WINE be able to push the D3D stuff to the video driver?

[ethana2]

I don't know, but it does fine with OpenGL..

[gentoofu]

I don't know, but it does fine with OpenGL..
Your logic makes sense only if there are a lot open-source programs available that runs D3D natively. How many apps out there that are like that?

[ethana2]

Who cares?

If FOSSers weren't so fricking picky about their gpu drivers maybe linux would have games.

I'd rather have Direct3D9+ than OpenGL 3.

You can expect publishers to compile against Winelibs.
You cannot expect them to translate their graphics APIs.
Until Direct3D performance is equal to Windows or better, people will still use windows for games.
Some of those people don't have time to deal with two operating systems, and it's all or nothing.

Linux needs Direct3D support in its GPU drivers.

[deanjo]

Who cares?

If FOSSers weren't so fricking picky about their gpu drivers maybe linux would have games.

I'd rather have Direct3D9+ than OpenGL 3.

You can expect publishers to compile against Winelibs.
You cannot expect them to translate their graphics APIs.
Until Direct3D performance is equal to Windows or better, people will still use windows for games.
Some of those people don't have time to deal with two operating systems, and it's all or nothing.

Linux needs Direct3D support in its GPU drivers.

OK, first there is this thing called reality. You don't think that there might be thousands of patents involved with DirectX or are you living in a realm where MS produces opensource APIs? Second of all, why can't you expect publishers to compile against winelibs? They also have a choice to support crossplatform API's. That's exactly what they are doing on the Mac side with Cider. Third, if it's a growing pain that you are not willing to go through then no other OS other then Windows is for you.

[ethana2]

OK, first there is this thing called reality. You don't think that there might be thousands of patents involved with DirectX or are you living in a realm where MS produces opensource APIs? Second of all, why can't you expect publishers to compile against winelibs? They also have a choice to support crossplatform API's. That's exactly what they are doing on the Mac side with Cider. Third, if it's a growing pain that you are not willing to go through then no other OS other then Windows is for you.

Microsoft can't take us over patents, IBM, RedHat, Intel-- we have more than they do. It'd be a patent Armageddon. Microsoft would lose.

I said you /can/ expect publishers to compile against winelibs.

Cider seems to be doing the same thing as WINE3D. If it actually /works/, and if the performance is actually decent, then, for one thing it's farther along than Wine3D, and for another I might consider taking back my claims.

I stopped playing games entirely when I switched to linux. I'm the opposite of the people I describe. Since that time I've picked up tremulous and nexuiz.

[deanjo]

Microsoft can't take us over patents, IBM, RedHat, Intel-- we have more than they do. It'd be a patent Armageddon. Microsoft would lose.

In the case of DirectX, you better believe that Microsoft would win, and quite easily at that. It's simply not a case of a "grey" area here. If foss could destroy patents in court don't you think they would have done so on much smaller fish first going against Fraunhofer and the likes?

[ethana2]

In the case of DirectX, you better believe that Microsoft would win, and quite easily at that. It's simply not a case of a "grey" area here. If foss could destroy patents in court don't you think they would have done so on much smaller fish first going against Fraunhofer and the likes?


You can patent an implementation. You can't patent an interface. Suing for reimplementing Direct3D on any level at all would fly in the face of all their 'interoperability' efforts and would constitute very, very bad PR. Since what I propose amounts to for the most part AMD and nVidia leaving their D3D code in when they compile drivers for Linux, and perhaps some shim with X, the companies involved would be doing little if anything /new/ that they could be sued over, and the rest of the implementation would be too drastically different for a 'good' patent to really be applicable.

I'm saying that with any given patent used against us, we could probably either dodge it or get it invalidated.

[deanjo]

You can patent an implementation. You can't patent an interface. Suing for reimplementing Direct3D on any level at all would fly in the face of all their 'interoperability' efforts and would constitute very, very bad PR. Since what I propose amounts to for the most part AMD and nVidia leaving their D3D code in when they compile drivers for Linux, and perhaps some shim with X, the companies involved would be doing little if anything /new/ that they could be sued over, and the rest of the implementation would be too drastically different for a 'good' patent to really be applicable.

Do you seriously MS worries about bad PR on a lawsuit? They have sued and successfully won over the name "Lindows" for crying out loud. Who are they gonna tick off if they do? The same people that are already ticked off at them, it wouldn't hurt them in the least.

BTW:

"In 1981, the Supreme Court stated that "a claim drawn to subject matter otherwise statutory does not become nonstatutory simply because it uses a mathematical formula, computer program, or digital computer" and a claim is patentable if it contains "a mathematical formula [and] implements or applies the formula in a structure or process which, when considered as a whole, is performing a function which the patent laws were designed to protect"."

This is exactly the reason why commercial distro's do not include libraries such as lame and mad into their official distros.

[ethana2]

Do you seriously MS worries about bad PR on a lawsuit? They have sued and successfully won over the name "Lindows" for crying out loud. Who are they gonna tick off if they do? The same people that are already ticked off at them, it wouldn't hurt them in the least.

'Lindows' was asking for it, they got it, and no one cared.
The day Crysis runs on Linux is the day MS market share goes out the window.

The UN and anyone else who is demanding that microsoft improve interoperability. There are very real fines for noncompliance, and going out of their way to /stop/ windows 3d applications from interoperating with other operating systems would be very likely to not help their cause against those fines.

[deanjo]

'Lindows' was asking for it, they got it, and no one cared.
The day Crysis runs on Linux is the day MS market share goes out the window.

The UN and anyone else who is demanding that microsoft improve interoperability. There are very real fines for noncompliance, and going out of their way to /stop/ windows 3d applications from interoperating with other operating systems would be very likely to not help their cause against those fines.

When it comes to 3D api interoperability MS does already offer that by supporting openGL. If your going to sue someone you would have to sue the game developers.

[ethana2]

When it comes to 3D api interoperability MS does already offer that by supporting openGL. If your going to sue someone you would have to sue the game developers.

Unless I'm mistaken, Vista pipes OpenGL through Direct3D in Vista, severely degrading its performance. This makes OpenGL a ton less attractive to game developers. You can't turn around and blame /them/ for not supporting it under conditions like that.

[deanjo]

Unless I'm mistaken, Vista pipes OpenGL through Direct3D in Vista, severely degrading its performance. This makes OpenGL a ton less attractive to game developers. You can't turn around and blame /them/ for not supporting it under conditions like that.

Well you would be wrong.

http://www.opengl.org/pipeline/article/vol003_9/

[ethana2]

Well you would be wrong.

http://www.opengl.org/pipeline/article/vol003_9/

Thank you very much for posting that link. I learned something today.

How exactly would microsoft stop AMD and nVidia from leaving Direct3D support in their drivers when they compile them for linux?

[deanjo]

How exactly would microsoft stop AMD and nVidia from leaving Direct3D support in their drivers when they compile them for linux?

Easy, it is a licensed technology of Microsofts. Microsoft is able to dictate what the terms of what that license is. Microsoft would have to follow basically that SGI did when it went from Iris GL to openGL.

[ethana2]

Easy, it is a licensed technology of Microsofts. Microsoft is able to dictate what the terms of what that license is. Microsoft would have to follow basically that SGI did when it went from Iris GL to openGL.

Interesting. Why aren't they going after WINE, CrossOver, and Cedega?

[deanjo]

Interesting. Why aren't they going after WINE, CrossOver, and Cedega?

At anytime they can, in fact those items were singled out as exceptions in the Novell/MS deal. Those apps at present are just not a threat to MS right now in their present form.

[superppl]

Technically, it's only Wine, and VMware has it's own too. They're not recreating the API, the putting D3D through OpenGL. Pretty much the exact opposite of what you thought Microsoft was doing with Vista.
Doing it this way through a wrapper doesn't violate any patents(at least to my knowledge.), but it's much less effective. Maybe if AMD and Nvidia also pitched in their efforts into Wine's D3D wrapper development would go faster, but I don't think they really care.

[ethana2]

Technically, it's only Wine, and VMware has it's own too. They're not recreating the API, the putting D3D through OpenGL. Pretty much the exact opposite of what you thought Microsoft was doing with Vista.
Doing it this was a wrapper doesn't violate any patents(at least to my knowledge.), but it's much less effective. Maybe if AMD and Nvidia also pitched in their efforts into Wine's D3D wrapper development would go faster, but I don't think they really care.

So Gallium will enable this to be done better, but it would be unwise for TG to actually /include/ Direct3D support in their own code?

[deanjo]

Technically, it's only Wine, and VMware has it's own too.

Ya, they only list Wine specifically, but seeing that they both share wine code and fall under the "clone" clause they could be sued as well unless they have some licensing agreement with MS already on their own.

[some-guy]

So Gallium will enable this to be done better, but it would be unwise for TG to actually /include/ Direct3D support in their own code?

- Core support for Gallium is essentially done for OpenGL and DirectX 9
- Additional APIs for Gallium 3D is on the way, but Tungsten Graphics doesn't want to comment on which ones at this time.
Seems like TG already has D3D9 internally :D

[deanjo]

Seems like TG already has D3D9 internally :D


I maybe wrong but I believe that is Direct3D as found in the wine compatibility layer. Also don't forget that Direct3D is just one part of DirectX.

[alec]

I was saying this from the first news that DirectX10 was not available on WinXP:

Linux will implement it and all linux folk will have a good laugh.
Poor people who fell under Vista :(

[wien]

How exactly would microsoft stop AMD and nVidia from leaving Direct3D support in their drivers when they compile them for linux?Unfortunately it's not that simple. Unlike with OpenGL, the D3D API is not implemented inside the driver itself. Microsoft write a huge part of the API themselves. This top layer routes commands to a much simpler interface which the drivers implement (in some ways similar to the way Gallium works). Without the Microsoft-controlled parts, the code in the drivers won't do much good.