DirectX 10/11 Coming Atop Gallium3D

[phoronix]

Phoronix: DirectX 10/11 Coming Atop Gallium3D

With state trackers emerging for the Gallium3D driver architecture to provide acceleration for a range of APIs from OpenGL ES and OpenVG to OpenGL and OpenCL, we knew it was likely that at some point there would be support for Microsoft's DirectX API. There was even a rumor of Tungsten Graphics already having a working DirectX state tracker...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=Nzk2OQ

[droidhacker]

Boring... vmware+msdonkey=uselessness.

[Perry3D]

Maybe not so boring for the wine developers?

[Kazade]

It won't help the Wine devs, they still need to support closed source drivers like FGLRX and Nvidia...

However, looking long term, this is very interesting. If the open source drivers support D3D 10/11 (and I'm sure D3D9 at some point) that means there will be a standardized API for creating a D3D context under X.

At a guess, I'd say in 2 years time we'll have these state trackers, also by that time nouveau and the open source radeon drivers will be used by people that don't need the extra performance that the closed drivers give, I'd say that was a large majority of people.

So, if all that happens, DX will gain popularity as a graphics API on Linux, and it would be relatively trivial for ATI/Nvidia to implement the X-D3D API (if as they say they share most of the code with Windows).

If that happens, Wine won't need their WineD3D layer, as both open and closed drivers would support D3D on Linux. Cool eh

[droidhacker]

So, if all that happens, DX will gain popularity as a graphics API on Linux

And this is a TERRIBLE TERRIBLE thing that should be avoided at ALL COSTS.

[Kazade]

And this is a TERRIBLE TERRIBLE thing that should be avoided at ALL COSTS.

I agree, but if we get native D3D I think it's quite likely to happen.

[whizse]

So at least in theory this would mean that someone could write a single driver and ship it for both Linux and Windows (at least when/if earlier versions of Direct3D is supported)?

Focusing your resources on a single driver for all platforms could be a big win, at least for companies like Intel, where the Linux driver isn't a port from the Windows side?

[BlackStar]

And this is a TERRIBLE TERRIBLE thing that should be avoided at ALL COSTS.

[Throwing oil to the fire]

Why? D3D is a pretty nice API.

Not to mention that the people who design D3D are mostly the people who design OpenGL (that is, AMD, Nvidia, Intel and the rest).

[Craig73]

So, if all that happens, DX will gain popularity as a graphics API on Linux

And this is a TERRIBLE TERRIBLE thing that should be avoided at ALL COSTS.

Why? I can appreciate that many don't want an API controlled by MS in Linux, but if we look at it from other angles to see if there are opportunities (without turning it into a flame war)

1) less code re-write to support multiple platforms for applications originally written to support D3D [ie, lower overhead for games/toolkit developers to target platforms such as Linux.]
2) possibly contribute to more momentum (resources) behind Gallium3D to get it ported to more platforms and/or improve the drivers quickly (or take them to a higher state of polish/performance)
3) more pressure on OpenGL to continue advance their API to remain competitive
4) perhaps an opportunity to move D3D to a consortium

Not saying any of this will happen, we don't even know if the D3D state trackers will be open source, but it seems like a more productive response than reacting with fear and panic [which is certainly not productive]

[droidhacker]

Why? I can appreciate that many don't want an API controlled by MS in Linux, but if we look at it from other angles to see if there are opportunities (without turning it into a flame war)

1) less code re-write to support multiple platforms for applications originally written to support D3D [ie, lower overhead for games/toolkit developers to target platforms such as Linux.]
2) possibly contribute to more momentum (resources) behind Gallium3D to get it ported to more platforms and/or improve the drivers quickly (or take them to a higher state of polish/performance)
3) more pressure on OpenGL to continue advance their API to remain competitive
4) perhaps an opportunity to move D3D to a consortium

Not saying any of this will happen, we don't even know if the D3D state trackers will be open source, but it seems like a more productive response than reacting with fear and panic [which is certainly not productive]

The only thing that it does is it gives MS more control over Linux by allowing developers to be LAZY.

1) This doesn't help -- the developer can make a more intelligent choice in APIs to start their project, resulting in less duplicated work.
2) Waste resources in bad areas that could be used in more universally useful areas, like GPU-independent video decode acceleration.
3) There would be more pressure on OpenGL to be better if more people were actually interested in it, this goes back to #1.
4) Interesting, but when has MS ever relinquished control over anything in favor of open source? In fact, as a counter argument, MS has a tendency to break things that they DO NOT control in THEIR implementation in order to STEAL control.... i.e. their creative interpretation of HTML in their dysfunctional web browser. Because MS renders it WRONGLY, some developers conform to that broken renderer, resulting in web pages that render correctly only when incorrectly rendered by MS.