Topic: DirectX 9.L -- article corrected.

[Pugnate]

edit:

They changed their tune:

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=35140


linky

DirectX 9.L will be a DirectX 10 for Windows XP

Apparently


By Fuad Abazovic: Monday 16 October 2006, 09:45

 WE MANAGED TO glean a few facts about the upcoming DirectX 9.0 L we told you about here.
DirectX 9.0 L is simply a renamed and refurbished DirectX 10 for Windows XP. It will make DirectX 10 games to work on Windows XP.

And games such as the upcoming Crysis won't work on the existing DirectX 9.0 c. they need a DirectX 9.0 L

One of the biggest issues is the fact that Nvidia or ATI won't have any mainstream or entry-level cards until at least mid- to end of Q1 2007. This suggests that if Vista tips up around the beginning of the year, gamers will be turned off by it.

Electronic Arts, the publisher of Crysis, wants to sell hundreds or thousands, even millions of copies and we doubt that Nvidia can produce and sell that many Geforce 8800 GTX and GTS cards.

It will be interesting to see whether the Windows XP Crysis will be different from the Vista ones. µ

You know that they could implement DX10 completely if they wanted to. As it stands now, it DX9.L will be a watered down version... or will it?

[idolminds]

Maybe there was some pressure from devs? I doubt many of them wanted to cut off a large section of their market just so MS can make more money.

[Pugnate]

There should be. Like the article points out, these people want to sell their games as much as possible, and having to rely on people buying an expensive OS and an expensive vid card plus an expensive game is not good strategy.

I hope they apply pressure. Though if you think about it, there are only three big DX10 games that we know about; Flight Sim X, Alan Wake, Crysis and Halo 2.

Flight Sim X will have a DX9 version and it is owned by M$ anyway. Halo 2 I put there as a joke, screw that.  Crysis will have a DX9 version so again the logic above doesn't apply... and that leaves Alan Wake which is going to hit consoles anyway.

So I suppose no one is going to lose too much money.