DirectX 11 will be compatible with DirectX 10 hardware

Posted at: 10:44am 23rd July 2008 by Ben Hardwidge

DirectX 11 will work on Windows Vista, and will also be compatible with existing DirectX 10 hardware

The recent news that DirectX 11 would be revealed this month caused a bit of backlash from some owners of DirectX 10 GPUs, who felt that they’ve hardly had a chance to use their hardware yet. However, Microsoft has revealed that DirectX 11 will be compatible with DirectX 10 and 10.1 hardware, as well as future DirectX 11-specific parts.

At Microsoft’s Gamefest show, the CTO of Microsoft's Entertainment Business Division, Chris Satchell, revealed that ‘DX11 is totally compatible with DX10. There's not that 9/10 discontinuity we created before.’ This doesn’t mean that DirectX 10 hardware will only be running DirectX 10 features under DirectX 11, either. According to Shacknews, ‘Microsoft also disclosed that DirectX 11 will add features to existing DirectX 10-compatible hardware.’ After all, once you have a unified shader architecture, your GPU’s processors are no longer locked into the architecture of a specific API.

Satchell also clarified that the next version of DirectX won’t require an operating system upgrade to Windows 7 either, and will work with Windows Vista, as well as ‘future versions of Windows.’

As well as the announcement on hardware-compatibility, Microsoft revealed a few more details of DirectX 11 as well. In addition to the Compute Shader, which allows the GPU to be used for general purpose processing tasks, the new API will introduce multi-threaded resource handling, so that games programmers will find it easier to utilise multi-core CPUs in games. The new API will also support tessellation, which Microsoft claims can make 3D models appear smoother when seen up close.

No launch date has been announced for DirectX 11 yet, but the hardware-compatibility certainly looks like good news. Has Microsoft got its hardware strategy right? Let us know your thoughts.

Via Shacknews and GamaSutra