i use Linux as main OS and a W7 for game but the more we go forward the most windows game work at max on linux via wine and similar... even linux game goes better. with distro more and more usable as is by vanilia user linux start to grow. i like it

That being said though, seeing as how pretty much everybody here has a CPU sufficient for modern gaming, why do you all care this much?

...AMD making impact.

Y'know what bothers me? I'm SURE AMD proposed this to Khronos and MS, and I have no doubt they turned it down. Now that AMD proved them wrong, they both want a piece of the action and basically had AMD waste money and time developing Mantle. These are resources AMD could have spent improving DX and OGL. On the other hand, this was really only an AMD specific problem, since their APUs aren't very good in a CPU perspective. So maybe Khronos and MS felt "you're trying to fix a problem that is only your concern". That being said though, seeing as how pretty much everybody here has a CPU sufficient for modern gaming, why do you all care this much? Anyway, assuming DX12 or OGL 5(?) won't be compatible with modern GPUs, I think when I come around to replacing my GPUs, I'll get one that supports those.

Y'know what bothers me? I'm SURE AMD proposed this to Khronos and MS, and I have no doubt they turned it down. Now that AMD proved them wrong, they both want a piece of the action and basically had AMD waste money and time developing Mantle. These are resources AMD could have spent improving DX and OGL. On the other hand, this was really only an AMD specific problem, since their APUs aren't very good in a CPU perspective. So maybe Khronos and MS felt "you're trying to fix a problem that is only your concern". That being said though, seeing as how pretty much everybody here has a CPU sufficient for modern gaming, why do you all care this much? Anyway, assuming DX12 or OGL 5(?) won't be compatible with modern GPUs, I think when I come around to replacing my GPUs, I'll get one that supports those.

And it'll require new hardware....as usual.

I'm SURE AMD proposed this to Khronos and MS, and I have no doubt they turned it down. Now that AMD proved them wrong, they both want a piece of the action and basically had AMD waste money and time developing Mantle. [/Quote] How so? Mantle has been announced last Fall, and as soon as next Spring Microsoft and all three major GPU vendors are ready to implement a similar feature in Direct3D. I'd rather assume that if they were really approached by AMD, they all agreed to the proposal right from the start and spent these six months refining the specs. Or that it was actually started by Microsoft in the first place. AMD bothered to introduce their own API because they basically have the same GCN architecture coming on XBox One, PS4 and the PC, so the developers will have to target GCN anyway. But such low-level API would help AMD sell lower-end GPUs, their bread and butter, where the performance gains would be most noticeable.

Anyway, assuming DX12 or OGL 5(?) won't be compatible with modern GPUs, I think when I come around to replacing my GPUs, I'll get one that supports those.

[thread=386971]Read another thread[/thread], there is no need for OpenGL 5 - the announcement says that you can reduce driver/API overhead right now, presumably by only using data formats and APIs (OpelGL extensions) which are close to the metal and do not require translation work on the CPU. The same goes for Direct3D - it doesn't have to be a new incompatible "D3D12" API, like D3D10.x-D3D11.x was to D3D8/D3D9.

there's a possibility that the next DirectX and OpenGL will backwards compatible with today's GPUs, and will let them benefit by the software improvements.

It should be a superset of D3D11.2, just like it was with D3D11.1 and 11.0. I just don't see Microsoft doing another clean break and introduce a totally new incompatible API right now, when they have just launched Xbox One, Windows Phone 8 and Surface, all of which are based on Direct3D 11.x and run on D3D9, D3D10 and D3D11 hardware using the concept of Feature Levels. This will probably be something like "D3D11.3" with a new "pure hardware" device type in addition to "hardware" (which is actually a "hardware abstraction level" (HAL) and can involve automatic software translation), "WARP" and "reference" devices. This "pure hardware" device will probably only allow a limited subset of the D3D11 API, DDI and data formats, and will provide some form of caps (capability bits) query and/or new feature levels. It will certainly require a new version of WDDM/DXGI, so it will be Windows 9 only. But it shouldn't require new hardware - it should work on relatively recent GPUs like GCN1/1.1 and Fermi/Kepler.

D3D OGL which are not low level api's that mantel is and thus would work for many arch assuming some level of similar base as it's not real direct calls like mantel is. It's likely something that's been researched and done at concept levels but wasn't implemented because it would cause a another large revision change to DirectX, hell developers barely started to use DX11 let alone something that might put it to DX12

You are perfectly right. Direct3D is based around Hardware Abstraction Level (HAL). This means that the device driver - which talks to the OS and the Direct3D runtime through D3D Device Driver Interface (DDI) and DirectX Graphics Interface (DXGI) - has to abstract its underlying hardware implementation and accept generic data types (texture and vertex formats, shader bytecode etc.) which are defined by DDI/DXGI, and perform on-the-fly translation on the CPU as needed. However, if Direct3D could be changed to bypass the abstraction level and only allow data types and API calls which are closer to the actual hardware, that would remove most overhead. Since most computation-intensive work is already done with HLSL shaders in Direct3D11, which require very certain feature set in hardware, I'd imagine this could be done with minimal changes to the Direct3D API itself. And even if it couldn't, I believe Mantle does support HLSL shaders just like D3D does, so this "pure hardware" Direct3D (D3D12?) could be treated just like another renderer in addition to Mantle and Direct3D11 HAL.

It look like the Mantle apprroach have pay off.. ( When AMD is represent 99% of DirectX developpement, thats not finally a so big surprise )

with the launch of Xbox One, we can now bring the latest generation of Direct3D 11 to console. The Xbox One graphics API is “Direct3D 11.x” and the Xbox One hardware provides a superset of Direct3D 11.2 functionality. Other graphics APIs such as OpenGL and AMD’s Mantle are not available on Xbox One. Developers creating content for the Xbox One are able to use the same programing constructs across Windows and Xbox, and benefit from all the improvements that have been introduced on Windows. With Xbox One we have also made significant enhancements to the implementation of Direct3D 11, especially in the area of runtime overhead. The result is a very streamlined, “close to metal” level of runtime performance... We’re also working with our ISV and IHV partners on future efforts, including bringing the lightweight runtime and tooling capabilities of the Xbox One Direct3D implementation to Windows, and identifying the next generation of advanced 3D graphics technologies. Everything we learn from these activities will continue to flow into future iterations of Direct3D for Windows, Xbox, and Windows Phone.

Of course Microsoft's new API will require a new operating system... a Microsoft account, and an always online internet connection just to use said new operating system... Am I doing this right?

YEAH AMD MANTLE! oh wait... doesn't matter anymore lol. It seems NV has everything over AMD at the moment. G-sync and now(soon) comparable perf. to mantle.

Good luck. FreeSync hasn't materialized over at AMD's side. DirectX / OpenGL low-level access hasn't yet materialized for anything. Good luck, again.