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Microsoft Corp.’s DirectX 12 application programming interface promises to significantly improve performance of video games in Windows 10 operating system thanks to efficient usage of modern hardware. However, Valve Software believes that it makes no sense to use DX12, but to utilize cross-platform Vulkan API instead.
Modern application programming interfaces – namely Apple’s Metal, Khronos Group’s Vulkan and Microsoft Corp.’s DirectX 12 – are all considered low-level APIs and have generally similar capabilities. All three APIs have improved ability to use multi-core microprocessors, allow software makers to have close-to-metal access to resources of graphics processing units, they all support GPGPU [general-purpose computing on graphics processing units], reduce driver overhead and so on. The three APIs are compatible with a wide range of hardware.
Apple’s and Microsoft’s APIs are only supported by Apple iOS/OS X platforms as well as Microsoft Windows 10, respectively. By contrast. Vulkan should be compatible with all operating systems from Google (future versions of Android) and Microsoft (Windows 7/8/10) as well as a wide range of hardware, which makes it preferable for game developers who want their titles to run on different types of devices.
“Unless you are aggressive enough to be shipping a DX12 game this year, I would argue that there is really not much reason to ever create a DX12 back end for your game,” said Dan Ginsburg, a software developer from Valve, at Siggraph, reports DSO Gaming. “The reason for that is that Vulkan will cover you on Windows 10 on the same class of hardware and so much more from all these other platforms and IHVs that we have heard from. Metal is single platform, single vendor, and Vulkan… we are gonna have support for not only Windows 10 but Windows 7, Windows 8 and Linux.”
For Valve, which is developing its own Steam OS to power its living room PCs called Steam Machines, DirectX 12 clearly does not make a lot of sense. By contrast, Vulkan will be supported by Steam OS, which is based on Linux.
While for cross-platform developers it makes a great-sense to use Vulkan, DirectX 12 still has a number of advantages. The Vulkan API is still not finalized, so it cannot really be used for commercial products right now. As a result, those, who plan to release their titles in the next twelve month, should keep using DirectX 12.
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KitGuru Says: Vulkan is extremely promising API that can have a tremendous impact on the industry. However, since the technology is simply not ready, for many developers DirectX 12 is virtually the only choice.
Microsoft & Apple… “We can’t possibly use Vulkan.. it’s uh, cross compatible which means the other guys will make us… um… yeah, ‘vunerable to cyberattacks and put our users personal details in jeopardy’ (will that work, are they swallowing this?) so we recommend going forward with our own proprietary system and not at all expensive licences for maximum profit… I mean, ‘security’. Yeah… bitches.”
I haven’t even completely read this article but Valve have a null argument. Yes, it does make more sense to use Vulkan over DX12 but at the same time The same argument could be said for the past god knows how many years about OpenGL and DirectX. Even when DirectX was practically dead on iteration 11 the developers continued to use it so either there’s no point switching and having to practically learn an entire library of the same shit they’re already doing or DX really does have something about it that gives it a benefit.
In any case the argument goes both ways. There’s no advantage to DX12 and there’s no advantage to Vulkan (except cross platform play which only hurts SteamOS which is probably the true source of their argument).
Why should developers take all the time and effort to switch from DirectX/HLSL to Vulkan/GLSL when the VAST majority of gamers are on, and are happy with, Windows
Linux and gamming.. LMFAO… good one .. I’ll have to use that for my next joke
Also steamOS is another good joke.. most if not all people that buy steam Machines will no doubly format and install windows on the boxes… because people want to use all there games.. Stream games over Wifi N or ac makes no senses at all… that lag is just unbearable
I bet you Nvidida is backing this because they suck at DX 12
I think it’s more likely that they’ll use their significant market share advantage as a cudgel to pressure game developers working with DX12 to ignore Asynchronous Shading in order to make their hardware look better by taking away AMD’s advantage. It would be much more likely to succeed than trying to sidestep DX12 entirely. Besides, they’re not going to switch over to supporting Vulkan, which is mostly AMD-created Mantle anyway.
Maybe, but the benefits of DX12 are also the benefits of Vulkan, so Nvidia’s tech is still going to suck.
Now Valve just has to throw its weight behind Vulkan. Valve has been screwing over the hardware vendors for years now with their failed-to-launch SteamBox, and they’ve been screwing with gamers for even longer, so I don’t have much faith in ’em on this.
On a side note, I’d really like to see the games that had proof-of-concept Mantle implementations add in Vulkan support.
Despite what Oxide claimed (AMD octacores rivaling newer i7s), all the benchmarks that I’ve been able to find suggest that DX12 has failed in its mission of more cores = more performance and has instead just effectively lowered a bit the CPU overhead on sending commands to the GPU. I’m not terribly surprised, since Microsoft completely flubbed multithreading in DX11, but I am disappointed.
DirectX is free to use. So, erm. Yeah. Paying for Windows is an odd concept too.
Guys, you’re forgetting something – currently there’s no GPU that can support all DX 12 features. Which means we have to wait until Pascal and the next GCN in order to have true DX12 GPU’s. By then, Vulkan will be ready.
Mantle will be shelved for Vulkan (though Vulkan has parts of Mantle inside). Vulkan is the way forward, not Mantle. NVidia will never support Mantle for the same reason AMD will never support PhysX, but Khronos area custodians of Vulkan, and AMD, Intel, NVidia, Qualcomm, Samsung, etc etc are all signatories of Khronos.
Steam hasn’t been screwing Gamers nor hardware partners. I can only assume you think they’ve been screwing you Because there will not be any AMD Steam Machines… But it’s demonstrable that AMD drivers are unreliable on Linux, at least for Gaming.
Your network is setup wrong if you can’t stream games locally. Or your host machine is shit.
Linux Gaming, for the games available is going well. If all games used Vulkan, then there’d be no difference, which is the point.
If you’re too stupid to use Linux then they explains that.
Yeah, the shader thing had been demonstrated to be false. And Khronos manage Vulkan, which NVidia and AMD are both a part of. There’s no reason both of them, as well as Google Android, Qualcomm, LG, Samsung, etc , won’t use the tech. If this is good, it’ll be in Smart TVs , phones, tablets etc.
Because Vulkan will perform as good as DX12 but be multiplatform and easily scalable. If you can write code once that works on Windows, OSX and Linux, why wouldn’t you? Especially if that same code can be easily scaled to tablets or Android set top boxes (Nexus TV, NVidia Shield TV).
Think about Epic’s Unreal Engine. It’s written in OpenGL, DirectX and OpenGLS. If they could write it once in Vulkan , do you think they wouldn’t?
my netowork is just fine.. I didn’t I couldn’t steam games I said its lag tastic if I do… Wireles AC or N can not keep up with a full Maxed out Game at 1080 over the network regardless… only way to do it would be to have it wired… ..kind of defeating the point…
??????????????????????????????????????
This post is a joke.
Mantle is effectively over when Vulkan releases.
Mantle is already over, it lives on only as Vulkan and LiquidVR. Mission Accomplished.
Why would that stop the developers of games that already use Mantle from releasing Vulkan patches for them?
Ah right, I see. Nothing at all, hopefully. I would imagine and hope it’s a simple upgrade path for them to do that. Vulkan should be great if it takes off on Windows, because other OS’s will happily follow suite. I just imagine stiff resistance from Microsoft.
I think they are right… and it isn’t all about Linux or OSX.. It’s about supporting Windows 7-8.1, because DX12 is Windows10 only.
Totally agree with Valve on this one and I really hope Vulkan takes off in a big way. Also it means I won’t have to ‘upgrade’ to Windows 10 to get the best visual experience.
tell that to the vista and XP users…….. and everybody else will be subsidising their new OS by buying “apps” from the windows store. Those that already have 10 are “paying” for it by allowing Microsoft to scan their PC’s to find out what they use so that tailored advertising can be put in place. For every nice thing Microsoft do there are 10 nefarious reasons behind it.
That’s true. Meanwhile, I’m running Ubuntu and OSX mainly (Windows 10 is installed for gaming).
there are over 1500 games for linux on steam at the moment not to mention what is capable on WINE, and with the imminent release of the new steam boxes (just before Christmas) there will be a push to get more. If you are happy to keep gaming on windows then good for you, but me personally – I am looking forward to the day when Microsoft do not have the monopoly on PC gaming.
Except that it has to support the (DirectX-only) XBox platform. So even if they did want to just use Vulkan, they can’t.
I really hate the “Windows 10-only” thing… ç.ç
Poiint is Microsoft will be forced to implement vulcan not vice versa. Microsoft are not the be all and end all of gaming
They will most certainly not on the XBox.
As far as I’m concerned, I’m not bothered either way. Windows isn’t my primary OS and never will be, Linux is. And until I can afford a more modern graphics card Vulkan (or DirectX 12) will make no difference to me in any case.
But that’s for console games. They also have to support the special version of OpenGL that the PS4 uses as well. But for PC platforms they can write the code near enough once and cover 3 vastly different OS’s.
Vulkan will if it supports older cards, though.
I have a Radeon HD 6670. I don’t think they’re supporting anything below the R7 at best.
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i really couldn’t care about MS scanning my computer all the “targeted advertising” won’t do squat since I only buy stuff from retailers I trust, if companys want to wastefully throw money at MS to try to market their crap to me and fail miserably then so be it.
Like all salesmen they’ll realize that I’m impossible to sell to and if needs be I’ll just use a AdBlock Software.
Which can all be turned off if you’re tech savvy enough to do so. I’m using W10 for general purposes, gaming and professional work, but to make sure I’m not interrupted by any crap W10 has got included I turned most of it off to resemble my old W7 installation.
But then again, we can’t assume each and every person is a tech savvy, right?
Thus far I’m having no issues whatsoever, it runs way smoother than W7. The only thing I’m annoyed with is the simplified settings window, which is in no way on par with the original control panel.
Well, you pay for OSX by buying Apple hardware – there’s a hefty premium on them above comparable systems, part of which is for the Apple software. You violate the EULA on OSX by installing it on a non-Apple system, which is equivalent to pirating Windows. So if you’ve bought an Apple computer then you’ve paid for OSX.
If you think they haven’t been doing this since XP then you’re pretty naive.
Apple provide Boot camp to install Windows on Macs.
And my work paid for the Macbook in all honesty. I couldn’t stomach the hefty price for the system, as nice as the hardware is.
Kill yourself.
Don’t flag the posts – flag the user. Flagging the posts goes to the website’s mods and the post gets deleted. Flagging the user goes to Disqus and the user gets deleted.
Fight back.
what giving away operating systems ?? not to my knowledge.
I have great issue to the fact that Microsoft has access to all of my personal data such as Emails, banking details, all my payment accounts etc. The problem is in this day and age without the internet you just can’t live a normal life which I find annoying.
and that is why I am waiting untill the last possible moment to install win 10, I’m hoping by that time someone will have come up with a decent way to turn off all of the crap that is not wanted, from the spyware to the adware to the forced updates (although iirc the updates can already be set to your preferences). I’m still annoyed that they keep downloading windows 10 to my 7 installation, I must have deleted it about 5 times since July, if I wanted it I would get it myself.
Not really, no. You are right in that Nvidia’s Async Shaders are different from AMD’s – they can’t run concurrently without big performance penalties. AMD’s GCN can perform graphics and compute tasks concurrently. Nvidia cannot, not without time-intensive context switching, which comes with a significant performance penalty – enough of a penalty that Nvidia tried to get Oxide to stop using it entirely. Instead, Oxide disabled concurrent graphics/compute ability on hardware with Nvidia’s vendor ID, and Nvidia got most of their DX12 performance back. AMD therefore sees huge performance gains from being able to take advantage of that concurrent graphics/compute ability and Nvidia doesn’t.
Quoting from the article you linked: ““Final result (for now): AMD
GPUs are capable of handling a much higher load. About 10x times what
Nvidia GPUs can handle. But they also need also about 4x the pressure
applied before they get to play out there capabilities.””
This leaves game developers with one of two options: take advantage of AMD’s GPU capabilities by throwing a much higher load at it, to Nvidia’s detriment, or take advantage of Nvidia’s GPU capabilities by throwing a much lighter load at it, to AMD’s detriment. As far as I understand it, because of their “closer to the metal” design, this would be true of either DX12 or Vulkan.
AMD’s GCN architecture simply does it better than Nvidia’s Maxwell. And Nvidia’s Pascal was taped out a couple months before this all went down, so they can’t really make changes to the architecture without huge delays – I don’t suspect that the situation will be different with Pascal-based cards either. So that leaves Nvidia with two options for the next generation-and-a-half – do the best they can and let AMD’s cards look better in DX12/Vulkan based games that take advantage of concurrent graphics/compute, or try to get the developers to avoid using concurrent graphics/compute so that their hardware looks better.
And Nvidia swings around a pretty big dic… er… they have a lot of influence and they know how to use it. They’re not going to sit around and let AMD have some glory if they can try to prevent it.
I think he meant building data mining into the OS. And he’s probably right, though I suspect it’s never been to such a degree as they’ve done with W10.
Nice. Thanks for the tip.
Uh, Microsoft platforms will support Vulkan, so I’m not sure what you’re going on about. Just because they develop their own free API for their OS that up until [and possibly including] Vulkan has been better documented and supported doesn’t meant they’re trying to screw Vulkan. Vulkan’s doing that on its own by not even being out yet.
ahh right, I understand now – stupid morphine makes me miss some of the most obvious answers sometimes…..thanks for the clear up.
Well the thing is, they do run concurrently, but they’re better suited to smaller loads and at that stage they are stellar.
It’s certainly going to get interesting.
I heard that they crippled opengl performance for favoring directx10 in Vista times.
Agreed, but I think if there’s anything the DX12 Draw Call benchmark from early this year tells us, it’s that DX11 choked under larger, heavier loads, and part of what DX12 brings to the table is the ability to deal with those larger, heavier loads – which highlights weaknesses in Nvidia’s architectures that weren’t evident under DX11.
Definitely going to get interesting, though. No doubt about that.
All you need to do is look at their 250MB driver packages to realise how hacked together DX11 support has been haha!
one difference to point out is that, OpenGL had a lot of Inconsistencies and legacy that made it not viable in comparison to DirectX, which is why, even with the Cross-OS argument, it wasn’t that viable. The problems that caused this legacy probably won’t happen to vulkan, as a lower level api like vulkan needs the developer to put more effort into implementation, which in turn influences the api to not have the legacy or cruft. Another difference is that, Vulkan does things almost exactly like DX12, so the differences between the two are less than Ogl and Dx11. the only true difference is that one is on one OS, and another is on multiple.
I think you over estimate the data they collect. If you use onedrive, outlook, and edge, it is understandable that Microsoft will have data from them, but you are not forced to use them. I have not tired a Microsoft account to my w10 install which means I can’t use certain “features” like cortana or the app store but I am perfectly happy without.
That is not the issue here, the issue is that if/when games start using directX12 I won’t be able to run them on my precious Win7. That can be an issue when I buy that new game for +£30 and then find out that I have to change everything so that I may play it.
but I keep records on my pc such as certain bank records, receipts and important downloaded emails which are kept in files on their precious OS, so they are quite able to scan those files unfortunately.
Paranoia keeps me safe 🙂
No prob. They’re making longer usernames to hide the flag icon behind the “private” icon so it’s a little complicated but it’s still possible.
1. Rightclick the “x hours ago” part of their post and click “Copy Link Location”
2. Click their picture.
3. In the sidebar that appears, click their picture again.
4. In the new tab that comes up with their profile, click the flag in the top right corner.
5. Follow the steps as presented. Use the link of their post when it asks you for it.
(Note – this is for anyone reading, the process may not be obvious to some.)
True enough. Could they potentially? Probably. Would they ever have reason to do so (government involvement?) Doubtful. But good points all the same. At this point I have already sold my soul to Google so I don’t have much to lose.
Yes, in 2 years when games start coming out that are DX12 only you’ll have to upgrade your then 8 year old and 3-4 generation old OS that will at best only be getting security updates. Considering you can get Windows 10 for free I can’t muster up much sympathy for you.
Absolutely agree!
People complain about DX12 being WIndows 10 only but forget Windows 7 is actually ageing and anyone who is a legit customer of Microsoft (legal copy of Windows) can get a free upgrade to Windows 10 which will entitle them to free OS updates from 10 onwards thereafter.
Gamers are ridiculously narrow-sighted sometimes.
next time RTFA before excreting your worthless opinion onto the world.
DX12 supports win 10. vulkan supports win 7/8/10, OSX, Linux. the ADVANTAGE is cross-platform support. how does that “hurt” steamOS? the idea isn’t to take marketshare away from microsoft, it’s do reduce the monopoly windows has on PC gaming. it’s about giving people choices. happy with windows? great, you can use Vulkan on windows. the point is you don’t HAVE to upgrade to 10 to get DX12 support (a ridiculous scheme that’s been around since Vista/10)
instead of climbing all over yourself to piece together a weak argument about how valve doesn’t have one, you should have read the article and saved yourself some time, because your post is ignorant and fanboyish.
Windows 10 isn’t free. It costs your privacy.
I wouldn’t call 1,500 games being ported to SteamOS/Linux, Valve writing an Intel Vulkan driver in a month, being involved in developing Vulkan, or any of the other essential fixes, Mesa development funding and tools required by game developers and users on Linux that Valve has delivered over the last two years to be a failure. We went from no games to a lot of games in just two years, and there’s no sign of that slowing down. The amount of time, money, effort and fame required to pull this off in laying down the groundwork for such a major operation isn’t something that just any company could have done.
Depends on what drivers you are talking about. AMD has two driver divisions working on completely separate driver projects, but most of the driver work actually goes into the collaborative open source Gallium3D drivers that are part of the Mesa project. The open source drivers are fantastic with AMD, while the much larger proprietary team behind Catalyst that mostly only works with Windows DirectX development is nothing more than a broken heap of bits that refuses to die. Want to play games with AMD hardware? Use the open source drivers that come pre-installed out of the box on any Linux distro.
I have no problems streaming 1080p content wirelessly, using either 2.4 Ghz or 5 Ghz bands. Your network must really suck.
The Mesa drivers don’t, or didn’t last I knew, support OpenGL 4.0, and various OpenGL 3.0 features.
NVidia are the go-to cards for Linux users, currently. Though I know AMD are working on their Linux drivers, they lack the resources to get it done quickly.
DirectX 12 is such a radical departure over DirectX past that learning DirectX 12, even with previous DirectX 11 experience, is actually harder than learning Vulkan. In any case, Valve has already proven that Vulkan is easier to develop for than any other API. The primary point of creating Vulkan instead of OpenGL5 is precisely because writing a good engine using OpenGL is hard. This is a fresh start from scratch for the modern era — not an iteration of OpenGL. Also, Vulkan doesn’t use GLSL, it uses SPIR-V.
Considering Windows 10 modifies system BIOSes without user permission (or even informing the user it’s going to do so) and often breaks many systems, I can’t muster up any ideas as to why it’s seen as being desirable.
I really would not care about DX12 if I could at least use it on Windows 8.1, but as long as Windows 10 is required and MS hasn’t yet stopped Windows 10 from modifying BIOSes and all sorts of other crap (not even starting on the telemetry issues), I see it as too huge a sacrifice.
I’m not a fan of that either since I was perfectly happy on W7 Ultimate, however you have to look at it from MS’s perspective they banked big on everybody willingly wanting to buy W8 however whatever idiot designed the “metro” interface saw to its failure because they forgot that msot PC users don’t have a touchscreen monitor and sure as heck didn’t want the Start Menu removed.
Even after they “fixed” it with 8.1 most consumers both business and private alike stuck with W7/Vista/XP so they figured on making DX12 W10 only in the hope all game devs would make games from now on require DX12 (in essence forcing the upgrade) so what we have now of OS being free for the 1st year with the potential for “aggressive marketing” being their fallback position on the off chance that people won’t willingly buy W10 once the free upgrade offer expires.
They do and have for a while. Did you miss the news about Mesa 11? My Radeon HD 7950 has had OpenGL 4.0 support for a few months now, and we’ve had complete OpenGL 3.x support for more than a year.
Reports are that even if you disable those features, Windows continues to do it regardless. It’s an integral part of the Windows platform now.
It’s written in their EULA that they have full control over not just OneDrive, but the ability to remotely read anything from your hard drive. We are to simply trust them and their ‘good faith’ that they will only do this for good. If there’s a backdoor this wide, I can guarantee that Microsoft won’t be only one who has the power to exploit this.
Could you link the source to said reports then?
Since SteamOS is based on Linux, look at the current situation http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=2560-linux-gpus&num=1 AMD GPU drivers seriously needs a lot of work…
Not as of Aug 2014 they didn’t (have FULL OGL 3.0).
NVidia’s drivers have had this for a good while. They’re the best for Linux gaming atm
You’re a year behind. Mesa 10 marks the completion of OpenGL 3.0. Take note of the Mesa versioning scheme. OpenGL 3 + 7 = Mesa 10. OpenGL 4 + 7 = Mesa 11. Mesa 10 released well back in 2013.
Take off that murderer’s pic you have, cunt.
“The only thing I’m annoyed with is the simplified settings window” – that’s really bad, win7 is bad enough.
Disable updates in windows 7, there’s not likely to be meaningful updates for it now anyway.
Shit off you utter mong
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Even then 8.1 has the lowest overhead any os has for gaming
No mention here of console development! Valve have basically just taken a giant dump on PS4/XbOne by not including them in their argument. PS4 uses GNM and XbOne uses D3D12… so… if you’re a console developer you have to have a D3D12 back-end!
Thanks for making this known. I didn’t actually know this.
Making a game for DX12 and then Vulkan is a problem of developer hours spent..
Windows 8.x could do the same thing, it’s how it booted into recovery tools [and for the record, it can interact with UEFI, not BIOS]. And from poking around it doesn’t break ‘many’ systems, a handful of Dell users had issues, no one else, and all you had to do was pull the battery from the board to fix.
Right, and if OpenGL was any evidence of the future, the amount of users gained won’t justify the extra time coding for Vulkan over DX12. Excepting Android, which isn’t a platform Valve develops [well, developed] for [and isn’t a serious gaming platform anyway], the vast vast majority of gamers are on a Windows PC, and since Mac won’t support Vulkan the only other subset is the 1% marketshare Linux gamers. If all things are even with Vulkan [assuming it comes out soon], then I think it SHOULD win out, but if features, implementation, documentation, or support are lacking in comparison, it won’t be able to get a foothold, because the extra work isn’t worth a practically infinitesimal market.
Just because this FUD is popular right now doesn’t mean it’s any more correct than FUD ever is. Unless you’re running a custom version of Android with no Google Apps you’re running an OS made by a company with a dedicated advertising framework. People celebrated things like Google Now and Siri but freak out when Windows includes access that just makes their assistant work. If you’re so paranoid then use a tool like Tron to wipe everything out.
I don’t know nothing now, but these are my thoughts:
1. Vulkan, like DX12, is not an iteration of the former API. There is a significant change in the way the 3D is handled. The application will be responsible for many things that previously were in the drivers domain. The 3D engine will do the stuff.
What does it mean? that drivers should be less of a problem for Linux too – drivers are not in good shape now, at best, and that’s for AMD – NV is barely in the game. That could be changed.
If gamers could do it with Linux, they just might. It is unlike the OpenGL era, really.
2. Smartphone/mobile is gaining power. If you could get a $500-600 flagship smartphone which will have the same 3D power of a basic “gaming” laptop for $450-$500 now, it would enable a lot of options.
3. SteamOS. Maybe others.
No need to be salty, dick.
1. Its relation to OpenGL isn’t the issue, the issue is [assuming it’s comparable to DX12 even though we haven’t seen it] historically the system offered by the Khronos Group is offered nearly as is, with very little proper support or documentation. DirectX as a whole and in this case specifically Direct3D have huge support communities as well as MS themselves backing it, so it’s easy to find an answer to just about any question.
This holds for the driver aspect as well. Again, assuming Vulkan is actually DX12’s equal, it working won’t be the issue, it’ll be the lack of support/documentation increasing development time over DX just for a VERY small market.
2. I agree, they are gaining power, but Android as currently designed is poorly implemented for any of the kind of resource intensive gaming that would benefit from Vulkan. The only gaming ready devices are the SHIELD line, but all 3 are weaker [or at least less performant] than the current Xbox.
3. SteamOS is nice and all, but its primary feature is streaming from a Windows desktop. Unless you want to put a $1000+ computer in your living room that can’t do more than your average console [as it’s been stressed multiple times that SteamOS isn’t a desktop OS, but a console OS] and can only play a quarter of the games on Steam, your best experience will be streaming from a general purpose gaming rig [likely with Windows] to a cheaper SteamBox.
Directx 12.x is requires a new WDDM. The Vulkan doesn’t. Looks like Direct is going to win because of how it gives more control to game devs. Over 100 million devices and growing that have the new WDDM
About 1. Is OpenGL still have these problems? I thought it was pretty nice now
Anyway, we’ll see how it continues from here. I think that the most annoying part is the lack of info from these commercial companies (though I don’t expect any sincerity from them): GCN could do stuff years ago, but we didn’t know. DX11/OpenGL were actually pretty lousy as an architecture – at least after 2+ cores became common, but even before that.
I would like to see an open source GPU ecosystem which can rival others and will be dedicated to the “people” (don’t want to say consumers), with open source drivers and all.
that’s why i like linux…
1 – Win 8.x cannot. UEFI interaction isn’t the same as modifying the BIOS. I knew exactly what I was saying when I said it can modify the sBIOS.
2 – I’ve personally heard of friends with some gigabyte boards (one of the dual-BIOS models) having issues. In fact, two of them had the same board, and one had the issue and the other didn’t. Both systems were set up by the same person.
3 – Pulling CMOS does not fix. Flashing sBIOS does not fix. Secure Erasing SSDs and loading months-old Win 7 OS images does not fix. Even flashing vBIOS does not help. There have been people who have needed new motherboards.
You’re going to have to give me a legitimate source from a reputable tech site before I’ll believe something that goes against my 10 years of computer experience and everything I’ve ever read about BIOS’s. I have one of those dual BIOS Gigabyte boards and had zero issues installing Windows 10, and my anecdotal experience has every bit as much relevance as yours [which is to say, not much at all].
That, I don’t have proof of, except the fact that there’s been quite a few laptop users whose screens are routed to the dGPU, who have had bricked LCDs by nVidia drivers (corrupted EDIDs). And it only ever happens after installation of Windows 10. Even reverting back from Windows 10, blind flashing the sBIOS, flashing the vBIOS, secure-erasing SSDs, pulling CMOS, loading old Win 7 images? Does not prevent newer drivers from doing it… but the newer drivers don’t affect machines that haven’t seen Win 10.
And it never, ever, happens on a user who has been on Win 7/8/8.1 and never touched 10. It doesn’t happen to ALL users who’ve used 10, I won’t lie. But it’s a fact that Win 10 is the only common culprit, and nothing short of a new motherboard seems to be able to permanently fix the issue.
You can see where nVidia isn’t saying a thing about it here: https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/862417/geforce-drivers/windows-10-geforce-drivers-are-killing-samsung-and-lg-notebook-lcd-display-panels/
Or you can see where people are actually openly trying to fix the issue here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/windows-10-nvidia-whql-drivers-are-killing-alienware-and-clevo-lcd-panels.779449/unread
That’s the closest thing I have to hard proof that Win 10 messes with the BIOS. Aside from that, all I have is anectodal evidence of users that have had issues with their systems after installing Win 10.
Maybe Valve should throw some money at it as investment to get Vulkan finished faster?
To be fair, direct X has been around for years and has always been the one to push features and versions faster.
Considering windows users are the 90% here in this debate it makes perfect sense to focus on directx.
Problem with open standards is they move to slow because there is too many people wanting to implement/debate for things they want in it.
I do have high hopes for Vulcan and I love the direction Linux desktop is heading but why not mention more about metal and apple though.
Their is no support for Vulcan on apple, is this because of apple? It’s the most closed off platform in history.
Not a word about it, what’s valves idea to solve that? Support metal (4% market share on steam) and not support direct X12 on windows (windows 10 users have something like 20% share already)
Let alone the millions of Xbox one users using directx 12 in the future.
Just interesting the bias here, because I feel alot of these company’s holding grudges from the old way of microsoft.
If any company is the evil priority closed platform it’s apple.
Very true. And the final piece in Valve’s puzzle falling to its place: Vulkan.
If they manage to persuade game developers to use Vulkan, SteamOS may take off like a rocket and DX12 starts its long march to irrelevance.
I think they already are the biggest contributor to the Vulkan effort.
Will it be impossible to ship a Vulkan game packaged together with an XBox-specific Vulkan driver?
>not using linux
Get on my level, scrubbie.
I have ZERO intention to ever purchase anything directly through the MS store, the same way i did not buy anything on Windows 8 store. So i will not be subsidising my free OS with any purchases.
Also the paranoia is strong here, you can disable any “nefarious” options in windows easily. I do not understand the problem people have with windows 10, all previous version of windows did the same thing, they have just been open about it with windows 10….
Thats why i have the “god mode” folder on my desktop. Easy access to all of the settings functions without that horrendous “simplified” settings interface which takes more clicks to get to the same shit…
That’s another way of doing it indeed! I usually do the windows key > search ‘control’ > enter > control panel method myself.
I agree with pretty much everything you said.
Here’s something for people to consider though.
If Microsoft is so evil, why have they always allowed alternative APIs such Vulkan and OpenGL to run on Windows?
Even their Surface pro’s (RT has finally been killed) allow it.
So does using an insecure, outdated OS. 😉
Because when 3D graphics cards first came out, they were all using proprietary APIs provided by the vendors themselves.
Later on, OpenGL became the standard as it was already around on other platforms. Over time, Microsoft developed DirectX but many games were still using OpenGL, so they had to maintain compatibility.
Today, Microsoft would just LOVE to drop support for third-party but the fact is its something we expect from Windows. Its always been a open platform (so far as installing anything we want on top of it), which is why they have been working hard on their closed/sandboxed part on Windows 8+.
If enough people moved to buying their games from the Windows Store I have no doubts that Microsoft would seriously reconsider closing it down. Microsoft are desperately trying to catch up with Apple in having a completely closed system.
On the contrary, they will all be security updates which are the most important.
You got my support Vulcan. i hope i can play games in Linux instead of Windows
Simply, because they’d get sued for being anti-competitive as a company 🙂
You must be pretty naive if you think that Windows scanning your PC for tailored advertising is something new. Microsoft has been doing this since Windows 1.0.
nope, windows have only recently started driving advertising home, maybe the last 10 years or so. Very old Windows operating systems were not capable of gaining relevant info to turn into advertising. A simple search will give you all of the details if you are that interested.
But back then they were able to gather information on what where their computers being used on.GabeN has talked about it, and he said that they realized they were mostly used for watching porn and after that for playing Doom. Do you think that information is useless for tailored advertising? That is the information they used for making Windows a successful platform.
if that was the case why isn’t there more naked shooters about ? 😛 (JK) Im not saying they didn’t gather user info just that they didn’t gather info purely for advertising like some companies do now.
Well, yes. Different times. That kind of information is better priced this days, and companies like Microsoft go after every bone is thrown at them.
Microsoft wouldn’t close support from the store even if everybody started using it. They care a lot about image now, since Satya Nadella. They do actually contribute quite a bit to Open Source be it their Chakra javascript engine, VSCode, CNTK or SoRa.
While I don’t think they would do anything to make Windows as a whole Open Source, and they were very anti competitive when it came to default browsers on Windows 10, they have their project centennial which should bring existing Win32 apps to the store. They wouldn’t do that if they wanted to lock it down.
Also, Windows Store apps aren’t closed. They are just limited to the common dotnet APIs so that Microsoft can convince those devs to also support Windows Mobile, with their apps.
And as for sandboxing, thats good for security. And the article I read on project centennial showed that it would be allowed to access system locations and libraries like System32 but from within the sandbox protecting the OS from security threats, and allowing the app to be uninstalled completely really easily.
And if anything, they are moving away from a completely closed system, supporting Xamarin, Apache Cordova for which they are a major contributor, VSCode on Mac and Linux and Office on Mac, Android and iOS.
Cut these kids some slack, hating the big guy is part of their value system.
disable and hide the update KB3035583. that is the GWX update they keep pushing. I have it hidden on all the machines I use and it hasn’t reappeared.
It is ready now!
The documentation for DirectX has always been far better than the OpenGL documentation, and I expect this to continue in future.
I like DirectX – it makes sense, and most games are released solely on Windows; I’d love to be able to include Linux users, but DirectX is far easier to get into.
I expect that what I’ve just said will apply just as equally to Vulkan, too, because open-source projects tend to have sparse documentation, as nobody is paying them to write and maintain it.
As a new developer attempting to learn the API, it can be a massive headache when every source you find provides conflicting (and sometimes entirely contradictory) information!
The wholesale datamining got noticed first on 98, IIRC led to a major anti-trust case at the time.
I’ve been trying to find a reason to upgrade my WIndows 7 Ultimate x64 to Windows 10 Pro and so far only DX12 was a reason for an upgrade. But with DX12 games not coming for an other 2-3 years, I’ve been prosponing the upgrade. With Vulcan now being ready AND cross-platform AND compatible with Windows 7 I even have fewer reasons to upgrade to Windows 10.
I think Vulkan will have the great flight as OpenGL had back in the 90s, where it was the standard for cross-platform gaming. While OpenGL has kinda died down, I think Vulkan will have a very good chance to become the next graphical standard thanks to the extremely powerful mobile devices we have now.
The main reason I’m not upgrading to Windows 10…
your point is moot, its been costing your privacy since W2000, MS is just legally obligated to tell you they may be compromising your privacy.
if you have the pro version of W10, you can disable the most notorious stuff by assigning yourself a proxy corporation. Making Windows 10 no worse than the OSes that came before it.
Lol.. Microsoft and Apple are exactly what jeopardizes their users data. Have you heard the news about microsoft’s latest business model? You don’t really think that M$ Windows 10 is “free” as in beer, do you?
They’re simply making money differently now. “Microsoft Store, of course!” you say… But is Microsoft store really taking off and really popular? (HELL NO! I don’t know anyone who uses that piece of crap and we recently heard Tim Sweeney bashing it)
It’s not that steam shouldn’t have competition (it should. Like GoG; the lesser evil) it’s that Microsoft Store is just a piece of trash.
So with that behind us, what do you think their business model is? With *undefined* tracking/spying features that cannot be disabled by any user on Windows 10? And all the tracking features that it seems you can disable but are definitely on by default?
Obviously they’re selling our data. All of it, and they clearly have a lucrative backroom deal with the NSA because why else would the pentagon help further Microsofts agenda to get users on W10?
You know they are already dropping that “open platform” facade; With the whole skylake and newer CPUs not working on anything older than Windows 10. They’re like literally going out of their way to prevent these CPUs from working in the older windows’s kernels. Like wat the fuck?
They want EVERYONE on Windows 10 by all means necessary, because it costs a lot of money to support multiple versions of Windows with patches and they want everyone to be able to use the new Windows Store.
It also holds back developers from using Windows 10 specific APIs if they have to continue to support older versions.
Even on Linux, you usually only get two concurrent versions (not including in-developing builds). Bleeding edge and long term support.
Also, they aren’t stopping you from using newer CPUs with older versions of Windows. What they actually said is they will not patch older Windows to use the new instructions in the newer CPUs, and potentially they may become incompatible if newer CPUs have bugs that would normally need patching in the OS.
If newer CPUs remains instruction compatible, they will work just not optimally. That is no different to running older applications or games on newer CPUs. Its not the doom and gloom you are implying.
Yet Apple get away with it.
Bottom line, the number of companies who wouldn’t monopolise the market if they could get away with it, can be counted with one hand.
What Microsoft are doing is just the same as everyone else.
But what if I don’t want to use windows 10, what if I want to use windows 7 or 8.1, both of which are actually decent desktop operating systems (well 8.1 is after a move from 8.0, hundreds of updates and using classic shell). But the point is, maybe I don’t want to upgrade to windows 10 and have it spy on my ever click.
I said Apple and Microsoft, I’m just painting up Microsoft in a rightful image because people generally like to point the finger at Apple because they’re not using any apple devices so it doesn’t concern them, rather than Microsoft which maintains the Windows operating system they are way too heavily reliant on.
Let’s just face reality here folks. Microsoft pays engine Devs who make their engine dx exclusive, which is compatible with their consoles, marketed for their console, and built for their console. So even if other platforms (Windows included) it’s a port and has limited functionality. Vulcan and open gl actually would gain new features faster, if it got the backing. Why, simple. Anyone can make optimization so, new ideas can flourish, and Linux can continue to be the main contender for pic gaming. Microsoft is so desperate to hold onto this last holy grail for their desktop environment, but to be honest I think it’s time they let it go, they have had a vice grip on everything good about it, including developement. Why is it dying, no innovation due to closed source on practically everything.
Windows allows Vulkan though. I hope Apple adopts it too, though they dropped off the development board around when they announced Metal.
NSA spying facilities have been in Windows since even before XP.
Yes I know, since at some point in the 90s.
that’s right on the n00b side of the pool for you.
You know what doesn’t make any sense. Using OpenGL or Vulkan on Windows at all. Windows is built upon DirectX, it is part of the entire rendering stack. It’s an excellent API and devs should .. on Windows .. use DX first and if they want to develop on another platform, then look to OpenGL/Vulkan. These Valve and Id freedom fighters are way off center with their regard for OpenGL and Vulkan.
Open technologies are not all they’re cracked up to be. Having somebody own and be responsible for a product, such as the way MS are responsible for DX is a benefit, not a disadvantage. This is well know in the real world with real products. But for some reason, on the internet, open technologies such as OpenGL have a groundswell of zealots that are anti-consumerist and can’t handle the idea of proprietary technology.
Valve’s interest in open technologies is well understood, as they ultimately would like to destabilize the PC gaming industry and use their position to take ownership of it on their own platform (SteamOS), then they could be making ALL the money. Of course they don’t like MS having their ‘own’ graphics API, because guess why .. it’s incompatible with SteamOS.
Windows represents 95% of the desktop OS market. DirectX is the core Graphics API for that market. Apple, the second leader has it’s own low level API. So what doesn’t make sense is why we care at all about an open api when it’s only purpose is to support a market of less than 1% (linux). Clearly, as evidenced by this article, that 1% has too much voice.
“Also, Windows Store apps aren’t closed. They are just limited to the common dotnet APIs so that Microsoft can convince those devs to also support Windows Mobile, with their apps.” – this isn’t correct. Windows store is not limited to .net api’s. Native (c++) apps run on UWP/Store as well as on mobile.
No they wouldn’t. It’s completely appropriate for operating systems to remove/restrict libraries by third parties. I think apple have left the Vulkan working group and may not permit it on their platforms moving forward. Microsoft should do the same.
“Just because I am paranoid, doesn’t mean they are not out to get me.”
I’m using directX12 on windows 7 i dont care how or what tool i use
microsoft wants to push dx12 so much probably because it will be easier for them to develop games for both pc and xbox
while vulkan is said to be still not finalized, dx12 is still premature.
Vulkan is poorly documented trash. D3D12 will prevail again as numerous AAA releases show 😉
Stop being neo-luddite. Problem solved.
Enjoy no games.
Vulcan comes out Victorious, for obvious reasons.
Developed by the Khronos Group, the same consortium that developed OpenGL®, Vulkan™ is a descendant of AMD’s Mantle, inheriting a powerful low-overhead architecture that gives software developers complete access to the performance, efficiency, and capabilities of Radeon™ GPUs and multi-core CPUs.
Compared to OpenGL, Vulkan™ substantially reduces “API overhead” – the background work a CPU does to interpret what a game asks of the hardware – to deliver meaningful features, performance, and image quality and expose GPU hardware features that wouldn’t ordinarily be accessible through OpenGL.
Well Windows is not directly free as in Beer. Since when it become free? It still cost somewhere around $120 for home edition, give or leave some. But yes it is probably true that Microsoft is currently milking it’s users like data-mining cattle too, just as Google and Apple does, it does not mean it will always be able to do. If you prefer to not be treated as a money-cow then switch to Linux. I am runing Arch Linux as main OS and I have no problems with it at all for all my home needs (I am a programmer, gamer, watching YT, Twitch etc).
They stop to be competitive once they can’t make any money from a technology. Like probably no-one can make money today from selling a web browser or text editor. Maybe time will come when they can’t make money from selling an OS. I don’t say it will, but it is not completely impossible.
They also seem to be at the point when it’s not given that people need Windows platform. Younger generations can do with any OS. Android and Iphone has made it normal to do computing on other platform than windows and Apple is kind of getting more popular (I can’t believe people are paying tripple price for the looks).
Finally they are maybe looking for some other ways to make business, such as mining and selling data, so giving away Windows or Office (for non-commercial purpose) might make a lot of sense.
I don’t know if Windows messes with laptop bios-es, but I am quite sure it does not mess with bioses on stationary computers. I am a guy who assembles computers himself and I have a few months old i7-based computer with gtx1080 in on Gigabyte mobo. I run windows 10 clean install on one m.2 950 pro, and Arch Linux on second m.2 950 pro.
I have seen people an Arch forums claiming that Windows changes boot order on their computers and that they are unable to install Linux at all despite changing security settings in bios. I had no problems ever, and I have not seen a single setting changed in Bios by any OS.
I am also dual booting Windows allongside Linux since 98, and I have never had any kind of problems, not even back in days when people claimed en masse that Microsoft does evil things against Linux :).
Also those things does not seem to be proof that Windows 10 is blowing away those screens. Observe that there are three players in the game, Microsoft, Nvidia and Dell. Bugg could be at any of those 3 sites and probably everyone is scratching their heads. Considering to what lengths developers as Microsoft go to make things work on Windows it feels unlikely they would just ignore the issue. For reference read new old thing by mr. chen – a famous Windows developer to get some insights into internals and problems they are dealing with before you conclude they are plain evil or just ignorant https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/ .