DirectX 11 Announced

With games still yet to use DirectX 10, Microsoft just announced DirectX 11. What does Microsoft has to offer this time? Do we need a new graphics card? Upgrade to Windows 7? Let’s check it out.

Ah, yes, Microsoft. The people who failed to convince us to use their annoying new OS even just for the benefits of DirectX 10, are now announcing DirectX 11. Oddly, there aren’t many games out there which uses DirectX 10 for the time being. Putting that aside, let’s give a look at they have to offer this time.

• Use the GPU as a parallel processor. Pretty much like adding another core to your multicore CPU. Improvements on physics maybe?
• Support for tessellation. People might be asking, “What’s tessellation?”. In simple terms, it allows the subject to blend much smoother to the scene, avoiding the ‘clean-cut’ look at the edges of objects.

What else? It’s yet to be announced. It’s still in development. Real-time ray tracing maybe?

So what are the requirements? Do I have to throw my DX10 card already? No, you don’t have to. DX11 supports DX10 cards, but only if you use Windows Vista or later. Bummer.

Anyways, lets hope Microsoft doesn’t screw up again this time.