STOP THE PRESSES......
Allow me to quote Lee first:
Quote: "X10 is basically the working-title for our drive to upgrade our internal engines to DirectX 10 and Vista. I could bore you to death with the vast array of technical reasons why DX10 is so mind bogglingly great, but instead I want to highlight some of the benefits to you of our X10 plan:
hardcore users:
- you will be able to make Vista games before anyone else- you will be one of the first to produce DX10 content
- there are features on a DX10 card than are totally exclusive
- be an innovator in a brand new territory - so many opportunities
- whatever you make will look better and run faster (by default)"
Forget about..... someone has beaten you already:
http://www.crytek.com/technology/index.php?sx=eng2
Check out this image,
http://www.crytek.com/screenshots/index.php?sx=cryengine2&px=river_compare.jpg
and some more screenshots and video's here:
http://pc.ign.com/articles/748/748443p1.html
If you're age allows, watch the New Trailer with Explosions and Aliens video.
How about this?
http://www.alanwake.com/index.html
I guess that even puts X10 in it's proper place.
I know most of us will not be able to affort the CryEngine at all, but this is what gamers will play and what they use for comparisment.
I was very impressed with X10, but I'm checked out some reference material now and watching other upcoming DX10 games & game engines. All I can say by now is (sorry TGC) I'm competely unimpressed after seeing what the standard for DX10 games will be and I can now answer Lee's question
"X10 - What It Means To You".... to me it means that FPSC X10 will be the same as FPSC V1, a low end engine, good for fun and perhaps a nice indie game, but not to be taken to serious at all.
I know people will say you can't compare X10 to this or that, but you really have to look at it from a gamers perspective. the gamer doesn't care wich engine has been used to create a game or what the engine used costs. The gamer only cares about the result. He sees a game with X10 and may say, cool.... but most likely he has seen other DX10 games before he sees X10 ones and then he will not be so impressed anymore. In the end it's all about the impression the gamer get's.....to him X10 games will look what he's been used to from DX9 games running under winXP, from Vista games he expects much more.
I'm not for the development of X10, I rather see FPSC for XP being stable and useable. While X10 is prestigious, by now I wonder why all this time is poured into it, knowing that it will be only be used by a few and other DX10 engines are far ahead already. Seems like a lot of effort for nothing, since X10 will not be mainstram for years to come, so it sure doesn't have to be rushed as is happening now. Time is much better spent convincing current users that FPSC will be worth upgrading at all.
In closing.... with X10 you will not be the first to create DX10 games, to be a true inovator X10 must carry a lot of new (expensive) features which X10 cannot affort to have and your games only will look better when compared to FPSC v1, not when compared the the general DX10 games that will be released. I really should have looked at what other engines are doing before thinking X10 is cool.