Quote: "It's more of a difference than that.
It's not even backwards compatible!"
I highly doubt it given the companies history. Vista was supposed to have been built from ground up, and XP was supposed to be a major upgrade from Windows 2000. Neither claims are true. All microsoft did with Windows XP applications (that it made) was add an os detection subroutine so it wouldn't install on 2000. There's hacks out there for Age of Empires 3 for example, that just disable the routine and everything runs just dandy. Windows Vista uses massive portions of both Windows XP and Windows XP x64. They've intergrated alot of the downloadable technolgies such as .net into the system, and re-written the shell and graphics system. Direct X 10 is lit what is says, it's the next version of Direct X, and it will likely have portions of code going back all the way to the first ever version, it's likely to have much larger portions of 9.0c in it too. Again, all they are trying to do with this is force users to purchase their new operating systems by forcing game makers to develope games for Direct X 10, which of cause can only be run on Vista. Microsoft have been seeing if customers would accept XP only programs for a few years now, seeing if anyone would kick up a stink about it, it started with Windows Media Player 10, and other freebes, getting people used to the idea that XP and Win2000 where vastly different, then they started moving their commerical games and software to XP only, and people have accepted it. You are unlikely to find a single company other than microsoft that doesn't support windows 2000. Direct X 10 is merely a way of ensuring that game makers will have to exclusively support Direct X 10, and of cause customers will be forced to buy vista because microsoft refuse to make direct X 10, XP or 2000 installable. They originally tried to call it "graphics foundation", to help nullyfy the number of users who noticed their stratadgy, but the name Direct X is far too well established in game players minds, so to get people more excited about it, they had to return to the Direct X designation.
Quote: "The main feature of the PPU is that the physics calcs are done outside of the cpu/gpu thus giving the coders more room to add better ai etc, but the current problem is that gpu`s are the main bottleneck in games, and graw shows this, by adding alot more particles you get less fps due to the gpu not being able to calc the extra particles and such, however I do agree that the ppu price is way too high."
Duel core chips are pridicted for nVidia's next gen cards, I wonder if the duel cores will be specifically used for GPU calculations or if the second core will take care of your physics for you. If both ATI (AMD) and nVidia are investing in physics engines, they will likely back it up with some kind of hardware solution.
Quote: "I have XP myself, but I'm upgrading to Vista in FEB. "
Never, ever get a new microsoft operating system right off the bat! Windows 95, windows 98, Windows ME, and even Windows NT pre SP2 where unstable nightmares of systems. Wait until they at least get SP1 out, or you'll be seeing more crashes and glitches then 98 on a bad defrag.
Quote: "Sometimes I seriously wonder about the intelligence of users who prefer to believe what they read on Register, over what the actual APIs denote."
I lay upon my bed one bright clear night, and gazed upon the distant stars far above, then I thought... where the hell is my roof?
