Wii may use Direct X 10!

[xernobyl]

And me thinking that Nintendo makes their own APIs.

[Meo]

DirectX is an API. so is OpenGL. ATI make graphics chips, and obviously - they have to work closely with Microsoft/the OpenGL ARB to make sure new features/extensions on their chipsets are supported in the APIs. However, this has nothing to do with Wii, really.

 

Nintendo have their own SDK, which from what many developers have said - is more similar to OpenGL (the Wii SDK is meant to be similar to the Cube one, and that was more similar to the OpenGL API than DX). As long as it tells the graphics chip what to do, it is of little consequence what the API is.

 

Nick and DCK are closest to the mark. :P

 

Quoted for truth.

[vicious77]

where does he say that? I've watched the whole section on DX10 multiple times and don't hear the words Nintendo or Wii once.. could someone pinpoint the exact time in the show that anything relating to the Wii is said or "hinted at"?

[Calibur]

Around 13:20, they say wii and nintendo multiple times. I suggest you listen up. :P

[vicious77]

hahah yeah i just found it i was about to post saying nvm.. here's hoping that was a "Wii Wii" and not a "Oui Oui".

[Calibur]

haha yeah i think it was a Wii Wii. :)

[Atomic Boo]

We could just wait for E3 and let the videos speak for themselves instead of getting a boner over everything that makes nintendo sound like theyre gonna have better graphics. It isnt gonna happen. And why all the arguing? It doesnt matter.

And could we speak in english as well instead of this technical bull

[Sixfold01]

I agree with smelly Mr. King Boo. As much as we'd love to speculate it'd be better just to sit and wait for e3! The TIMES IS UPON US!!! ITS COMING!!! But DirectX 10 would be fabulous!

[pedrocasilva]

I can say that there were dev Tools for GC that were compliant with DirectX 8.1... they were not the "main nintendo development tools" thought, but I think it helped a lot to speed up ports from some other systems who had their sources using DirectX.

 

but obviously... there isn't DirectX on cube at all, the tools we're talking about allowed to export a DirectX 8.1 game source almost instantly, but those games were not the maximum the cube could do, I don't even think they could push that much...

 

I doubt there will be some real DirectX support on Nintendo Wii, unless it's direct porting embedded on the oficial dev tools or some third party tools, anyway on the latter the game will never run on the console based on DirectX API...

 

But mind you... it would be pretty benefic for Nintendo to be able to port that code easily... Microsoft want's to block openGL in vista to OGL 1.4 and only 50% of it's maximum speed on the platform... that means sucky Open GL (there's already OGL 2.0).

 

Anyway there's this "need" for the comunity to rank things in "directX compliant" leagues, that is... DirectX 7 no shaders, DirectX 8 Shaders, DirectX 9... etc. they could be reffering to that when they talk about DirectX10.

[ndreamer]

dreamcast actualy had both opengl & directx7 support with a windows ce embeded operating system. If nintendo did licence directx it whould not be to improve power it whould be to make porting games a bit easier.

directx doesn't make games faster at all if anything it will make them slower.

[goku21]

Yeah it´s about the new techniques and features that are introduced by each DX-generation. The most impressive part was the demo with all those bots and the fact that this was calculated on the gpu...I wish nintendo features some of this cpu-strain-offload-tech... that would clearly boost the systems power...unified shader architecture, just don´t use so many pipelines,

...together with nintendos own neat graphical tricks and totally utilised by square-enix(only 3rd party with real hardware) in their newest

FF-actionadventure(I don´t believe in a 2nd CC because the story in square-games is always different..) will truly bring 480P to it´s glory!!!

 

But then again we´ll have Metroid with the most incredible controllsheme and burning visuals...

 

I´m a graphics whore...sorry

[DiemetriX]

If Wii dosen't use DirectX 10 I'm sure ATI has made the GFX card able to run and do all the same things as DX10 cards. After all. Wii is suposed to have a nextGen GFX card with alot of new features. I wouldn't be suprised if it ran calculations on the GFX and not CPU.

[ultrajamie]

why does everyone one keep banging ON AND ON AND ON AND ON about graphics.... Nintendo have stated MANY times that the Wii is not intended to take on PS3 in terms of graphics.

 

if that means it's some small multiple of the gamecube visual power then so be it.... Buy a frickin PS3 if you want PS3 graphics. Buy a Wii if you want to do something new.... and likely save yourself £150-200 you can spend on games rather than hardware in the process.

[DiemetriX]

This isn't only about graphics. This is is also about Computing power which will determin what can be on screen, What kinda phisycs it can handle and how the enviroements can be. This is all important for gameplay.

 

And I'll buy a Wii without thinking about how powerfull it is. Even if it had the same power as the cube.

[raven_blade2006]

Sounds like some sort of confirmation to me. The more Wii is capable of, the better the games will be.

[pedrocasilva]

dreamcast actualy had both opengl & directx7 support with a windows ce embeded operating system. If nintendo did licence directx it whould not be to improve power it whould be to make porting games a bit easier.

directx doesn't make games faster at all if anything it will make them slower.

I've got to say that DirectX support on dreamcast was too slow it was only used for compatibility... mostly in japan, with PC Dating sim's conversions, almost no real games pushing the system used it, that is... if any of them did.

 

The games using it had a logo on the box stating it used Microsoft Windows CE API.

[floatstarpx]

I don't mean to be rude - but please re-read my post earlier in this thread, because many of you do not understand what DirectX is/does. You'll probably be a lot more insightful and make better predictions when you understand what it is you're actually referring to!

[pedrocasilva]

I don't mean to be rude - but please re-read my post earlier in this thread, because many of you do not understand what DirectX is/does. You'll probably be a lot more insightful and make better predictions when you understand what it is you're actually referring to!

I've read it, and yeah you're right, I don't need to have the official Microsoft DirectX libraries running on software to use their support on the GPU, you just have to make SDK's to take advantage of those... this is specially true when you have a closed platform unlike in the PC market where you always have dozens of diferent GPU's from diferent brands on the market at the same time, requiring compatibility between them. On this one if it has the functions they can be exploited like the closed platform it is (always the same equipment)

 

Still the only consoles to date to have the libraries on software were Dreamcast, Xbox and now Xbox 360, and those directX libraries were slow as hell on DC from what I recall, thus they were hardly used on real games, anyway it was a PowerVR chip, not something like ATi or Nvidia.

 

We have directX compliant cards working on Macs (PowerPC) for example, they didn't go to the trouble of changing the cores, for the most time you just have to flash it's BIOS.

 

but it'll still be similar to GC tools, if it has those functions they will simply be added into the SDK, but that SDK is OpenGL based.

[Etymotic]

I was surprised at first but now thinking about it it's not that unlikely. Nintendo's attempt to be more all-inclusive may lead them to believe that having a more tight support for PC games is beneficial, as Pedro implied.

 

For a while I thought it might be just be their own wrapper which maintains the same syntax as DirectX standard, but I don't know. What I'm interested in is the performance hit. I don't believe Nintendo would sacrifice their own in favour of DirectX.

 

Now I'm contradicting myself. The bottom line, I don't know what to believe.

[ndreamer]

it's possible but i don't think it will happen major engines support opengl anyway especially when all the major consoles are supporting it now, if the wii does have support it would need a windows operating system as well which add's to cost as well as performance.

[goku21]

it´s not about the api, it´s about the new shaders and new ways of light-calculation and all the graphicscard-things that will be introduced with a new gen of DX...!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Is that really so hard to understand?

[DCK]

Firstly, we get the point without the exclamation marks.

 

Second, seeing the Red Steel and Rayman 4 screens, I very much doubt the shader system of the Hollywood is different to the Flipper's hardware lights - like IGN has said. That means the chip won't be DirectX 10 level, but rather stayed DirectX 8.

[pedrocasilva]

Firstly, we get the point without the exclamation marks.

 

Second, seeing the Red Steel and Rayman 4 screens, I very much doubt the shader system of the Hollywood is different to the Flipper's hardware lights - like IGN has said. That means the chip won't be DirectX 10 level, but rather stayed DirectX 8.

then why is it a new chip? 250 MHz on the original flipper were possible... it was even 202,5 MHz earlier... with shrinking and all they could get a lot more speed out of it... I think worked hard 5 years there... and the rayman screens were moved by gamespot into PS2/Xbox, not considered Wii.

[Ren of Heavens]

I saw "On The Spot" myself and they didn't say anything about DirectX 10 for the Wii. They only confirmed they were working on Wii and was excited to do so.

[Jamba]

To be honest, not that I know about the technical stuff very much, I doubt Nintendo would use something like DirectX. They always design from the ground up and they KNOW what a console needs (bar more RAM on the N64!).

 

Proprietry libraries I think are more likely.