DirectX9 - For More Than Just Gamers? 311
Xev writes "HEXUS.net are showing a review of a new product called 3DEdit. This uses the DirectX 9 3D rendering engine; 3D transitions; DirectX 9 Shader-based filters, in order to give you a powerful home DV editing suite. This proves a lot more value to me as a Video editor than a card which just lets me play the latest games. Perhaps there is more use for these cards even at a consumer level?"
Yeah, maybe (Score:2, Interesting)
Oh and I've found that Direct3D has major issues with modifying and accessing texture data directly, which would be necessary for something like this.
In the same boat (Score:2, Interesting)
Anyone have any experience going the DirectX route? Would it possibly be faster than what we're doing today? I assumed from my experience with the interfaces on games (Unreal Tournament, etc) that DX would be slower.
AA required? (Score:4, Interesting)
I can see this needing a little more horsepower to really run great. I love the effect of AA, but my meager P4 2.4 can't always take the extra processing required. I wish they had tested the program on a lesser machine than a Dual Xeon. =0
Video Shader (Score:5, Interesting)
If you look at the requirements for that demo, it wants a radeon 9500, which means that cards have bene powerful enough to do these things for years. I wouldn't be surprized if apple's video editing tools used the video card to composite scenes off-screen. Probably the same thing for newer versions of Premiere.
I've used it as 3D Map Renderer for Numerical Data (Score:2, Interesting)
If you are in MFC land, DirectX isn't a bad choice. Of course, I'll always have a soft spot for OpenGL, but platform situations are often out of our control.
m.
Re:In the same boat (Score:3, Interesting)
business apps should use this untapped power (Score:1, Interesting)
My father is an architect, and while he has the highest rated hardware his applications take no advantage of the 3d acceleration technologies of the video card - it seems like such a waste to me. All this effecient rendering power in these little affordable cards, and no serious business apps taking direct advantage of that.
Matrox RT2000/RT2500 (Score:3, Interesting)
It was very impressive playing with real-time 3D transitions, flips, (one) alpha channel and so on at DV res one a standard PC. IIRC Final Cut HD depends similarly on the graphics board to be able to edit HD content on a Mac without additional hardware.
Re:Ugly UI, Functional UI (Score:5, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:And? (Score:3, Interesting)
Looking at dictionary.com the most relevant definition
"Something, such as a practice or a product, that is widely recognized or employed, especially because of its excellence"
Now the excellence part is in doubt but I dont' think any sane person will argue that windows DirectX 9 isn't "widely employed." Because most people have access to this platform it is very standard and thus useful to the majority of people.
Oh, or were you just ranting because you can't use it on your Mac or Linux machine?
PCI Express, not Direct X (Score:3, Interesting)
The reason - unlike AGP, the PCI express bus is truly bidirectional, and allows for a whole lot more data to be sent to the card from the application. If you went to Siggraph, you would have already seen vendors ready to take advantage of this added bandwidth. You'll see HDTV editing, 3D Rendering, and many other apps moved to the GPUs of high end graphics cards using PCI express. As to the interface, well, Direct X is a possibility, but a lot of card vendors have an interest in promoting their own standards.
Re:OpenGL (Score:1, Interesting)
Why are you so quick to discount their impact? OpenGL would not be readily available and affordable if it wasn't for id software.
Re:OpenGL (Score:3, Interesting)
Gee, I guess I should have added an "IMNSHO".
As a person who has written numerous game engines, I can attest to the fact that OpenGL is - for me - not a better API. It is convoluted and over-complicated by the very fact that it is an "open" standard, decided upon by a committee of people who wouldn't know good design if it bit them in the rear.
I certainly disagree with this statement. I suppose you could make an argument that a C API vs. COM is a matter of taste. I think the simplicity of the C API (which is also slightly more efficient) is elegant.
Just the fact that most of the features easily found in D3D cannot be accessed in OpenGL, years after their invention, without the use of custom extensions is enough to throw me off the API.
The counterpoint to this is that hardware companies using OpenGL can expose new functionality without ARB approval. That has many beneficial effects, including the ability of game developers to use said new features in production games before the ARB gets around to deciding on the "best" official implementation.
DirectX developers, on the other hand, get to wait for Microsoft to release a new DirectX version. Guess which I find preferable?
If you want to use OpenGL that's your right. But it is not an objectively better API any more than Mac is objectively better than PC, Linux objectively better than Windows, or any of the other /. propaganda that we consistently read.
I'd say there are excellent cases to be made that "Mac is better than PC" and "Linux is better than Windows". However, the real problem is that "better" is a vague term. I should have been more specific. Let's try again:
OpenGL is a more elegant, leaner, and better designed API than Direct3D. Its cross-platform availability is simply icing on the cake. OpenGL will ultimately bury Direct3D. All IMNSHO, of course.
Happy now? :-)