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Graphics Software Hardware Entertainment Games

DirectX9 - For More Than Just Gamers? 311

Posted by Hemos from the interesting-concepts dept.
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?"
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DirectX9 - For More Than Just Gamers? More

DirectX9 - For More Than Just Gamers?

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  • Typo (Score:4, Informative)

    by PhraudulentOne ( 217867 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @11:27AM (#11468428) Homepage Journal
    For more THAN just Gamers.

    • Re:Typo (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Carthag ( 643047 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @11:30AM (#11468476) Homepage
      If it were only a typo it wouldn't really be a problem. However, a and e aren't nearly close enough for this to be anything but ignorance. :)

  • And? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Darren Winsper ( 136155 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @11:28AM (#11468445)
    Using DirectX to create a horribly non-standard and ugly interface? Meh, it's been done before.

    • Re:And? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by shaka999 ( 335100 )
      Guess its all in how you define "standard."

      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 us
  • Perhaps there is more use for these cards even at a consumer level?"

    Is it just me, or has almost every second story today had some kind of spurious leading comment tagged on to the end?

    Give me facts dammit, I can make my own opinions from there!

  • Yeah, maybe (Score:2, Interesting)

    by DOS-5 ( 852324 )
    Most 3D APIs are good for doing this sort of thing. I think OpenGL would have been a better choice for it though. Although OpenGL is a little behind Direct3D in terms of standard features I still find that it's not only easier to use but generally much faster. I just hate being forced to put absolutely everything into a stupid primitive list.

    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.

    • Although OpenGL is a little behind Direct3D in terms of standard features

      That's news to me. You got anything to back this assertion of yours?
    • I see a contradition here, emphasis added:
      ...I still find that it's not only easier to use but generally much faster.
      I just hate being forced to put absolutely everything into a stupid primitive list.

      Care to explain how OpenGL immediate mode is faster than Direct3D Vertex Buffers?

      Disclaimer note: I've used both, and am currently using OpenGL due to its open nature.

      Light-hearted flamebait: In addition, if you think OpenGL is easier to use than Direct3D you clearly haven't understood OOP or C++.

      ~phil
    • but it's worthless for video editing.

      I had a card that was great for this, it was called an "ice" card. and coupled with Adobe AfterEffects it would perform effects processing faster than the dual processor P-III could because it used a processor that was designed for video effects.

      99% of video editing on a PC is not intensive to the point that the video card is able to help. and a 3d video card will certianly not be able to help except for some of the more cheezy effects that scream "amateur home video!"

  • "Than" (Score:2, Redundant)

    by HarveyBirdman ( 627248 )
    Geezus... A typo is fine in the body of an article, but at least proof your headlines, people.

  • In the same boat (Score:2, Interesting)

    by KirkH ( 148427 )
    We're actually considering going this route with an app here at work. It's a GUI-intensive app that spends most of its time drawing to the screen using custom MFC controls. It's fast enough most of the time but begins bogging down when we try to push through too much data.

    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.
    • It's as good as anything, imho. The learning curve can be a pain depending on backgrounds and what technologies you are coding in. DX9 has a lot of .NET stuff that's sorta solid, yet still has a little bit of a beta quality to the API if you ask me. I got my job done and people were happy. (This is of course, as of a year and a half ago... so things like documentation have probably gotten way better.)

      If you are in MFC land, DirectX isn't a bad choice. Of course, I'll always have a soft spot for OpenGL

    • Re:In the same boat (Score:3, Interesting)

      by chris09876 ( 643289 )
      One of the issues (especially if you're planning on deploying the app) is that your customers will need graphics cards. I know it sounds obvious, but a company I worked for about 2 years ago did the same thing. Most of their customer machines didn't have current graphics cards, and they were unwilling to buy them (which is strange, seeing as the software was selling for like $10,000). In the end, we ended up just giving away an nvidia card with every license. It worked, but that's an issue you should pr
    • Use OpenGL, it's a better API, works on more video cards, and works on more than just Windows boxes.
    • Fix your crappy rendering algorithms :p Seriously, algoithmic problems are probably your biggest enemy. Especially if you're basing everything off of MFC, which doesn't lend itself to optimized drawning. I can't possible emphasize how much you shouldn't re-produce the entire UI in DirectX.

      Have you actually benchmarked and you're sure it's drawing thats the problem? The only time I've ever seen this has been in very complicated 2d visualization and graphing applications (stuff like MRE renders). Every other

  • CoreImage (Score:5, Informative)

    by cjwl ( 776049 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @11:33AM (#11468515)
    Check out Apple's upcoming CoreImage system if you're interested in uses of a video card for things other than video games:

    http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/coreimage.html/ [apple.com]

    • Motion (Score:3, Informative)

      by ibentmywookie ( 819547 )
      Not to mention Motion [apple.com], which uses OpenGL to apply effects to video in real time.

    • Re:CoreImage (Score:3, Funny)

      by shaka999 ( 335100 )
      Whew, I was starting to doubt the power of slashdot. I had read 5 posts without a mac reference.
      • Yeah, but in this case it's actually relevant. The post is about using video cards to do something more than games, and Apple's been doing that for, what, 4 years now.

    • Re:CoreImage (Score:2, Informative)

      by flabbergast ( 620919 )
      If you really want to get away from video games you should also check out GPGPU [gpgpu.org]. Its a site dedicated to general processing on GPUs. There is also a lot of research done in this area, such as a DB run on a graphics card as well as a lot computational geometry problems. Also, Stanford has developed a more straightforward C-like language [stanford.edu] to do GPGPU. Pretty cool stuff.

  • Wake up! (Score:4, Funny)

    by NYhXc ( 810051 ) <raisedfist@gmail.com> on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @11:34AM (#11468521) Homepage
    WOW, that's the ugliest interface I ever saw at a video editing program!
    • I think the final page of the review said it best "Tenomichi's 3D Edit is a curious beast, and a very British kind of editing application."

      Lots of style, not so much substance. I'll stick with Avid.

      N.
      • Being British, I didnt understand how the link was made that:

        "very British kind of editing application" =
        "Lots of style and not so much substance"

  • OpenGL (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Glock27 ( 446276 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @11:35AM (#11468539)
    OpenGL stands for "Open Graphics Library". Microsoft did Direct3D as a way to lock 3D content into the Microsoft platform. Only id Software's stance on OpenGL for gaming saved the day. At the time, even Microsoft admitted that OpenGL was more appropriate for "professional" 3D apps like CAD. Now I'm sure they'd like to lure developers into using Direct3D for professional apps, just as this developer has done.

    Developers should use OpenGL in preference to Direct3D if they want cross-platform compatibility, or simply to use a better API. One way to do this that provides a lot of flexibility is to choose a high-level scene graph library that uses OpenGL or Direct3D at a low level.

    OpenGL apps run on Windows, MacOS and Linux. OpenGL has always been "For More Than Just Gamers".

    • Re:OpenGL (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The benefit to DirectX is that it does so much for the developer, it takes care of sound/input/networking. All of which aren't fantastically easy to recreate, unfortunately.

      When a DirectX game gets ported to OS X or any other platform you'll often find that the multiplayer is limited to the platform you're using.

      Perhaps someone can suggest some other libraries/frameworks for input/sound/networking. There's GLUT [opengl.org] for input, but it's pretty simple so it might not work for everyone.
      • The benefit to DirectX is that it does so much for the developer, it takes care of sound/input/networking. All of which aren't fantastically easy to recreate, unfortunately.

        They also aren't fantastically hard to recreate. There are plenty of third-party cross platform sound, input and networking libraries.

        Regardless, in this case we're discussing a graphical application.

        When a DirectX game gets ported to OS X or any other platform you'll often find that the multiplayer is limited to the platform you'r

        • Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
          Score: -1 100% Flamebait

          The correct score (according to the world of ~1630) was "-1: Just a theory, not a fact" ;)

          Actually Galileo Galilei (and other scientists like Johannes Kepler) were allowed to explore other concepts for the cosmos than the ptolemaian, provided they called it "a mathematical/astronomical theory" and were not talking about "proven facts".
          The catholic church in the 16th and 17th century was very interested in the results of the new resear

    • Re:OpenGL (Score:5, Insightful)

      by robocrop ( 830352 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @12:20PM (#11469168)
      Filtering through the "open source" - and therefore anything with the word "open" in it - fanatacism:

      Microsoft did Direct3D as a way to lock 3D content into the Microsoft platform. Only id Software's stance on OpenGL for gaming saved the day.

      First, while I certainly won't defend MS's business practices, it's more than a bit short-sighted to say MS only created D3D to "lock" developers onto Windows. MS wanted to grow Windows as a gaming platform (beyond crap like WinG) so they made their own accelerated API. One could certainly argue that the existence of D3D has pushed OpenGL to stay modern and competitive, so has been twofold beneficial.

      Second, where does this nonsense about id saving OpenGL come from? OpenGL has always had plenty of users - as you mention it is consistently used in CAD tools. There is no valid reason, other than fanboyism, to believe that OpenGL would have died if Carmack hadn't used it in his games. And there are other people who have used OpenGL to make their games work on multiple platforms (which, by the way, is usually a very hard sell to your publisher).

      Developers should use OpenGL in preference to Direct3D if they want cross-platform compatibility, or simply to use a better API

      What a smooth, effortless transition from fact to propaganda.

      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.

      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.

      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 think the parent was simply speaking from the (quite common) point of view that computers are for little more than video games. Hence, any software package, platform, or tool is immediately viewed in comparison to gaming, and often judged in that respect.

      • Re:OpenGL (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Glock27 ( 446276 )
        What a smooth, effortless transition from fact to propaganda.

        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

    • Developers should use OpenGL in preference to Direct3D if they want cross-platform compatibility, or simply to use a better API. One way to do this that provides a lot of flexibility is to choose a high-level scene graph library that uses OpenGL or Direct3D at a low level.

      Well, sadly, needing to support a Microsoft platform often makes people decide to go a primarily Windows route.

      We'd all love to see our companies not lock into Microsoft's non-standards, but the unfortunate reality, is management and re

  • Has it really gotten to the point (Score:4, Insightful)

    by the_skywise ( 189793 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @11:36AM (#11468540)
    That it's faster to render the 3D controls than to do a 2D paint of them? Even the article points out that it restricts the user to specific hardware configurations and shuts out traditionally popular cards for video editing. All for a "purty" interface.
    The underlying workings of 3D Edit mean that it is picky what platform it runs on. There's a long list of compatible graphics cards on Tenomichi's website at http://www.tenomichi.com/Compatible.htm. Essentially, a DirectX 9 adapter is required, which currently doesn't include any of Matrox's graphics cards.

    • ...All for a "purty" interface...

      The point about this program is not about using DX 9.0c accelerator cards to draw the GUI, but to accelerate the effects engine of the program using pixel shader 3.0 insturctions. A modern graphics card can run filters and nonlinear effects MUCH faster than the faster CPU. Now, with nVidia cards you have 32 bits floating point numbers for each of the RGBA channels of a pixel which is quite enough for many signal processing algorithms while ATI's 24 bits floting point number

  • AA required? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Geccoman ( 18319 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @11:36AM (#11468549) Homepage Journal
    From the article: "It's even necessary to turn on anti-aliasing in the graphics card drivers to smooth the on-screen elements of the interface."

    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

    • Oh god I hope AA isn't required. I'm incapable of editing video without my bitter lager.

    • 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

      Except that the AA is taxing on your videocard, and it won't matter if you have a dual xeon if your card is a Geforce2 MX200.

    • If it's necessary to turn on anti-aliasing on your video card, your CPU speed might not matter as much as what video card you have.
  • I think operating systems designers could take a lesson from these guys (the windows have depth!), but I wouldn't suggest the same thing for window style designers (the windows are ugly!).

    • Re:Ugly UI, Functional UI (Score:5, Interesting)

      by amalcon ( 472105 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @11:51AM (#11468745)
      I have a friend who works for Sun Microsystems, and he tells me they're working on a 3D version of JDS (don't get me wrong, a desktop system is the LAST thing I'd want to see Java used for, but that's not the point). Among other things, you can rotate a window, say, 80 degrees and stick it in a corner. It's then still recognizable, but it doesn't take up much space. You can also turn things around and write notes on the back. This is a REAL use of 3D in a graphical shell. Now, if only somebody would take their idea and implement it in C++ (or some other language with a goal other than portability).
      • The JDS (Java Desktop System) is not written in Java (isn't it just KDE or something?). The name has been borrowed for the purposes of branding. A dumb idea IMHO, because it leads to people who still have the misconception that Java is slow to believe that the product in question is also slow.
      • Now, if only somebody would take their idea and implement it in C++ (or some other language with a goal other than portability).

        Avalon?

        http://msdn.microsoft.com/Longhorn/understanding/p illars/avalon/default.aspx
      • I'm not sure, but I feel this (http://www.sun.com/software/looking_glass/ [sun.com]) may be what you are talking about. I actually got a compile working (despite my hatred of Java.) It does appear to be kind of sluggish but the idea of it is quite nice. I wasn't able to get it to load anything but from the demos of seen (taken with a grain of salt) it is an idea whose time came a couple of years ago but was never implemented. To anyone who has a spare *n?x machine and a bit of curiosity; I suggest you throw it on the
      • I have a friend who works for Sun Microsystems, and he tells me they're working on a 3D version of JDS (don't get me wrong, a desktop system is the LAST thing I'd want to see Java used for, but that's not the point). Among other things, you can rotate a window, say, 80 degrees and stick it in a corner. It's then still recognizable, but it doesn't take up much space. You can also turn things around and write notes on the back. This is a REAL use of 3D in a graphical shell. Now, if only somebody would take th
      • Now, if only somebody would take their idea and implement it in C++ (or some other language with a goal other than portability).

        I don't know if there's really much need to. I gave Looking Glass a shot on my rather old computer, 850mhz and 384mb ram with Java 1.5, and it performed remarkably well.
      • Sticking a tilted window in a corner isn't particularly useful, because you'd have to tilt it yourself, place it yourself, retrieve it yourself, and then tilt it back to normal. Too much work, too little benefit.

        Flipping over a window to get more information is basically a tabbed dialog interface, which with minimal screen real estate wasted you can do right now (admittedly without the cool flipping effects).

        Honestly, if 3D interfaces on 2D screens actually let you do more work, they would be all over the

  • consumer level?! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anita Coney ( 648748 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @11:39AM (#11468586) Homepage
    Did the poster even read the review? The machine 3D Edit was tested on had dual Xeon CPUs running at 3.06GHz with 1MByte L3 cache, water cooling, 2 gigs of RAM, 15,000rpm SCSI hard drives, and a Radeon X800 XT.

    Exactly how many CONSUMERS have THAT system?!

  • Flanders, star wipe! (Score:3, Funny)

    by PoderOmega ( 677170 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @11:40AM (#11468603)
    I can see it now: millions of home videos will have a star wipe between every shot!

  • Video Shader (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sklib ( 26440 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @11:42AM (#11468628)
    A friend of mine who used to work at ATI made a video shader demo [ati.com] that shows some neat video effects you can do in just a pixel shader -- i.e. render 1 rectangle that fills the screen with the video as your texture, and do all the "fun" stuff in a pixel shader. The ATI developer page that links to the binary is here [ati.com].

    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.

  • Matrox RT2000/RT2500 (Score:3, Interesting)

    by 1984 ( 56406 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @11:46AM (#11468679)
    The (now venerable) Matrox RT2000/2500 made use of the 3D features of the graphics card for video processing. There was still an additional board doing a lot of the work, but it was the same basic notion.

    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.
  • The whole GUI is OpenGL-based and GPU accelerated... not just one application on a few video cards...
  • I thought the review showed this...

    "To say that 3D Edit has a unique interface is a rather large understatement. The fact that the GUI is entirely rendered in 3D means that it diverges entirely from Windows standard features. There is no file menu along the top, and no button bar beneath. Instead, everything is operated using proprietary buttons and dialogues. With no context-sensitive help or tool tips, this takes some getting used to."

    Eh, ouch.

    "Almost all Windows apps put a handy Look in: drop down

  • Yes, for more than just gamers. (Score:3, Funny)

    by MarkGriz ( 520778 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @12:00PM (#11468872)
    If history is any guide, it's great for DoS and remote exploits too [secunia.com]
  • ... that picassa is super smooth when moving things around, it feels like its using d3d stuff etc. even my dad who's the biggest technophobe around commented on how smooth it was. This is on a Matrox Mystique however!
  • Apple has been doing this for months [apple.com].
  • Reading the news, than the article, it seems nobody ever saw any app which would have happened to have OpenGL-based interface [i.e. GUI]. Okay, I help, think Blender.

    It is good there are people who are open minded enough to see through the cloud and recognize usabiltities and applicabilities of provided tools. But come on, don't hype it for this reason.

    You can hype the gpgpu [gpgpu.org] idea though, which is a very nice way to go for these kinds of applications (too). [Although using the GPU for other tasks then dr

  • PCI Express, not Direct X (Score:3, Interesting)

    by tinrobot ( 314936 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @01:55PM (#11470523)
    The real power for video editing will come as PCI Express takes over.

    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.

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