Windows 7 DirectX 11 Tessellation

Microsoft has already indicated through the voice of Anantha Kancherla, manager of Windows desktop and graphics technologies, that DirectX 11 would be at the vanguard of the upcoming general purpose graphics processing (GPGPU) revolution. However, the real details have only been shared with developers and not the general public. From the recent Microsoft GameFest 2008 conference, details related to the evolution of DirectX 11 managed to slip through, but of course not through the company’s official channels, which are keeping mum in relation to the next generation of its graphics technology. Ignacio Castaño, NVIDIA Technology Developer, indicated that end users are in for a treat via the Tessellation of Displaced Subdivision Surfaces in DX11 presentation.

The Tessellation enhancements cooking for DirectX 11 will enable developers to offer what Castaño referred to as “unprecedented visuals”, namely “highly detailed characters and realistic animation”. But of course there is more to it, in the line of performing “expensive computations at lower frequency: realistic animation: blend shapes, morph targets, etc. and physics, collision detection, soft body dynamics, etc.”. DirectX 11 will ensure that the users will benefit from an increased level of detail while fewer resources will be consumed because of compression features.

“Direct3D11 extends Direct3D10 with support for programmable tessellation [introducing] two new shader stages: Hull Shader ( HS) and Domain Shader (DS) as well as one fixed function stage Tessellator (TS),” Castaño added.

DirectX 11 is heading for both Windows 7, the next iteration of the Windows client, and for Windows Vista. As was the case with DirectX 10, version 11 will not be backported to Windows XP, even though Vista’s predecessor is still the main gaming platform worldwide. So far, Microsoft has failed to give any indication as to a potential deadline for the delivery of DirectX 11, or to share much of anything with end users, although it has started to get developers up to date.