AMD: Developers say DirectX should go away

Posted on Monday, March 21 2011 @ 21:15 CET by Thomas De Maesschalck
Last week John Carmack stated that DirectX 11 is better than OpenGL but now AMD developers relations manager Richard Huddy suggests it may be time for DirectX to go away because the API is holding back PC game development.
'It's funny,' says AMD's worldwide developer relations manager of its GPU division, Richard Huddy. 'We often have at least ten times as much horsepower as an Xbox 360 or a PS3 in a high-end graphics card, yet it's very clear that the games don't look ten times as good. To a significant extent, that's because, one way or another, for good reasons and bad - mostly good, DirectX is getting in the way.' Huddy says that one of the most common requests he gets from game developers is: 'Make the API go away.'

'I certainly hear this in my conversations with games developers,' he says, 'and I guess it was actually the primary appeal of Larrabee to developers – not the hardware, which was hot and slow and unimpressive, but the software – being able to have total control over the machine, which is what the very best games developers want. By giving you access to the hardware at the very low level, you give games developers a chance to innovate, and that's going to put pressure on Microsoft – no doubt at all.'
You can read the full interview with Huddy over here.


About the Author

Thomas De Maesschalck

Thomas has been messing with computer since early childhood and firmly believes the Internet is the best thing since sliced bread. Enjoys playing with new tech, is fascinated by science, and passionate about financial markets. When not behind a computer, he can be found with running shoes on or lifting heavy weights in the weight room.



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Re: AMD: Developers say DirectX should go away
by Anonymous on Tuesday, March 22 2011 @ 11:37 CET
OR AMD can't write good drivers...

you pick