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DirectX? Come on, you're free to hate him, but putting DirectX together - which is the foundation for so much - is just holding a grudge against someone who sa

by RyanZAG 10y ago

DirectX? Come on, you're free to hate him, but putting DirectX together - which is the foundation for so much - is just holding a grudge against someone who says things you don't like.

DonHopkins 10y ago
No, he means WildTangent. And he didn't "make" DirectX or "put it together". He just advertised it. He's an "evangelist" not a "designer" or "developer" or "programmer". That's marketing, not engineering. And it was successful marketing because it was dishonest, heavy handed, well funded marketing, with no hint of self awareness or irony, which he kicked off by throwing a party that cast Microsoft as the Empire, and developers as slaves to be auctioned off and fed to the lions. The early version of DirectX he was evangelizing was a piece of crap. Look up "Direct3D Retained Mode" some time. [1] [1] Direct3D Retained Mode removed from Windows Vista: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/969150 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/969150 The alternative to "Retained Mode", "Execute Buffers", were just as bad if not worse in their own way [2]: >Direct3D initially implemented "retained mode" and "immediate mode" 3D APIs. Like other DirectX APIs, such as DirectDraw, both were based on COM. The retained mode was a scene graph API that attained little adoption. Game developers clamored for more direct control of the hardware's activities than the Direct3D retained mode could provide. Only two games that sold a significant volume, Lego Island and Lego Rock Raiders, were based on the Direct3D retained mode, so Microsoft did not update the retained mode after DirectX 3.0. >For DirectX 2.0 and 3.0, the Direct3D immediate mode used an "execute buffer" programming model that Microsoft hoped hardware vendors would support directly. Execute buffers were intended to be allocated in hardware memory and parsed by the hardware to perform the 3D rendering. They were extremely awkward to program, however, hindering adoption of the new API and prompting calls for Microsoft to adopt OpenGL as the official 3D rendering API for games as well as workstation applications. (see OpenGL vs. Direct3D) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct3D#Direct3D_2.0_and_3.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct3D#Direct3D_2.0_and_3.0

by RyanZAG 10y ago

DirectX? Come on, you're free to hate him, but putting DirectX together - which is the foundation for so much - is just holding a grudge against someone who says things you don't like.

DonHopkins 10y ago

No, he means WildTangent. And he didn't "make" DirectX or "put it together". He just advertised it. He's an "evangelist" not a "designer" or "developer" or "programmer". That's marketing, not engineering. And it was successful marketing because it was dishonest, heavy handed, well funded marketing, with no hint of self awareness or irony, which he kicked off by throwing a party that cast Microsoft as the Empire, and developers as slaves to be auctioned off and fed to the lions. The early version of DirectX he was evangelizing was a piece of crap. Look up "Direct3D Retained Mode" some time. [1] [1] Direct3D Retained Mode removed from Windows Vista: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/969150 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/969150 The alternative to "Retained Mode", "Execute Buffers", were just as bad if not worse in their own way [2]: >Direct3D initially implemented "retained mode" and "immediate mode" 3D APIs. Like other DirectX APIs, such as DirectDraw, both were based on COM. The retained mode was a scene graph API that attained little adoption. Game developers clamored for more direct control of the hardware's activities than the Direct3D retained mode could provide. Only two games that sold a significant volume, Lego Island and Lego Rock Raiders, were based on the Direct3D retained mode, so Microsoft did not update the retained mode after DirectX 3.0. >For DirectX 2.0 and 3.0, the Direct3D immediate mode used an "execute buffer" programming model that Microsoft hoped hardware vendors would support directly. Execute buffers were intended to be allocated in hardware memory and parsed by the hardware to perform the 3D rendering. They were extremely awkward to program, however, hindering adoption of the new API and prompting calls for Microsoft to adopt OpenGL as the official 3D rendering API for games as well as workstation applications. (see OpenGL vs. Direct3D) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct3D#Direct3D_2.0_and_3.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct3D#Direct3D_2.0_and_3.0