Author Topic: Direct3D 10 and 11 API now natively supported by Linux via Gallium3D  (Read 466 times)

Offline Pinguy

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Gallium3D has now made it possible to run Direct3D 10/11 natively on Linux.

In one fell swoop, it seems like proper, contemporary 3D gaming could be coming to a Linux distro near you.

Unlike Wine, this implementation of Direct3D under Gallium3D is an actual, native port of the DirectX APIs. There's no emulation involved -- Gallium3D just acts as a 'very thin wrapper', allowing developers easy access to Direct3D's goodies.

Luca Barbieri, the developer behind this new code commit, has a lot to say about Direct3D versus OpenGL, which might pain some open-source advocates: "Thanks to a very clean and well-though design done from scratch, the Direct3D 10/11 APIs are vastly better than OpenGL and can be supported with orders of magnitude less code and development time."

Then speaking about why Direct3D will be the graphics API of choice, when developing for Linux, Luca continued the barrage: "A mature Direct3D 10/11 implementation is intrinsically going to be faster and more reliable than an OpenGL implementation, thanks to the dramatically smaller API and the segregation of all nontrivial work to object creation that the application must perform ahead of time."

As I understand it, Wine can't yet take advantage of this new development -- but as it stands, you can now leap right in and start programming a 3D Linux application using Mesa and the Direct3D state tracker.

[via downloadsquad.com]
« Last Edit: September 22, 2010, 06:09:46 pm by Pinguy »
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Offline mmesantos1

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Wow, I am speechless, first broadcom drivers now this. I can't wait to see whats next.  :)
My PC: AMD Athlon x2 2.3Ghz / DDR2 4GB / HDD 250GB / GeForce GTX 260 896MB / Dell 20" LCD / Corsair 850 PSU

Offline Jeff

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Wow, I am speechless, first broadcom drivers now this. I can't wait to see whats next.  :)

Except unlike the broadcom drivers this really won't make a difference in well, anything for a very long time.

~Jeff