***Story of the Issue
Microsoft Changes DirectX Plans to Support Developer Efforts
for Q4 1997
In a significant turn about Microsoft announced at WinHEC that
it will ship DirectX 6.0 in July to support ISV titles for Q4
1997. At Meltdown Microsoft stated that they would not commit
to a ship date but that the ship date would be driven my
meeting their own quality requirements and developer feedback.
However, with all parts of the industry under intense pressure
to fit into an annual cycle which leads to the latest and
newest technology for the Christmas buying season Microsoft
responded and is now in sync. The WAVE Report spoke with Jay
Torborg, Director, Windows Multimedia at WinHEC and he stated
that no features would be eliminated from Direct3D to meet the
timeline. However, the status of DirectMusic is uncertain for
this release.
In a message to DirectX developers Microsoft announced the
following:
", we expect to release the general beta of DirectX 6.0 at
Microsoft's Seminar Day at CGDC, on May 9, 1998, within a one
week margin of error. Clearly, this deliverable will depend on
our ability to converge on a very high-quality release, as
this will be our only general beta.
However, in order to minimize risk to the DirectX 6.0 schedule
we have limited enhancements to DirectDraw to those that
support new Direct3D features, plus the following:
* Full Screen-Only Per-Channel Gamma Control
* Motion Compensation DDI
* Hardware De-Interlacing Support
We currently plan to defer the following previously announced
DirectDraw features to the next release of DirectX: Alpha BLT,
SetSpriteDisplayList, Lightweight Surface Resizing,
Create/LoadSurfaceFromFile, Persistent Content and Stereo
Support. While it's always disappointing to postpone
compelling new features, we think you'll agree that the
benefits of a commitment to timely delivery outweigh the
potential risks of trying to implement those few features."
Wave Issue 9803 3/25/98 Article 2-01