Category Archives: Direct3D

Another adventure in downgrading, part 4: Fixed function

Posted on April 15, 2023 by Scali

A few months ago, I discussed downgrading a modern codebase to .NET 4 and Windows XP. I managed to get the code working to the point that all functionality worked, aside from web views, given that browsers no longer support … Continue reading →

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Another adventure in downgrading, part 3: XP

Posted on November 25, 2022 by Scali

Taking the application down even further than last time. Windows XP? You’re probably thinking: “Direct3D 11, Media Foundation, WIC, that’s never going to work in XP! What are you thinking?” And you’d be right. If the codebase was entirely aimed … Continue reading →

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Another adventure in downgrading, part 2: Vista

Posted on November 12, 2022 by Scali

Okay, picking up where we left off last time: we have an application that now runs on .NET 4.6.2. So far it’s only tested on Windows 7 and Windows 10 platforms, which the .NET 4.8 version was targeting anyway. But … Continue reading →

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Running anything Remedy/Futuremark/MadOnion/UL in 2020

Posted on December 25, 2020 by Scali

There has always been a tie between Futuremark and the demoscene. It all started with the benchmark Final Reality, released by Remedy Entertainment in 1997. Remedy Entertainment was a gaming company, founded by demosceners from the legendary Future Crew and … Continue reading →

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Batch, batch, batch: Respect the classics!

Posted on June 2, 2020 by Scali

Today I randomly stumbled upon some discussions about DirectX 12, Mantle and whatnot. It seems a lot of people somehow think that the whole idea of reducing draw call overhead was new for Mantle and DirectX 12. While some commenters … Continue reading →

Posted in Direct3D, Oldskool/retro programming, OpenGL, Software development, Vulkan | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Windows and ARM: not over yet

Posted on February 2, 2020 by Scali

As you may recall, I was quite fond of the idea of ARM and x86 getting closer together, where on the one hand, Windows could run on ARM devices, and on the other hand, Intel was developing smaller x86-based SOCs … Continue reading →

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nVidia makes good on their promise: DX12 support for Fermi

Posted on October 26, 2017 by Scali

You might remember that in the months leading up to Mantle, DX12 and Vulkan, I mentioned that all of nVidia’s cards from Fermi and up would support DX12. This was also officially confirmed by nVidia on this page, and also … Continue reading →

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DirectX 12 and Vulkan: what it is, and what it isn’t

Posted on August 10, 2016 by Scali

I often read comments in the vein of: “… but vendor A’s hardware is designed more for DX12/Vulkan than vendor B’s”. It’s a bit more complicated than that, because it is somewhat of a chicken-and-egg problem. So I thought I’d … Continue reading →

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FutureMark’s Time Spy: some people still don’t get it

Posted on August 4, 2016 by Scali

Today I read a review of AMD’s new Radeon RX470 on Tweakers.net, by Jelle Stuip. He used Time Spy as a benchmark, and added the following description: About 3DMark Time Spy has recently been some controversy, because it is found … Continue reading →

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GeForce GTX1060: nVidia brings Pascal to the masses

Posted on July 20, 2016 by Scali

Right, we can be short about the GTX1060… It does exactly what you’d expect: it scales down Pascal as we know it from the GTX1080 and GTX1070 to a smaller, cheaper chip, aiming at the mainstream market. The card is … Continue reading →

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