Conclusion

With the means to develop D3D10 codes there for developers should they choose to do so, prior to the official release of Vista and D3D10 accelerators, the developer messages coming from the IHVs are becoming more frequent and more assertive.

Concerning ATI in particular, where their D3D10 hardware is a somewhat radical departure from their programmable parts in the past (with more in common with Xenos inside Xbox 360 than not), the ATI Developer Day at the Develop Conference served to give developers an insight into what to expect, both from the new API and upcoming hardware.

Those 17 shader units might be more predictable in their performance than ever before, but that doesn't mean they can't be abused and performance reduced. A graphics developer is therefore well served by being observant of performance and exploitative in his or her use of the brand new, much improved, API and runtime.

A very informative day for those in attendance, and we hope these short abridged summaries of the D3D10-focussed presentations have something to take from them, for those that weren't there.

And of course, you can find the slides on ATI's Event Presentation section inside of ati.com/developer.