DirectX 7.0 Shown at Meltdown 99, Due Late Summer

Microsoft showed DirectX 7.0 to the people who will actually build with it this week at Meltdown 99, where more than 500 hardware and software developers gathered at the Sheraton Hotel in Seattle from June 7 through 9. The sixth major release of DirectX is expected in late summer 1999 as a download from Microsoft’s web site.

The big addition is deeper support for transform and lighting work done in hardware: if a 3-D card carries a dedicated T&L unit, DirectX 7.0 puts it to work and frees the CPU for physics calculations or AI instead of geometry math. Microsoft is also touting lifelike effects like reflections in water and light passing through stained glass, smoother and more complex 3-D objects and characters, new software algorithms for 3-D sound, more flexible control of hardware audio mixing, and a claimed speed bump of roughly 20 percent over DirectX 6.1.

An API that rewards dedicated T&L hardware gives the card makers every reason to build it. Watch this space.