D3D11 - what's all the fuss about ?

[andyhants]

Like many of us on this forum I am hugely grateful to Toni for his Herculean efforts in continuing to drive the development of WinUAE. I am currently running 3 variants - an A500 config for std games & demos, a ClassicWB config for AGA stuff & AmiKit X for higher-end use, but all of these are running perfectly happily under WinUAE 3.2.0 on a modern Windows 10 PC. So could someone please explain (in plain-ish English if possible) what is the additional benefit of running WinUAE with D3D11 ?

Thanks

[Retro-Nerd]

I leave the technics explanation for Toni. But what i'm hoping for in future updates with D3D11 enabled is a lower input latency (= more responsive controls) and maybe the support of more complex multi pixelshader like the CRT Royale from Retroarch (11-12 shader pipelines and more).

[Toni Wilen]

Main reason is not requiring annoying and ancient D3D9 redistributable from 2010. D3D11 is Windows built-in. D3D9 was getting far too ancient. D3D11 (or more like DXGI) allows much better program controlled behavior of refresh rates, refresh modes, timing, etc. D3D9 usually does what driver wants to do, not what program wanted to do. And more.

Nothing will happen with shaders until someone explains how they are supposed to work and what they require. I am not interested without extra help.

[andyhants]

Thanks for the responses chaps. Having read them I do now recall reading an earlier thread about the potential for less latency when picking up on joystick inputs but from what you have said above am I right in understanding this hasn't been implemented in 3.6.0 & further development in a future WinUAE version will be needed to deliver on more responsive controls?

(Toni - I would just briefly add I don't perceive an issue at present anyway with poor/delayed control in games etc but would be useful to know if an even more responsive version may be coming along).