[AD] "Modern" DirectX Drivers?

["John Harger" <john_h@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello everyone,

I had a concern about the current state of the DirectX drivers. Right
now, they are geared towards compatability all the way back to DirectX
3, which is necessary for WinNT compatability. However, I know that
many newer DirectX interfaces (DX7, and especially DX8 now that it's
released) are not compatible with DX3. For example, to use many of the
newer Direct3d features in DX7 (Vertex Buffers, etc.) you must use
DirectDrawCreateEx as opposed to DirectDrawCreate. (The former not 
being compatible with DirectX 6 or earlier) Now, I understand that 3d
is not the focus of Allegro, but IMHO the extra functionality would be
nice. 

I'm thinking it may be a good idea to perhaps start a new DirectX
driver (keeping the old one intact for compatability) that would
support the newer interfaces, and be kept up to date to the *latest*
release of DirectX, without concern for backwards compatability,
keeping things on the cutting edge. As I see it, there's not really any
reason to keep support for DX5, DX6.x, or DX7 now that DX8 is out,
because any system that can use the older versions can use the newest
one.

Does anyone else thing this would be a good thing, or even partially
agree? Do you think we should start new system/graphics/sound/input
driver, modify the old one, or just do nothing? I'm going to start
working on one if no one thinks the idea sucks. Let me know. Thanks

John H.
John Harger
--------------------------------------
Network Systems Specialist
SelectPath, Inc.
john_h@xxxxxxxxxx