ATI has trashed a recent rumor that XBox 360 will be DirectX 10 compatible. The story first surfaced on a Dutch X360 fan site and suggested that the ATI-made graphics chip of the XBox 360 could utilise DirectX 10 following the application of a software patch. As you may expect, the news quickly spread and console fans begun a long and bitter battle regarding the importance of DX 10.
ATI has now officially commented on the story and has cleared the air once and for all, the statement: Xbox360 cannot run DX10, and confirmed what I said earlier about the extended functionality. The Xbox360 has unique features including memory export that can enable DX10-class functionality such as stream-out. From what we're hearing, Crysis will support DX9 with some sort of use for DX10 features. It's likely that those DX10 visuals can be replicated on the Xbox360, but it can't be properly called DX10.
So there you have it, it sounds like the ATI spokesperson is bending over backwards to convince us that X360 won't need DX10, a definite sign that the console's hardware does not support the new API. Crysis however, will definitely make Microsoft's console although only very high end PCs will be able to run it in its full DX10 shaded glory.
