According to Microsoft, "Direct3D 10.1 is an incremental, side-by-side update to Direct3D 10.0 that provides a series of new rendering features that will be available in an upcoming generation of graphics hardware." The XAudio2 technology is also used in the Xbox 360, and will eventually replace DirectSound as the PC's main audio driver, according to Microsoft.
The new features of the DirectX update includes shader model 4.1, as well as a variety of graphics features, including:
* TextureCube Arrays which are dynamically indexable in shader code.
* An updated shader model (shader model 4.1).
* The ability to select the MSAA sample pattern for a resource from a palette of patterns, and retrieve the corresponding sample positions. The ability to render to block-compressed textures.
* More flexibility with respect to copying of resources.
* Support for blending on all unorm and snorm formats.
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