Valve embracing DirectX 10
Episode 2 and TF2 to support it.
Half-Life 2: Episode Two and Team Fortress 2 will both support the advanced functions introduced in Windows Vista's DirectX 10 API.
That's according to Valve's Doug Lombardi, who recently told Game Informer that the games will scale up to DX10 and down to DirectX 8 if people really want. "Valve's attempting to also support DX7, but couldn't confirm it'd go back that far with technology," the report notes. Those guys.
Both games - along with Portal - will form part of the Orange and Black Box releases planned for winter. The Black Box is due out on PC and consists of those three games alone, while the Orange Box also features Half-Life 2 itself and Episode 1.
Elsewhere, Valve released a Steam update yesterday that should improve voice communications in multiplayer, and introduces a "completely reworked in-game text chat, which now includes a chat history and a filter to only see important chat messages".
Busy busy busy, then. Look out for more on Valve's endeavours soon.
