MICROSOFT is preparing itself for launching a new API just few months after introducing DirectX 9.0 that powers R 300 and NV30 based cards. We suggested in September that DirectX 9 will launch in spring.
In March, there is a very important conference, called the Games Developers Conference between the 4th and 8th of March in San Jose, California, and it will be introduced during this period. Microsoft has a record of postponing APIs (application programming interfaces), however.
We know from the graphics card makers that the new/old thing that is already in DirectX 9.0 will be Pixel and Vertex shader 3.0. We suspect that ATI"s R400 and NV40 will have hardware support for it. ATI"s soon to be announced R350 is likely to be called the Radeon 9900 PRO – it will support this API and could have the privilege to be called DirectX 9.1 hardware, we hear.