One of ATI's main betting cards against NVIDIA's GeForce graphics cards is the DirectX 10.1 support for the company's latest Radeon graphics cards. Unfortunately, due to the lack of DirectX 10.1-enabled gaming applications, AMD's strategy can't be exploited to its full potential. However, the Sunnyvale-based chip maker announced today that it plans to collaborate with leading game developers in order to introduce a new generation of game titles featuring Microsoft's DirectX 10.1 API.

Microsoft's DirectX 10.1 API is designed to improve features and performance and provide an overall better gaming experience. Currently, AMD's latest generation graphics cards, including both of the company's HD 3000-series and HD 4000-series, are the only DirectX 10.1 solutions available on the market. This is why AMD is trying to accelerate the adoption of DirectX 10.1 among game developers.

The upcoming DirectX 10.1 titles include Battleforge, an online real-time strategy game developed by Electronic Arts Phenomic Studio, Stormrise from SEGA and Cloud 9 from NHN Games.

"We welcome AMD's broad support for DirectX 10.1 compliant hardware and we're pleased to see our newest technology brought to market so soon. One of the great advantages of PC gaming is the rapid pace at which the experiences evolve and improve. The ATI Radeon HD 3000 series and now the ATI Radeon HD 4800 series hardware delivers on the promise of DirectX 10 gaming with significantly improved visuals and enhanced performance," said Kevin Unangst, Global Director, Microsoft Games for Windows.

Furthermore, in order to demonstrate the differences between the DirectX 10 and DirectX 10.1, AMD has recently unveiled a real-time 3D demo dubbed "Ping Pong", which has been designed to illustrate some of the new graphics techniques and features of the DirectX 10.1 API. More details regarding "Ping Pong" are available on one of AMD's dedicated web sites.