We usually release a new engine generation every 3 years. Thus, 2010 will be an A8 year.

The A8 engine is based on the MMO kernel that we started last year. The MMO was stopped, but the engine development was continued, resulting in A8. The beta version will be released next month. The final release version will be available in summer.

With A8 we'll change most external libraries that the engine was using since A4. Still, A8 is backwards compatible to A7 and A6, so all projects since A6.60 will normally still run under A8. The exception is physics. The dynamics is different and might require different parameters.

The hardware accelerated PhysX engine will replace the ODE engine. In almost all cases this will result in a better frame rate and greater stability of the physics simulation. Also, there will be a lot of new physics commands.

A8 can use the graphics hardware for accelerated bones rendering. This way, A8 can render bones animated actors about 3 times faster than A7, and 5 times faster than A6. Other entities, especially sprites, are rendered up to 30% faster than with A7, and two times faster than with A6.

Sprite instancing and new sprite types for dense vegetation will be supported.

A8 will support realtime shadowmapping.

The DirectPlay network library will be replaced by the Enet library. Previous network projects will still work as before.

Later in 2010, DirectSound will be replaced by OpenAL, allowing new sound effect commands.

A8 will support portal regions that can be controlled by doors and user switches, for increasing the rendering speed in indoor levels.

A published A8 acknex.dll will work with all executables generated with the same development system. This overcomes the problems with some commercial wrapper systems.

Through an overlay channel outside the DirectX area, arbitrary shaped windows will be possible.

A8 Commercial will support commands for realtime procedural texture generation and shader-based parallel processing.

A8 Extra and above will still support C-Script.

A8 will be free for all A7 owners who purchased an A7 version or upgrade in our store in or after March 2010.

Greate news! YUPIE!

THATS good news!
And a giant leap for game developers!

Sounds good.. seems like i need to wait, before i buy PRO XD

Nice to hear

Since i got my update last week (:P) i will get A8 for free

Thank you soo much , jcl

crap, I bought my A7 update like 3 months ago... now I have to upgrade again...

Wow, good news.
Thanks to jcl.

Good news! Will the prices be the same as A7? And what about upgrades like A7 Commercial to A8 Commercial?

Great News, but what about the Pro-Editon and price as A6 Pro to A7 Pro ? The same gratuated prices or have you not even think about it ? I know the only think people will know is the price ;-) and a working edition :-) of course.

sounds great, but what about the editors? Will they be redone? And what about the website? A redesign would really fit to the release of A8.