So, with DirectX 10 and 10.1 improving so much in Microsoft's eyes, where do they head next with the API?

In short, by building upon DirectX 10 by making DirectX 11 a superset of its functionality, adding in some new features (which we'll be looking at in this article) while improving scalability, performance, and the ease of development for the platform. Perhaps most important of all (considering the controversy of DirectX 10 being Windows Vista only) is the news that DirectX 11 will be available on both Windows Vista and any next-generation version of Windows, and will run quite happily on DirectX 9 and 10 hardware - Indeed, DirectX 10 graphics board owners might even gain some benefits from the move to DirectX 11, as we'll discuss later.