ATI Technologies announced the release of its latest SDK, giving developers and artists the tools to fully leverage the power of unified shaders and the graphics processing unit (GPU) for Microsoft's upcoming DirectX 10.

With techniques like shadow volume extrusion and streaming out of animation data, the SDK has more than a dozen new samples of what could be possible with DirectX 10, and empowers developers to start creating the kind of breakthrough content the industry saw at the advent of DirectX 9, according to ATI.

Having introduced a unified shader architecture for the Xbox 360, the latest ATI SDK shows developers how they can best tap into technology to incorporate techniques such as water simulation, inverse kinematics and simple collision detection.

Rounding out the extensive content on the SDK is an emphasis on render-to-vertex buffer techniques, showing some of the ideas of what can be implemented on top of it.

"In 2002, ATI introduced the first DirectX 9 parts with the Radeon(R) 9700. With DirectX 10 on the horizon and the development of the industry's first unified shader architecture with the Xbox 360, ATI is again taking the leadership role and giving developers the tools to navigate this exciting transition," said Neal Robison, Director, ISV Relations, ATI.

"ATI's GPUs are incredibly powerful and have the ability to perform powerful tasks such as physics that give developers a greater range of realism and sophistication for their games," he added.

For more information on ATI's developer relations program or to download the SDK, please visit ATI's official developer web site.