I was a DX11 skeptic but this has convinced me

[sea]

Actually, I have to side with him on hardware and software companies using Crysis as a platform to show off DirectX 10... Crysis was the poster child for DirectX 10 and Microsoft were even offering Crysis vs. Halo PC as a "comparison" between the two APIs. I don't think there were any evil conspiracy theories, but there was absolutely no reason for Crytek to lock away certain effects for DirectX 10 when the DirectX 9 effects did not affect performance significantly more than the DirectX 10 ones... that those effects were all available in DirectX 9 with a couple of minor tweaks shows a lot of disginenuinity on Crytek's part. Whether or not money changed hands, I don't know - maybe they themselves just wanted to make DirectX 10 look more visually impressive than it really was.

That said, the DirectX 11 effects on display in Crysis 2 are for the most part not something you can do efficiently or easily in DirectX 9. I don't fault them for drawing a clear dividing line in this case.

 

[thursdayschild]

I think 'ever' made the point best earlier. DX 10 shifted the DirectX API into a new direction. It's so different that code written specifically for DX 10 will not function the same in DX9. Thus, you have to have seperate code for both. (Correct me if I am wrong ever)

You're wrong, but I already made the correction.

Well, you are right it requires different code, but guess what? It supports dx9 and 10, too, and it does it by having totally different versions of the code, the same way it's been since forever.

 

[ever]

That's right. Direct3D 10 code can't be run by Direct3D 9 class hardware period. Direct 3D 11 code can be run by Direct3D 10 hardware in the sense that I don't have to change, say, all my ID3D11ShaderResourceViews to ID3D10ShaderResourceViews, but no matter what I won't be able to put a structured buffer in a vertex shader if the driver won't compile for shader model 5.0.

In fact I'd argue that the way Microsoft envisioned it for me to write one kernel that branches for Direct3D 11 capability or Direct3D 10 capability depending on the profile token I get when creating the device is a lot harder to maintain ( especially if there is more than one graphics programmer ) than simply writing two kernels for the different APIs. It's also a lot messier code in general.

In terms of Direct3D 10 shifting to a new direction, it didn't, it just cut out a lot of the cruft left over from the pre-programmable shader days. For example back in the day you'd ask the API to set the common matrix transforms of model, view, projection and then just feed in vertex positions, normals and texcoords. Very simple. Now you can't do that. What you do instead is write a shader that does those transforms by hand, ask the shader to set aside some constant registers for you for the transform matcies ( as many as you like ), ask the shader to set aside some vertex registers for you ( any kind of data that you want ), declare the layouts client side to match the vertex struct in the shader, set the proper width for the constant buffer client side, update and feed every frame, and cache and draw large vertex sets. There's no point in offering both ways to do the same thing. Direct3D 10 is also a very *sensible* API in the sense that now you don't have to write Rube Goldberg machines to accomplish some really simple stuff ( the soft particles example I gave earlier is appropriate ).

Direct3D 11 on the other hand just built on the foundation laid by Direct3D 10 by adding in programmable Hull and Domain shader stages, Unordered Access Views, Append and Consume buffers, Structured Buffers and so on and of course DirectCompute.

 

[racofer]

blablablablalbalbalblablalbalblablaalaba ITT

I don't give a fucking shit on which version of DX developturds are making their games, as long as the performance to quality ratio is good enough for the hardware we use. Look at that piece of shit DA2 and its DX11 "enhancements" for fucks sake! 1/10 the performance for clouds that cast shadows (something dx8 could do) and tessellation (which looks no better than 10 years old bump mapping).

Games graphics are all hype now and have been for the past few years. Only source engine games are improving graphically as of late. Portal2 looks better than any modern shitengine, it's full dx9 and runs better than any of piece of crap developed with the "improved performance" of dx10/11 improvements.

No good games make use of DX10/11 yet and until they do, those APIs can rot for all I care.

And fuck you all too for talking so much shit out of your asses as to make your point over the interwebz. Skyway owned this thread again, as usual, not because of his points, but because there are stupid enough people on the codex to fall for his trolling over and over and over and over and over afuckingain. He does that on every thread, every day, for years, and you hardcore dickheads that want to sound smart are incapable of noticing how he is laughing his ass off at you. And he's not trolling newfags, no, he's doing that with people that have been in here for as long as he has, but you guys don't notice because of your stupidity. And he will do it again in a few days, and you morons will fall for it all over again. So fuck you for wasting my time writing this useless paragraph for you not to understand it.

BLAHEHUEHHHHHHHHHHRHRRUUHEUAHUEAHUAMUEAHMEUA!!!!1

 

[Johnny the Mule]

@skyway

If the feature-set isn't used anywhere, why do we need it?

Why do we need anything? Its a faulty question. You dont need it. You also dont need bread to survive, but its nice to have. DX11 adds features that are nice to have. Wiki.

I'm sorry bro, I'm a customer - I don't have to understand the tech.
I understand what I see. I see that Dirt 2 has 1000 poly flags and to get 2000 poly flags I need to buy a DX11 videocard.
What is there to understand? That DX11 is a retarded marketing trick? Yes we are dancing around it for a 10th time now.

We are dancing around it ecause you use faulty logic, customer or not!
No stunnig visuals which use DX11 -> DX11 sucks and is just like DX9.
Thats a fallacy right there. You just cant make that assumption. You could try to prove your theory, if you understood the tech but you wont make the effort.

Why would I give a fuck about synthetic benchmarks and Nvidia marketing?
Synthetic benchmarks never show the true performance in a real world software (e.g. games) and Nvidia can bullshit with pre-rendered videos all they want.

See, no effort at all. And again, logical fallacies and assumptions. You are not allowed to do that in discourse.
The visual difference of DX11/tessellation is shown of in the Heaven bench. You cant make the dragon scales in DX10 or 9 change dynamically or perform the transformation as efficient. An old gfx card wont do it as fast as well because it lacks the dedicated tessellation units, starting from gtx 400 series, I think.
And the Nvidia demo is an alien walking and changing his mesh on your command. Its not pre-rendered. Its real time done with tessellation (and DX11 I think). Those things show you what tessellation can do, yet you dont seem to care.

But I heard it's easier to code stuff with DX11
And yet it isn't used.
But I need to buy DX11 hardware to not see it used!

You dont need to buy DX11 hardware. Simple. It doesn't mean that DX11 hardware is worthless.
Yes, games in DX11 look like games in DX9 so if you have a DX9 card and want to play them, you'd have to buy that crack came from DX10 and Vista's kernel work. They broke the compatibility. I dont believe that they broke it just because. They just didnt want to put a lot of work into it.

Questions like "if DX11 has some totally cool feature-set why nobody uses it?

I answered that already. I dont know. You dont know either, so dont come with the assumption that DX11 sucks somehow.

I bet you have DX11 videocard. You seem to have a lot of understanding of the true nature of DX11 for a guy who doesn't.

I have a MSI GTX460 1GB OC that I bough on a bargain price of 120 eu together with a new rig a month ago. I let you know that before that, I had a GF4600TI for a looong time. It broke down and in the 5th year of warranty, the company could not replace it and gave me a goodwill check of 30 eu which I used to buy an ATI3850 for 50 eu.
My understanding stems from my technical background and general interest. :monocle:



Stop using logical fallacies and baseless asumptions.

 

[Johnny the Mule]

Again, just because you dont see DX11 feature-set used, doesn't mean its worthless and used to sell you something.

Just because you don't see Santa doesn't mean he's not real M:

Indeed. Just because you dont see God, doesnt mean he is not real. Proving a negative? Are agnostics retarded? Are you retarded by any chance?
Btw, this line of reasoning can not be applied here since there is a counter-proof of absence/quality for DX11. Its in the tech description and demonstrations.
You are retarded. Get your badge in Retardo Land.

 

[Sceptic]

So... where's the crack for this? What's wrong Fairlight?

Just because you dont see God, doesnt mean he is not real. Proving a negative? Are agnostics retarded?

Agnostics don't prove anything. That's the whole point of agnosticism.
Retard

 

[Ruprekt]

Y'all do realize that DX11 is written to fix the things we like to bitch about with current-gen games and console ports?

i.e. lack of 'real' lighting,
LoD and the resultant pop-ups,
small repetitive game worlds,
minimal number of objects or crippling performance loss with anything more ambitious

The API had hit a dead end with Directx9 and the shit you want in games cannot be done with it.

Bitching (bawwwing) about the current state of play is justified... but your 'solution' is no solution at all.

 

[Lunac]

You know, I think I noticed what the issue here is. I also noticed this in other topics on Codex where this "thing" comes into play on a variety of discussions.

I think a lot of posters here have no memory beyond Dx10 era, or late Dx9 era at best. What I mean is, there is lot of teenagers posting here (on Codex in general) who were back in 2001 when Dx8-to-Dx9 transition was taking place, were maybe 4-5 years old or around there. So they have NO idea. AT ALL. They weren't around for the rise of Dx as a dominant API, or the revolutionary years of 3Dfx and first widely popular 3D accelerators and what Glide brought to the table (for worse or the better), or even the rise of consoles and their rapid development from 8bit to 16bit to 32bit in only 10 years, from the mid 80s to mid 90s. No way for them to contrast this in real time. All they can do is look at screenshots of all this history, lump it together (no matter how different and varied technologies in question are) and say "old shit" and contrast it with "new shit" which is whatever happened within their very, VERY short lives.

Also, many posters seem to be ardent console users, teenagers or not, and if you spend your childhood, and then teen years, and then even your early adulthood playing consoles on crappy TV sets, your ability to visually contrast the quality of one thing from another will suck. Especially if consoles during "their" time didn't progress much in the image/visual quality department (a defining characteristic of the 00's decade). I mean look at what happened in say between 1985 and 1995, and then 2000-2010. Compare those two 10 year periods. In other words, the games they played looked the same for the entire duration of their lives.

But yeah, my guess is a lot of kids around these parts with memories stretching no farther than say mid 2000's. Hell, recently there was "oldfag" poster admitting that he never played FreeSpace (and from reading between the lines, a probable recent console-to-PC graduate), another admitted to never playing X-COM.

Kids! Motherfuking kids!


...
..
.

 

[Melcar]

They only learn with rape.

 

[Overweight Manatee]

Y'all do realize that DX11 is written to fix the things we like to bitch about with current-gen games and console ports?

i.e. lack of 'real' lighting,
LoD and the resultant pop-ups,
small repetitive game worlds,
minimal number of objects or crippling performance loss with anything more ambitious

The API had hit a dead end with Directx9 and the shit you want in games cannot be done with it.

Bitching (bawwwing) about the current state of play is justified... but your 'solution' is no solution at all.

That all has nothing to do with DX11 and everything to do with the fact that 256 MB of memory (what the "powerful" consoles have) was min req for PCs a decade ago.

 

[baronjohn]

I think this is my most successful thread yet

 

[Xi]

I think this is my most successful thread yet

I give it 3.5 Stars. At least you've broken the mold of mediocrity. I suppose that's noteworthy...

 

[fizzelopeguss]

The typical edgy fags are trying too hard again. It's a solid update, game looks fantastic.

 

[BirdsCanFly]

Good 3D

Bad 3D

 

[Gord]

Kids! Motherfuking kids!

It's not just the kids, happens to oldfags, too.
Romanticization may have to do with it.
When I see screenshots from old games I remember as having great graphics, quite often I'm quite surprised at how bad they actually look by modern standards.

Also graphical advances aren't as big as they used to be. Compare UE1 games to UE2 games. The two engines are 4 years apart yet the improvements seem huge compared to what we have seen over the last couple of years.