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DX10 - How Far Have We Come?
Posted by
Zonk
on Thu Oct 04, 2007 04:07 PM
from the far-if-you-look-at-crysis dept.
from the far-if-you-look-at-crysis dept.
MojoKid writes "When DirectX 10 was first introduced to the market by graphics
manufacturers and subsequently supported by Windows Vista, it was generally
understood that adoption by game developers was going to be more of a slow
migration than a quick flip of a switch. That said, nearly a year later, the
question is how far have we come? An article at the
HotHardware site showcases many of the most popular DX10-capable game
engines, like
Bioshock ,
World In Conflict , Call of Juarez, Lost Planet, and
Company of Heroes, and features current image quality comparisons versus DX9
modes with each. The article
also details
performance levels across many of the more popular graphics
cards, from both the mid-range and high-end." PC Perspective has a similar look at DX10 performance.
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DX9 looks better? (Score:5, Insightful)
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I've can't remember seeing visuals look as bad as those did, and even where glitches occur the action happens so fast its not noticeable.
(one exception, in Half life 2, the frosted glass doors had a glitch near the edges of the screen, nothing major but ruined the effect)
The real joke (Score:5, Insightful)
In the really old days, you had people actually coding for the card on hand. This is why there's a gazillion different releases of Mechwarrior 2, each of which varies greatly in image quality and features - each had to be hand tuned to the card.
If Bioshock had been intended for DX9, it would probably look the same as that DX10 shot on DX9. They'd have figured out what they needed to do, perhaps coded a few "If ATI, do this, if NVidia, do this, if Intel Extreme fail 'your video card is too crappy to play this game'" decisions for specific hardware, and that would have been that. Since it was backported (and MS would have thrown a fit to have "no difference") they had to just do a more slappy job of it.
Then again, if not for the emphasis on ridiculous graphics, think about how many games would be able to use their processing power for some seriously wicked AI. Even Bioshock only has half-decent AI that can be twigged to and predicted fairly easily - you know that a wrench guy is going to rush you, you know that the spider slicers will hang from the ceiling and lob stuff all day till you burn or freeze them, you know where the houdinis are going to land long before the animation starts merely because you can figure out what the AI tree says for them to do in what radius... it's sad.
Hell, you can predict the precise spot on the health bar where they'll run for the health station, and if you're smart you trapped that thing half an hour ago. Now you get to watch as four of them all kill themselves on the same damn one, never paying attention to the 3 dead bodies on the floor that obviously just gassed themselve using a booby-trapped station.
But nevermind. I know the reason they want graphics over AI - the same fucking morons that could never defeat a decently programmed AI (hell, they have trouble getting through Halo on NORMAL), drool over thinking that they can see the shoelaces on Madden's boot.
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Re:The real joke (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re: ai (Score:5, Insightful)
First, the goal of "AI" isn't always to be as smart as possible. Often, the goal is to make something believable and/or of the appropriate difficulty level. It's possible that Bioshock missed the mark there, but I haven't played Bioshock yet, so I don't know.
I can write "AI" that will kick your ass every time, even without cheating. (Mobs have the advantage of being on home turf, and they outnumber you.) But that's not fun for the player, so I don't do it. Instead, I'll write something with a pattern you have to figure out. Once you learn one of the ways to beat it, the mob will be easy for you, and it's time to move on to the next area. Very few mobs get the full "try to survive at all cost" treatment, and even fewer are programmed to actually learn from your behavior.
You're describing the classic "I wish this mob would keep getting harder" remorse, but think about it: would it really make sense for those mobs to learn from your new tactics? Are they supposed to be smart, or are they just supposed to be an obstacle?
As for your dead bodies example: would you really prefer to have an infinite standoff as the mobs decide it's not worth getting killed, so they go hide somewhere with their own traps and wait for you to attack? Right... so get over it. If games were realistic, you would realdie on level 1.
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Re: ai (Score:5, Insightful)
> (Mobs have the advantage of being on home turf, and they outnumber you.)
You are assuming that the mob would just sit there and wait for the player, like it usually does in pretty much every game. In reality, a "level" would not necessarily know that Gordon Freeman is on his way. Neither will they have the patience to sit in their assigned ambush places, waiting for him all day long. A better AI would actually "live" in the environment where it is placed, so that it would react to the player instead of waiting for him. It would also be fun to watch. In Half-Life I really enjoyed watching those occasional scenes where monsters are wondering around doing things; like when the bullsquids feed on the headcrabs. I wish there were more things like that, things worth watching.
> would it really make sense for those mobs to learn from your new tactics?
> Are they supposed to be smart, or are they just supposed to be an obstacle?
If the AI was smart, you wouldn't need a mob. You would only need a few individuals. It would be like a multiplayer deathmatch, and, judging from the popularity of those, would likely be more fun than the current mob situation.
> As for your dead bodies example: would you really prefer to have an infinite standoff
> as the mobs decide it's not worth getting killed, so they go hide somewhere with their
> own traps and wait for you to attack?
An infinite standoff will only happen if the game designer makes you kill off the entire mob before setting off some stupid trigger to open some stupid door. Don't program artificial obstacles and the player will be able to ignore the hiding mob and go on, just like in real life.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:DX9 looks better? (Score:4, Insightful)
I mean, 2007! and we still have octogonal circles!!
I think that the "realism" isn't worth it. Go out and create DX7 games that are fun
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Re:DX9 looks better? or do the consumers vote? (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, come on, everyone will buy the PS3 because it has better graphics than the Wii
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Re:DX9 looks better? (Score:4, Insightful)
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I don't know what you're talking about but that's one funny line.
Re:DX9 looks better? (Score:4, Funny)
Talk about reinventing the wheel!
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Re:DX9 looks better? (Score:5, Funny)
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On one test the DX9 version was running at 110fps and the DX10 version running at 30fps. The DX10 version damn well better haver higher image quality if it takes nearly 4 times as long to render a scene. Push the DX9 version futher by throwing more polygons and more complex shaders at it until you reach the performance of the DX10 version, THEN do a comparison. You'll find that there is preciou
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Re:DX9 looks better? (Score:5, Insightful)
Some did, some didn't.
You gotta understand that DX10 can do absolutely everything DX9 can, so if the DX10 image looks less natural, it's more of a human flaw than technological: it's a new area and people are only starting to discover what works best, both devs and designers.
Also I imagine that fine-tuned the DX9 version more since the majority of people out there have DX9 cards. DX10 are barely out there, they probably don't even have a good selection of DX10 cards yet to test everything thoroughly.
The only thing that worries me is that DX10 shows up slower on the benchmarks. DX10 was promised to have better performance than DX9, but don't forget all of the reviewed game use different code paths for DX10, thus load more effects and use higher precision buffers/processes in the DX10 versions. So while DX10 may be faster, it's not a fair comparison when DX10 is loaded with twice the texture sizes and effects of the DX9 version.
We'll need a more objective test written to use the same elements in DX9 and 10 and compare that.
One way or the other DX10 is the future. Even if the first few generation suck, the new features show lots of promise that will come to fruit in the coming years. DX10 has no choice but to become great. If you don't want to burn, just don't buy DX10 card YET, it's the worst moment to do so.
Wait at least until there's a DX 10.1 card out there with good price and review (DX 10.1 will come with Vista SP1). I don't expect this to be before Q3-4 2008 (which is great since Microsoft would have fixed lots of things in Vista by then, and 3rd parties would have better drivers and hardware for Vista).
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Re:DX9 looks better? (Score:4, Interesting)
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So, you're willing to reward Microsoft for bad behavior?
A surprising number of people I encounter in my work have decided to forgo Vista, no matter what Microsoft does to it. There are some people who have decided not to just bow to the dictates of corporations, who expect us to buy what they offer, to give them profits no matter how poorly they perform.
Just as organized labor had to bring rapacious corporations into line in the second 2/3 of the twe
Re:DX9 looks better? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yup. That's when I tested the speed of my car vs a train, I ran the car on the tracks. I was testing the speed of a car vs train, and you don't do that by changing two variables.
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Backporting DX10 to XP (Score:2, Interesting)
Found it - http://alkyproject.blogspot.com/2007/04/finally-making-use-of-this-blog-i.html [blogspot.com]
Anyone tried this or know if it's still being u
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http://wiki.winehq.org/FAQ#head-fbaa851e07d7484640cc10b6d0c48abc741260b2 [winehq.org]
from that page
Does Wine support DirectX? Can I install Microsoft's DirectX under Wine? Wine itself provides a DirectX implementation that, although it has a few bugs left, should run fine. Wine supports DirectX 9.0c at this time. Plans for DirectX 10 are underway. If you attempt to install Microsoft's DirectX, you'll run into some
Re:Backporting DX10 to XP (Score:5, Funny)
I believe yes, it is [winehq.org].
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Motion (Score:5, Interesting)
Still, nothing there makes me want to jump out and buy a $600 graphics card. Someday I'll have to move to PCIe, SATA, and multi-core; perhaps that will be the time. If it's with a 64 bit OS, so much the better.
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I (well my boss actually), just bought an Apple Macbook Pro, I just wanted to point out that your list doesn't mean Vista&DirectX, as the list sounds a lot like my new laptop. A bit off topic maybe, but it will be interesting how Apple will compare to DX10 & Vista when OS 10.5 is out in a month or so.
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Agreed, but I never said that Macs didn't have games. I asked if the games in the review were also on the Mac, and for a general status on Mac gaming. That said, I decided to check for myself.
No to Bioshock. Nothing on World in Conflict. Out of luck on Call of Juarez, no for Lost Planet. Company of Heroes? Nada.
...by whose standards?
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The GeForce 8400 for under $50 will do DX10. Not that it's the best, but there are many choices for DX10 under $600, and even decent choices for under $100.
Someday I'll have to move to PCIe, SATA, and multi-core; perhaps that will be the time. If it's with a 64 bit OS, so much the better.
You could build a system with all of that for under $600. It may not be the biggest and baddest, but for under $600 you could have a 64 bit
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That GeForce 8400 only has 16 stream processors (the basis of the Unified Architecture that makes up current gen graphics cards). The 8600's suffer a great deal with double that (32) as seen in their framerate tests (apart from BioShock most games were almost unplayable at 1280x1024 - which has become the "new 1024x768" baseline).
The minimum card you want for the new crop of direct x 10 games (to actually get the "eye candy" at anything over 800x600) is the 8800 GTS with 96 stream processors.
Of course, g
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I wonder how many of these differences would be more apparently with some motion and several sequential frames. I know there are texture effects that look OK when the user isn't moving but terrible when he is, although DX9 already has enhancements for that.
Still, nothing there makes me want to jump out and buy a $600 graphics card. Someday I'll have to move to PCIe, SATA, and multi-core; perhaps that will be the time. If it's with a 64 bit OS, so much the better.
Well, the articles missed the most important part of DX 10. Gaming/hardware review sites sometimes touch on the issue, but rarely give it as much import as it deserves. It's not 9 vs 10 that's interesting, it's that for the first time in history DX 10 output is the same regardless of hardware vendor*. Long term it will pay off in spades for customers as doctored drivers and "cheats" are no longer part of the equation when trying to evaluate hardware. This is pretty much essential for moving window composti
Obviously... (Score:3, Funny)
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Just as far as it needs to to displace OpenGL. (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Just as far as it needs to to displace OpenGL. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Just as far as it needs to to displace OpenGL. (Score:4, Insightful)
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DX10 still Windows Vista only? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Wow DX10 (Score:3, Insightful)
forget game developers adopting directx 10... (Score:2)
Shadows are wrong! (Score:5, Informative)
That's great, except for the fact that shadows don't have crisp edges in the real world. Unless it's illuminated by a point-source (which immediately excludes the sun, lamps, flashlights, and pretty much every other light source you're likely to encounter), there will be a penumbra. The DX9 image here: http://www.hothardware.com/articleimages/item1031/big_stateofdx10_wic_shad.jpg [hothardware.com] is more realistic.
Simple flash example: http://www.goalfinder.com/Downloads/Shadows.swf [goalfinder.com]
Re:Shadows are wrong! (Score:5, Insightful)
Not sure how this got confused by either bioshock or the reviewers...
DirectX 10 allows for both 'crisp' or 'soft' shadowing, as some games demonstrate, the DirectX 10 shadows are 'softer' and more realistic.
The 'difference' with DirectX 10 is that shadows are done on the GPU, in DirectX9 shadows are done on the CPU. This is the 'main' difference between DX9 and DX10.
The 'crisp' choice by bioshock is NOT what DX10 is about, this is a game developer choice. PERIOD.
I know reviews like this can lead people down wrong paths, but it doesn't hurt to look up this type of information before making fun of a fact that is incorrect in the first place.
It is strange that any site 'reviewing' DX10 in comparison to DX9 would not even know the basic 'consumer' terminology for the differences, so they would know what they were looking at... Maybe someday we can get a review posted on SlashDot that is actually done by gaming professionals... (gasp)
Here is a quick list from the MS Consumer Info site on DirectX10, notice the reference to shadows specifically.
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Summary
In summary, DirectX10 provides the following benefits to gamers:
More life-like materials and characters with:
Animated fur & vegetation
Softer/sharper shadows
Richer scenes; complex environments
Thicker forests, larger armies!
Dynamic and ever-changing in-game scenarios
Realistic motion blurring
Volumetric effects
Thicker, more realistic smoke/clouds
Other
Realistic reflections/refractions on water/cars/glass
Reduced load on CPU
-Re-routes bulk of graphics processing to GPU
-Avoids glitching & system hangs during game play
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I'm waiting for OpenRT (Score:5, Interesting)
obvious parallel (Score:4, Insightful)
Just jump to the summary. (Score:4, Informative)
Are We There Yet? The DX10 exclusive effects available in the five games we looked at were usually too subtle to be noticed in the middle of heated gameplay. The only exception is Call of Juarez, which boasts greatly improved graphics in DX10. Unfortunately these image quality improvements can't entirely be attributed to DX10 since the North American version of the game -- the only version that supports DX10 -- had the benefit of a full nine months of extra development time. And much of the image quality improvements in Call of Juarez when using DX10 rendering were due to significantly improved textures rather than better rendering effects. Our test results also suggest that currently available DX10 hardware struggles with today's DX10 enhanced gaming titles. While high-end hardware has enough power to grind out enough frames in DX10 to keep them playable, mid-range hardware simply can't afford the performance hit of DX10. With currently available DX10 hardware and games, you have two choices if you want to play games at a decent frame rate; play the game in DX9 and miss out on a handful of DX10 exclusive image quality enhancements, or play the game in DX10 but be forced to lower image quality settings to offset the performance hit. In the end, it's practically the same result either way. While the new DX10 image quality enhancements are nice, when we finally pulled our noses off the monitor, sat back and considered the overall gameplay experience, DirectX 10 enhancements just didn't amount to enough of an image quality improvement to justify the associated performance hit. However, we aren't saying you should avoid DX10 hardware or wait to upgrade. On the contrary, the current generation of graphics cards from both ATI and NVIDIA offer many tangible improvements over the previous generation, especially in the high-end of the product lines. With the possible exception of some mid-range offerings, which actually perform below last generation's similarly priced cards, the current generation of graphics hardware has a nice leg-up in performance and features that is worth the upgrade. But if your only reason for upgrading is to get hardware support for DX10, then you might want to hold out for as long as possible to see how things play out.
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