DX10 - How Far Have We Come?

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.

Backporting DX10 to XP

[666999]

Is the project to backport DX10 to XP still active?

Found it - http://alkyproject.blogspot.com/2007/04/finally-making-use-of-this-blog-i.html [blogspot.com]

Alky compatibility libraries for Microsoft DirectX 10 enabled games. These libraries allow the use of DirectX 10 games on platforms other than Windows Vista, and increase hardware compatibility even on Vista, by compiling Geometry Shaders down to native machine code for execution where hardware isn't capable of running it.

Anyone tried this or know if it's still being updated?

Motion

[Eccles]

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.

Just as far as it needs to to displace OpenGL.

[Zombie Ryushu]

DirectX Will make just the advancements it needs to keep programmers from going SDL and OpenGL. Thats what it is for. The question is not how far has DirectX come, its how far does SDL and OpenGL have to go.

Re:Not an issue for me

[athdemo]

Integrated graphics, even the new chipset with the X3100, are just not meant for games. If you want to play new games, you either have to shell out a ton for a laptop, or just settle for a tower.

Re:Motion

[earnest murderer]

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 composting to the video card. Sure the increase in precision and certain features have dropped performance "a bit", but it is also a show stopper for anyone who is trying to do "real work" on a Vista PC.

Oh and DirectX 10 parts start at around $60, not $600 and the cost of excelent gaming hardware still starts at around 250-300 dollars, same as for the previous generation.

Re:DX9 looks better?

[PopeRatzo]

When Vista sucks a little less, maybe I'll consider it.

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 twentieth century, it's time for consumers to teach corporations a similar lesson about what it means to be a good corporate citizen. The victories of the Labor movement brought about the strongest, most productive and wealthiest middle class in the world (which, since Reagan, has been largely destroyed). Citizen-consumers can bring about a similar benefit by simply making informed and independent decisions about how they spend their money.

Think about it: Health Care, Energy, Consumer Goods, Banking(and what are known as "durable goods"). These industries could be transformed by an organized and informed population who was willing to stand up for themselves.

No.Vista.For.Me.

If they were to take out all support for DRM, improve the efficiency, change the clumsy interface, and make it perform as well as XP Pro, I might reconsider, but then they'd probably call it something else.

I'm waiting for OpenRT

[argent]

Who cares about cool special effects to fake optical accuracy? Within a few years we'll have real-time ray tracing and everything using rasterized graphics will look so fake.

Re:Just as far as it needs to to displace OpenGL.

[DAldredge]

I use Vista on a daily basis and like it. What am I doing wrong?

Re:Motion

[UncleTogie]

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.

Any game that is worth it's salt comes out also for the Mac.

...by whose standards?

Re:Motion

[n00854180t]

I think the real problem is with the article. Yes some of these games have tiny features which "require" DX10, but not a single one of them is a "DX10 game" which is the language used by the article throughout. The real potential of DX10 (or shader model 4 if you prefer, which doesn't require DX10 anyway) is the geometry shader, and *NO* game developer will be using that for the things that matter (i.e., radically gameplay changing elements) until DX10 hardware is ubiquitous. So to date, there hasn't been a "DX10 game" at all.

Re:DX10 still Windows Vista only?

[Charcharodon]

Actually that's not entirely true. I've found the best indicator of what hardware and software people are using currently in the Steam hardware survey. Vista has been steadily moving up every month. It's up to 7.9% penatration which is quite good considering how many people are supposedly not adopting it. The interesting fact that of the 89,000 people that have it running as their OS only 18000 actually have a video card installed that is capable of running Dx10. That says to me a fairly large percentage of non-enthusiests are getting it part of computer perchase.

There is other info on there that is surprising to see. From how much new gear is being used to how much hardware that was old 5 years ago is still being used.

Re:The real joke

[Anonymous Coward]

From what I can tell, the primary limiting factor in game AI isn't even hardware related; it's designer manhours. A good AI is one which makes use of a lot of different behaviors and has good rules for applying them. It's not really difficult for the computer to handle that, but it does take a lot of time for the designers to plan and implement all of the behaviors and rules. And if they really want to trick players into thinking the game is intelligent, they can incorporate scripted behavior in certain situations.

Re:DX9 looks better?

[brkello]

Clearly you must not be the only one since you were modded insightful. But I really don't know what you guys are looking at. In every head to head picture the DX10 looks far superior. Maybe hatred of DX10 and Vista is causing people to have selective sight or something.

Re: ai

[SCHecklerX]

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.

I like the beginning where, if you look through a window as your are going by in the hall, you see a scientist fighting two head crabs. He knocks a a filing cabinet over on one, killing it, and jumps up and down pointing at it in glee. The other one then proceeds to jump on his head. Classic!

Stuff like that got more sparse as the game went on. It's as if they were running out of time to get the game out the door.

Re:Obviously...

[Mex]

I know you mean it as a joke, but the sad part is that Team Fortress 2 players are finding that "downgrading" the game's directx to 8.1 is giving a significant performance increase with a negligible visual degradation.