Company of Heroes goes DirectX 10, before & after screenshots and comparison

It's nice but it's still a bit too early to make it worthwhile to actually buy a DX10 card TBH.
 
It's all seems a bit bullshit. DX9 can do self-shadowing. It's no big deal. And you're telling me you need DX10 to get reflections in water?
 
Stardog, nope, that article talks about how the water reflections in DX10 are BUGGED, whilst fine in DX9, in DX10 they dont reflect the skybox.
 
I'm reminded of the AMD cpu patch for Far Cry - Nothing too spectacular, but more objects, new textures, etc that the AMD cpus were better at handling, of course the CPUs of today can handle such easily. But in this case, there are a few DX10-only things included. For the sake of whatever, I'll just comment a little:

- Edges of particles are softened where intersecting 3D objects. <-- This is doable in DX9. Call of Duty 2 has this feature.

- Thousands of additional ‘litter’ objects in the world. <-- Spotted this in the AMD64 patch for Far Cry.

- Improved user control over anti aliasing settings. <-- Not sure what they mean by this. Perhaps the new AA options that come with DX10.

- Alpha to coverage anti aliasing to improve quality of alpha test objects such as shrubs. <-- Unsure, but shown here: http://www.gamealmighty.com/typo3temp/pics/e2fc33bfb5.jpg

- Lighting quality has improved by moving all calculations per pixel. <-- Doable in DX9. Shown here: http://www.gamealmighty.com/typo3temp/pics/890f13b198.jpg

- More precise point light calculations. <-- Pretty sure this is doable in DX9, not especially affiliated with DX10 as far as I know.

- Point lights can now cast shadows. <-- Same as above

- 3D short grass on the terrain. <-- Doable in DX9

- Vertical refresh synchronization is enabled by default to improve visual quality by preventing tearing of the display image, use ‘-novsync’ to disable. <-- Doable in DX9

- Hardware PCF for improved shadow quality. <-- Doable in DX9. As far as I understand, FutureMark 2005 uses it.
Click to expand...
 
DX9 can do a lot of things. But DX10 can do it with less of a performance hit. So you get those effects at a playable frame rate. Not really possible on DX9.
 
Many people think DX10 looks better, but this is just wrong! actually DX9 and DX10 look the same, what DX10 brings to the table (or should when done right) is performance. Graphically both should and are capable of doing the same, DX10 is not the graphical jump that we have had in previous generations like DX8 to DX9 for example...
 
I think Asus is quite right here. There are quite a few insanely nice new features in DirectX 10, like sub-surface http://www.zuney.net/thread-images/dx10-gm.jpg) but the real kicker is the specifications of DirectX 10 in contrast to DirectX 9. I can't find the comparison now, but one example was like this: DX9 can handle 512 something. DX10 can handle 64.000.
 
Funny thing is the benchmark on that site, performance on maxed settings in CoH take a 50% drop with DX10.:>
 
does look nice
but its nothing i cant live without
 
Gargantou said:
Funny thing is the benchmark on that site, performance on maxed settings in CoH take a 50% drop with DX10.:>
Click to expand...
I don't think current DirectX 10 capable cards are up to the challenge of this stuff. I saw an internal Nvidia benchmark that had the highest FPS for the 8800GTX at 33 at 1280x1024 (4xaa, max settings) in Call of Juarez. That's a terrible performance for a $600+ graphics card...
 
I don't think it's the cards that's the problems, I think it's the incredibly pisspoor driver support nVidia has for DX10..
 
So DX10 does everything DX9 can but it can handle more rendering stuffs?
 
PsychoFreak said:
So DX10 does everything DX9 can but it can handle more rendering stuffs?
Click to expand...

yep with more realistic lighting and sharper texture + volumetric fog, cloud. look at the crysis tech video from last year to see/get more info about DX10.
 
In time when everyone, Windows, AMD, nVidea, Intel, ATi etc etc. getting themselves sorted out with drivers and support for the new stuff performance will increase

/Evo's view
 
Meh. I want MAJOR IMPROVEMENTS (111!!!1!) in AI more then anything. >_>
 
Asuka said:
AI has nothing to do with GPU, thats coming with Dual and Quad CPU support.
Click to expand...

Yes, I know that. I was speaking about games technology in general.

The focus has always been on graphics.
 
Well, although its nice to see big time developers taking interest in DX 10, I really do not see a big enough difference to tempt me into getting Vista and DX 10. Company of Heroes is gourgeuos in DX 9, so I see the only reason to get DX 10 is if you have an average PC, and want better performance (Ironically, Vista needs a decent PC to run anyways).
 
Of course, there's tons of things that DX9 can do similar to DX10... Any talented programmer could even get that to run on DX7 if they spent the enormous amounts of time. Obviously, like someone mentioned, it's about doing these effects and doing them without a performance hit.

Obviously CoH's implementation is tacked on, so it may not be a true test of it. However, when a pure DX10 title comes out, then we should see how well DX10 works out.

Asuka said:
AI has nothing to do with GPU
Click to expand...

Sure it does. A GPU is just a specialized processor, and you can calculate AI with a GPU just fine. People just tend to think that the Graphics Processing Unit is only for graphics. Well, it's not, but AI on the GPU is rare still since developers tend to wan to use 100% of the GPU anyways just for high-end graphics.

Just to prove I'm not talking out of my ass, and to prove that AI on the GPU has potential, check out this white paper.

http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~cis665/projects/REPORT_Ayinan.pdf

Pretty interesting results!

Oh, and there was a DX10 FAQ posted on the relic forums ( http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?t=150531 ).

Company of Heroes DX10 (?d3d10?) FAQ and Benchmarking Guide

Q. Why don't I see muzzle flashes or explosions on my nVidia 8x00?

A. You must be using 158.45 or newer drivers. These can be found following the BETA Drivers link from http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp

Q. My frame rate is locked at 60fps, how can I unlock it?

A. Use the -novsync command line parameter by creating a shortcut to RelicCoH.exe with -novsync in the target.
e.g.
"C:\Program Files\THQ\Company of Heroes\RelicCOH.exe" -novsync

Q. Can I do anything to prevent CoH from running out of memory when playing certain maps at very high resolutions and anti-aliasing settings?

A. No, you must lower your display settings. By default Vista 32 gives each application two gigabytes of virtual address space. You can look up how to change this to three gigabytes, use Vista 64, try the -notriplebuffer or -novsync command line parameters, or try newer display drivers when they are available.

Q. Why does CoH run slower with shader quality set to Direct3D 10 instead of High?

A. CoH is not simple port to the Direct3D 10 API from the Direct3D 9 API, it was planned from the start to add many significant new features and improvements. Just as the additional calculations required by the features enabled in high shader quality mode (Pixel Shader 2.0/3.0) make CoH run slower than in low shader quality (Pixel Shader 1.1) the additional calculations of all new advanced Direct3D 10 features cause each frame to take slightly longer to render. Keep an eye on your favourite graphic card vendor's web site for new driver releases offering improved performance.

Q. Are others experiencing subsequent runs of the game being slower than the previous run and eventually running out of memory in Direct3D 10?

A. Yes, however this is limited to certain drivers. Please keep checking your graphic chip manufacturer's web site for improved drivers. If you are affected by this you can exit and restart CoH to work around this problem.

Q. Why am I having problems with my SLI/Crossfire system?

A. At the time the patch was released there are known driver issues with multi-GPU systems. Check your vendor's website for updates.

Benchmarking Company of Heroes

With Relic's release of the Direct3D 10 patch, many new features were added that push the limit of what current hardware can do and what end users can expect from a game.

As many new features have been added exclusively for Direct3D 10, you will find the CoH Direct3D 10 renderer runs slower than Direct3D 9 due to the additional work load. For this reason we recommend using High shader quality (Direct3D 9) instead of Direct3D 10 shader quality when running on low end hardware that is Direct3D 10 compatible.

As Direct3D 10 is so new and Company of Heroes is the first full commercial game to use this API, using the latest drivers for your video card is absolutely necessary. nVidia users must use the 158.45 or newer drivers. These are currently found by following the BETA drivers link at http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp

The night missions are the best show cases for image quality in Direct3D 10 due to the additional shadows.

Explanation of the new features:

Soft FX Blending

In previous generation games, 2D sprites are often used for explosions. Where these intersect the ground or other objects it becomes apparent these are simple 2D cards, not real 3d objects. CoH uses multiple render targets to store the depth information to a 2nd texture before rendering our FX. Using this depth information we can properly blend as the intersection approaches to maintain the 3D illusion.

These are always enabled, unless the video card runs out of memory. When doing comparison benchmarking at high resolutions and anti-aliasing settings it is important to check the warnings.log for texture creation failures due to running out of memory to see if this feature was silently disabled which will result in a small performance gain for cards that run out of memory.

Litter Objects

Previous generation games generally have flat terrain with a few objects such as trees or barrels placed on them for variety. CoH advances this by adding small procedurally generated 'litter' objects. These are added to all existing levels without requiring any work from map artists by adding objects based on the material type of the terrain. With the Direct3D 10 renderer users get to have real 3d models of small plants growing in the fields or real 3d models of rocks on the roads instead of just paintings of rocks on flat terrain.

The number of objects is tied to the model quality slider in the graphics options menu and uses the Draw Instanced API.

Short Grass

In addition to having litter objects areas of the maps where grass is growing will have 3D grass in Direct3D 10. Grass 'shells' are drawn over the terrain using the Draw Instanced API so that soldiers will be able to walk on real grass instead of a flat painting of grass.

This is enabled in the options menu by selecting the Ultra detail terrain setting.

Point light shadows

In Direct3D 10 mode all lights can be shadowed. Whether it is a huge explosion, a street light, or even a match lighting a cigarette, the light has the potential to be shadowed.

This is implemented by rendering the entire scene is to all six faces of a cube map for each shadowing light using a combination of the Draw Instanced API and the Geometry shader. As long as shadows are enabled this feature is enabled.

General Improvements

As all the lighting in Direct3D 10 is 100% per pixel, the shadows are more softened, the lighting is more detailed, and there are more shadows the pixel shaders are up to five times longer than they were in Direct3D 9 mode. Many of these instructions can be skipped in typical day missions with only a few point lights, but night missions will tend to have more point lights which will require more work to draw the shadow maps and then more work to render the world scene with more active shadow maps.

In Direct3D 9 only the main sun/moon light was normal mapped; the ambient light and other lights were calculated per vertex. This is most noticeable when the object you're looking at is in a shadow and only ambient light is on it.

-novsync, triple buffering, and perftest

vsync is now enabled by default in both 9 and 10, although the -novsync command can be used to disable it. In Direct3D 10 (not d3d9) triple buffering is enabled if the -novsync or -notriplebuffer command line parameters are not used. Triple buffering will make the in game frame rate more consistent, but will use addition video memory and consume more virtual address space.

To make CoH more friendly to incorporating in benchmark suites we've adding the -perftest command line parameter (be sure to use -novsync with it!) which will save a performance report text file with average/min/max frame rates in the %user%/documents/my games/company of heroes/log files folder.

Running at very high resolutions and anti aliasing settings

Due to the limited address space of Vista 32 if trying to run at very high resolutions and/or anti aliasing settings the driver may consume so much virtual address space the application crashes. Running with -novsync for performance testing will disable triple buffering to recover a tiny bit of memory, but the best solution is to run Vista 32 set to give applications three gigabytes of virtual address space or to just run Vista 64 which gives all 32bit applications a full four gigabytes.

Subsequent runs

At the time the patch was released there was a known issue that made subsequent runs slower with certain cards. To work around this and ensure benchmarks are consistent and representative please exit CoH completely before re-running a performance test.

Screen shot comparisons

To save a screenshot as a lossless .tga instead of a small jpeg bring down the console by pressing <ctrl>+<shift>+~ and type app_screenshotext(".tga")

To save a series of screen shots (very slow!) to make your own movie or compare image quality use the recordmoviestart and recordmoviestop console commands. The default frame rate is set to 24, but this can be overridden with simmoviecapture=xxx. It is possible to bind these commands to a key combination of your choice to save you from typing them in the console each time.
Click to expand...
 
Can't say I find anything about that mega-impressive...
 
im running this now... I can tell you I don't really see a difference.
 
Certainly won't bring me any closer to getting DX10'd. I'm not arguing the merits of DX10, it's simply not worth it to me at this point in time.
 
I can see the improvement in the screens, but like the rest I'm not seeing anything to make me desperately want to rush out and buy Vista and a DX10 card, any time soon. Maybe when MS adopt a fair pricing policy for Vista for the European market I'll take the leap..but right now no chance.
 
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