DX10 overview at extremetech

[clarky003]

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1989814,00.asp

/pretty hyped. I can't believe those most recent Crysis screens where on dx9, I'm expecting dx10 to blow my mind.

 

[xombine]

Looks great. Those Hellgate screens look awesome on DX9, so like you said about Crysis DX10 should be jawdropping.

 

[giant384]

there wont really be that big of a difference in visuals

 

[Cole]

The article contradicts you Giant, for example...i'll just start quoting,

DirectX 10 has changed all of the rules. Developers have to rethink almost every part of their graphics engine when they're dealing with a DirectX 10 card. What can we do with it? Well, we have a couple specific ideas about how we can draw more and draw faster, but we also have a few ideas about how to use the geometry shader to do effects that are impossible on a DirectX 9 card.

What were you saying?

"The geometry shader looks pretty full of potential. So does the fact that you can write to buffers from any shader and then read them into another shader. Texture arrays look like they will make a big dent our batch count, which should lead to much better frame rates. At this point I feel like I'm looking at a shiny new toy through a shop window: I can't wait to get my hands on it and play with it, but I don't really know what it can do. "

"A DirectX10 graphics card is a big technological step from the previous generation of cards. Not only are they going to be a big jump in polygon counts and pixel fill rate, they give developers many, many more tricks that they can do. I think that most games are going to have a big visual difference between what a player will see on a DirectX 9 card and what they will see on a DirectX 10 card. "

The geometry shader, together with texture arrays, can greatly simplify some render-to-texture operations. This can speed up things like shadow computations, reflections and refractions.

Games will be able to provide multiple 3D view windows at the same performance of a single DirectX 9 window. By shifting more of the graphics processing tasks to the graphics hardware, the CPU is freed up to focus on other gameplay related tasks like better AI, more in-scene entities and deeper physics, thus enabling entirely new gameplay experiences.

The performance and increased visual detail alone should be enough to make you run screaming to get the new cards. DirectX 10 will allow developers to take advantage of more of the DirectX 9 functionality, in addition to the new DirectX 10 features, to create more realistic scenes, not just showcased objects, then ever before possible. Supporting this is a more stable and coherent driver architecture that will end the days of driver crashes interrupting your game experience. By freeing the CPU up to do more game-related processing, you will see a quantum leap in the depth of AI, physics, character interaction and realism that becomes inherent in the next generation of games

"Integrating DirectX 10 into our application will allow a much richer and more detailed world to be rendered at equivalent frame rates. Over the next releases, we will be continuing to increase the level of realism, detail in the world and world objects, dynamic lighting and subtleties, weather effects, and extending the capabilities of user interaction, exploration, and camera control in our world-spanning rendering environment. "

There will be more objects, more characters, more particles, longer view distance, more grass and foliage.

Many things are easier to work with on DX10. We can move several things from the CPU onto the GPU, like pre-skinned characters; geometry shaders will save bandwidth, texture arrays will save draw calls, and it's a generally more-efficient API. All this adds to a more effective rendering engine, giving the programmers more freedom to do other things they want. We are quite excited about being among the forerunners in DX10 game development and hope to be able to give players a richer, fuller experience when they invest in this hardware.

So please Giant stfu.

 

[mortiz]

Geometry Shaders seem to be the next big thing, like Pixel Shaders were with DX9. Though there is some overlap between Geometry Shaders and Vertex Shaders since Geometry Shaders can also operate per vertex.

 

[satch919]

This is what I'm saving up for. I plan to build a new system next year when Vista ships. Can't wait to see some real DX10 stuff.

Thanks for posting. :cheers:

 

[Naudian]

there wont really be that big of a difference in visuals

That's what I'm thinking.

Sure, for some games there will be more of a noticable difference than others, depends on whatever the devs do with it. They'll have some extra little effects here and there and an improved framerate etc, but it's still gonna look like the same damn game. At least that's what I'm expecting, dunno.

I'm still excited about it, definitely gonna upgrade soon after it's all released

 

[Asuka]

Very interesting.

 

[Warbie]

Good read.

I was going to upgrade over the next few weeks, but am probably going to wait for vista and a dx10 card.

 

[smwScott]

He probably doesn't know how to read properly (as evidenced by his typing) and just assumed the screenshots posted were running under DirectX 10. Silly boy.

However, I found this article to be pretty... well, I didn't exactly learn much. It was more or less a lot of "it'll be better."

I think he was referring to the difference between the DX9 and DX10 versions of the games listed in that interview, in which case he is probably right. Of course games designed specifically for DX10 will look much better, but games designed primarily for DX9 with DX10 support included probably will not look vastly different.

For example, the DX8 and DX9 versions of HL2 don't look too far apart (I've played through it in both).

 

[Adidajs]

the games will look only as well as the artists can draw them. btw, all those quotes make it seems like dx10 will usher in the golden age of gaming. lol.

 

[MultiVaC]

the games will look only as well as the artists can draw them. btw, all those quotes make it seems like dx10 will usher in the golden age of gaming. lol.

Of course, but the artists can draw them a hell of a lot better than they look in DX9, that's where DX10 comes it.

 

[Cole]

I think he was referring to the difference between the DX9 and DX10 versions of the games listed in that interview, in which case he is probably right. Of course games designed specifically for DX10 will look much better, but games designed primarily for DX9 with DX10 support included probably will not look vastly different.

In my opinion he is just trying to convince himself that Vista will be full of bugs and Dx10 wont be much of an improvement because he upgraded recently.
"theres really no point in waiting for dx10 next year i mean vista will have so many bugs in vista and by the time the 1st service pack comes out there might be a few games that have dx10 in it"
(This article already states 4 games)

"Well im not looking forward to DX10 anyways. I just upgraded, the sooner it comes out the sooner I have to upgrade . And there is nothing in this world that will posses me to get an XBOX 360. I..."
(As you see he already upgraded)

That is just my tenacious opinion, the actual truth you will have to ask him.

I don't know how scalable the Hellgate: London engine is so this quote could mean nothing or quite a bit.

"We are going to make every effort to make sure that there isn't a gameplay advantage to having superior hardware, but the game will look radically different between our very low min spec and the DirectX10 version."

 

[99.vikram]

Tbh, every new DirectX version was overhyped, and I expect nothing different here. Pixel shader technology was a cool addition, but I still play a Dx7 game the same as a Dx9 game. The geometry shader will probably be the same way.

As more processes are delegated to the GPU, fewer people can play the latest games. A large percentage of people buy computers primarily for other things, and gaming is just a side-function. Those people will no longer be able to play new games if they get more graphics intensive. Eg- Doom 3.

EDIT: Also, few people will bother upgrading to Vista unless they are hardcore gamers.

 

[P43.2/1Gig/X800P]

There is only a hand full of developers that will use Dx10 to the fullest maybe not even .. I'm starting to think it'll be a waist of money just to play a few Great looking games for the $$$ i'll endup spending. I'll just stick with console games cause there just gonna get better and better looking as the months go buy . I'll wait for vista to be out for a while and see what these developers can do with the new hardware.
Honestly who do you think is going to take advantage of the hardware at this point. Look at the X360 There is some much power in it and i have yet to see a game that looks like it should on the 360.

 

[nutcrackr]

I don't want to be negative nelly but those people expecting the coming of jesus because a game runs on direct x 10 are goint to be bitterly disappointed. It's going to be better but not jesus level 10 better.

 

[giant384]

i agree you really you see a huge differenec if the game supports both modes. possibily with a dx10 only it will, but we will soong find out.also the direct x really only allows for more things devs can do then with dx9 and it will also run faster then direct x 9 since it buts all the load on the graphics card.

 

[Warbie]

Not all of us expect a huge performance boost with dx10. It isn't long till these cards come out, though, and waiting a while rather than spending a few hundred on a dx9 card seems like a wiser choice to me.

 

[Javert]

I don't think these "Vista showcase" games to be that impressive until I see Dx10 in the flesh so to speak. But over time as the consumer hardware curve moves up, we will be seeing definite differences. I find it disturbing that Crysis intends to continue their harrowing graphical patching just to release on time and Flight Sim X releasing Dx9 quality and also patching.

 

[Cole]

As more processes are delegated to the GPU, fewer people can play the latest games.

That could be wrong depending on what you mean. For instance if your talking about the fact of less cpu intervention then you would be wrong.

However if you mean that GPU's are becoming more powerfull and by processes you mean higher polygons, more particles, etc.. then well every new DirectX raises these limits and speeds things up then you would be right. However we can only hope Intel will decide to get into the GPU market, make a very good GPU then mass produce millions of them thus making them much cheaper to sell, causing better graphic cards, for everyone even the average consumer, at a lower price.

Also, few people will bother upgrading to Vista unless they are hardcore gamers.

I don't play games to much anymore. However I will be upgrading. Infact when I go on Vista to play a game it's to play minesweeper. idk why I don't just play it on Xp....but well idk it looks cooler in Vista lol.

. It's going to be better but not jesus level 10 better.

Very true.

direct x really only allows for more things devs can do

Exactly like the geometry shader. Except will these new functions\ways of doing them will also cause a very good performance increase.