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Alienfreak

ArmA II DirectX 10 or DirectX 10.1?

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Pretty self explanatory smile_o.gif

Will ArmA II make use of the 10.1 features or not?

It's rather important to me because I plan to buy a new GFX card soon and ATi 4xxx do support it and Nv 2xx dont :/ while my gaming focus will be ArmA II for the near future smile_o.gif. So if it supports the advantages in speed of 10.1 over 10 it will be worth buying the new X2 of ATi. But if not I will not jump on the multi GPU core train yet and go for the single core GTX280+/b.

Are there any official infos out on that topic yet?

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Marek (Maruk) already stated that Dx10 isn't as impressive as they anticipated. I should assume that this means it's highly unlikely that BI will use DX10 in ArmA2.

PS: I think you can see far away from any games on DirectX 10.1. I think the main cause for this is because DX10.1 came out right after everyone had bought a DX10 card, thus making the market more suited for DX10 rather then DX10.1.

Source: ArmA 2 interview - Level 165

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DX 10.1 works fine with DX 10. You just cant use the speed features if I get it right smile_o.gif

And I guess a speed push is what DX 10 can really need in order to be more impressive than now...

And Blizzard wants to introduce it in D3, plus some other developers also want to make use of it.

ATi supports DX 10.1 since the 3xxx Series. And don't tell me you recently bought something older than that smile_o.gif. It's just Nv which doesn't support it. Not even with its latest GPU Generation...

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If ArmA II would "support" DX10 it would be ok, but it would lead to ,that DX10 and supported hardware is needed to run ArmA II.

I want to see the wave over here, when Vista would be needed to run ArmA II. whistle.gif

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It wouldn't?

How many games do you know that support DX 10 and need a DX 10 GFX Card to run?

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Well after hearing that the Expansion-pack for Crysis will only use DX9 and not DX10 anymore (providing the SAME effects), i somehow do believe that DX10 must be some sort of Bullshit.

Also the predicted Performance increase by DX10 over DX9 in the Game "Assasins Creed" was also a lie or a false assumption.

So i think today that DX9 is still the way to go.

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DX10 was never about performance, it was about DRM, and a bit of shiny on the side. There's various new functions, but that's to provide more for programmers to glomp onto their render boxen. Any performance boosts are coincidental.

Crysis is not the only one, the promised DX10 rebuild for Supreme Commander was also pulled as well.

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Well after hearing that the Expansion-pack for Crysis will only use DX9 and not DX10 anymore (providing the SAME effects), i somehow do believe that DX10 must be some sort of Bullshit.

Also the predicted Performance increase by DX10 over DX9 in the Game "Assasins Creed" was also a lie or a false assumption.

So i think today that DX9 is still the way to go.

Well if you tinkered with the Crysis config files, you could enable many of the supposed "DX10 only" features while running DX9... tho the performance of the game when you did this wasn't that great (not that it was all that great while actually running DX10 either). I would assume it could have been much smoother if the devs had actually spent time to optimize the features for DX9, as it apears they are doing for Warhead.

So I agree with you, DX9 is perfectly fine for now. As it is, adding DX10 gives a minimal advantage, and is a waste of dev time more then anything else IMO.

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IMHO DX 10.1 is what 10 was supposed to be from start ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct3D#Direct3D_10.1

anyway i find it 'quite' funny that DX11 will support hw tesselation while AMD.ATI cards got it already for 2 generations :(H48xx/46xx and HD38xx/36xx) )

(ofcourse more generations if You consider old style tesselation for n-patches which ATI codenamed TruForm)

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I'm sure there would be benefits for a proper Direct3D 10(or up) implementation, however as DX10 is Vista only it means if you want to use it you must do both D3D 9 and D3D 10 render "paths" separately. And the majority of your customers are in the DX9 land so that's the one you should spend more time optimizing (That is, in practice you would propably build everything on D3D9 and then add some D3D10 extra features if possible).

With Vista being the kind of pile-of-junk it currently is Microsoft quite screwed it up by making DX10 Vista only. But thats what Microsoft excels at  wink_o.gif

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I'm sure there would be benefits for a proper Direct3D 10(or up) implementation, however as DX10 is Vista only it means if you want to use it you must do both D3D 9 and D3D 10 render "paths" separately. And the majority of your customers are in the DX9 land so that's the one you should spend more time optimizing (That is, in practice you would propably build everything on D3D9 and then add some D3D10 extra features if possible).

With Vista being the kind of pile-of-junk it currently is Microsoft quite screwed it up by making DX10 Vista only. But thats what Microsoft excels at  wink_o.gif

i fully agree with the problem of 'Vista' only path ...

most likely with DX11 annouced majority of developers do 'leap' jump to DX11 with 10/10.1 fallback for older cards ...

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Quote[/b] ]HMO DX 10.1 is what 10 was supposed to be from start ...

That's why I ask whether they will use it wink_o.gif

But im all fine with DX 9 only, too. Makes the Decision easier for me wink_o.gif

(at least if they don't get the micro lagging of crossfire under control and arent cheaper than the GTX280)

Btw. is ArmA II made with SLI/Crossfire in mind?

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DX10 Is little but hype produced by Microsoft/card manufacturers to get gamers to buy Vista.

It may theoretically be able to provide better performance in the very long run, but for now, DX9 is good enough for these cards.

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alienfreak the CrossFire / SLI % on market is totally minimal to bother with any special support ...

that should be anyway problem for GPU drivers itself to handle the rendering load and distribution of work correctly ...

imho i would prefer improved physics over visuals atm (ArmA visuals just need some 'tweaks' for HDR, shadows, softparticles etc) ...

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I would agree with Dwarden above in that ArmA2 should concentrate on stuff that makes for a better battlefield rather than a prettier battlefield. ArmA level graphics are fine in this respect, maybe a few tweaks like particle improvements, volumetric effects improvements (layered fog) and perhaps some user access to shaders (so modders can write B&W shaders, explosion-shake shaders etc).

I think general physics & terrain improvements should get more of a boost, deformable terrain would be great, but full physics applied to all objects would be great. So fallen trees can be road blocks. So fallen trees can be cover. So a tree on fire might set another tree on fire if the wind & distance is favourable.

The biggest improvement however I'd like applied to AI. AI in ArmA is pretty good (considering) but the vehicle logic needs a total rewrite. Tanks should act like tanks, not go leaping like suicidal gazelles into open space during a battle biggrin_o.gif Stuff like that.

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I always thought you could optimize a game towards multi GPU systems...

But im fine with single GPU & non DX 10/10.1 GFX.

I would just appreciate a developer statement on that topic, so I can rest easily with my decision on a new GFX card for ArmA II smile_o.gif

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Quote[/b] ]Well after hearing that the Expansion-pack for Crysis will only use DX9 and not DX10 anymore (providing the SAME effects), i somehow do believe that DX10 must be some sort of Bullshit.

Also the predicted Performance increase by DX10 over DX9 in the Game "Assasins Creed" was also a lie or a false assumption.

So i think today that DX9 is still the way to go.

You are mistaken here.

Crysis Warhead will still make use of DX 10. They just renamed "very high" into "enthusiast" and made it available under DX 9, which was also perfectly possible under the core Crysis with a simple text editor.

Noone actually said that you CANNOT run the effects under DX 9. They are just not supported and thus more intense to calculate, making your FPS drop smile_o.gif

(some gamers say it was faster under DX 9, but im sceptical towards that)

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(some gamers say it was faster under DX 9, but im sceptical towards that)

Thing is, with the same system configuration, XP has better frame rates than Vista every time. That might be what they meant?

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Nope... they were talking about "very high" on DX 9 (presumably on XP) and "very high" on DX 10 (presumably Vista)

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My opinion to this is that you should not think about ArmA II if you want to buy new hardware now.

If you want to buy the hardware specifically to play ArmA II, then wait until ArmA II has been published. Let other people try it first and listen to what they say about it. Then make your decision if you need to buy new hardware and what kind of hardware that would have to be.

If you look closely at this forum I am sure you will find people crying that they purchased new hardware specifically because of ArmA I and they purchased it before ArmA I was published. And that the hardware they purchased doesn't really work in combination with ArmA I or that the performance they get is just much lower than what they were expecting to get... and then they cry months and months about it here instead of just looking into the mirror.

Of course, if you are one of those people who just want new hardware mostly because it's new hardware and because you can buy it, then ignore my opinion...

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Good point, Baddo. I rarely upgrade, and only when really necessary.

I very much hope ArmA 2 sticks to DX9 and not fall into the Vista-only trap -- although I guess that depends on the eventual release date! If it ends up being 2009, then DX10 will start to make more sense...

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Well but my GFX card had a nice good old BBQ with itself.

So im unable to play ArmA I until I buy a new one :/

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And well, since they'd have to code for both DX9 and DX10 it's quite an extra workload (a large chunk, if not the majority of all players doesn't have DX10-compatible cards, so they can't skip DX9), so if what DX10 offers isn't worth the strain of coding for both, then why should they?

I fully understand that so many developers stick to DX9 since there is nothing revolutionary in DX10 to be had. Just smaller improvements. Possibly that we'll see quite some use of DX10 in two or three years more when the vast majority will have upgraded to DX10-compatible cards, but who knows; maybe we'll have DX11 by then.

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same with Flight Simulator X...I can remember this 'lovely' DX 10 rendering picture preview in 2006.

Now, what's actual implemented after two years? Just a preview mode (SP2) with some minor effects and maybe small performance improvements.

And I've bougth a DX 10 card... banghead.gif

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