You get a performance boost and the fact the current cards can handle things like shaders a lot more effectively, also the fact the cards require less power to run becomes a factor as well for some people.
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Beyond Microsoft DirectX® 9.0c
- Thread starter Big.Wayne
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You get a performance boost and the fact the current cards can handle things like shaders a lot more effectively, also the fact the cards require less power to run becomes a factor as well for some people.
Soldato
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The hacked DX10 Crysis looks fantastic but it's not as good as the real thing.
It's hard to quantify in words the benefits of DX11 since were talking about image quality which is highly subjective hence why I'm posting is a blend of broad, vague and colloquial language! It’s not like I can say ‘when running under DX 11 the Radeon 5770 has an 18% image quality improvement over its nearest DX10 rival’.
Also looking at screen grabs posted on websites that review image quality as well as performance just doesn’t do it justice as you need to see it with your own eyes to really judge. Then there’s you’re expectations as well which can have a dramatic effect on how you perceive something, if there high then your going either be disappointed or left wondering what all the hype was about whereas for me I didn’t really expect much from gen1 DX11 titles in terms of image improvement and I was surprised.
As for what I actually like well tessellation adds real depth and shape which gives surfaces a more realistic look where as before they looked flat, pointy and a texture wrapped around it to make it look real. Now if you used to DX9 you probably won’t notice this but play in DX11 then go back to DX9 and it makes you appreciate a lot more. The biggest benefit for a gamer with DX11 is when you’re playing a DX11 title you can be confidant of two things, it’s either making your game look better or it’s making your game faster.
If you real want to be sold on DX11 I suggest you take a look at Crysis ‘GPU genocide’ 2, frankly if your still not sold on DX11 then stay with XP until games are no longer supported on it.
It's hard to quantify in words the benefits of DX11 since were talking about image quality which is highly subjective hence why I'm posting is a blend of broad, vague and colloquial language! It’s not like I can say ‘when running under DX 11 the Radeon 5770 has an 18% image quality improvement over its nearest DX10 rival’.
Also looking at screen grabs posted on websites that review image quality as well as performance just doesn’t do it justice as you need to see it with your own eyes to really judge. Then there’s you’re expectations as well which can have a dramatic effect on how you perceive something, if there high then your going either be disappointed or left wondering what all the hype was about whereas for me I didn’t really expect much from gen1 DX11 titles in terms of image improvement and I was surprised.
As for what I actually like well tessellation adds real depth and shape which gives surfaces a more realistic look where as before they looked flat, pointy and a texture wrapped around it to make it look real. Now if you used to DX9 you probably won’t notice this but play in DX11 then go back to DX9 and it makes you appreciate a lot more. The biggest benefit for a gamer with DX11 is when you’re playing a DX11 title you can be confidant of two things, it’s either making your game look better or it’s making your game faster.
If you real want to be sold on DX11 I suggest you take a look at Crysis ‘GPU genocide’ 2, frankly if your still not sold on DX11 then stay with XP until games are no longer supported on it.
Hes not talking so much about the potential tho - but more about what advantage someone upgrading from a DX9 system to a DX10/11 system would see today (and I guess the immediate future). Sure heaven looks nice but not many people sit there looping heaven.
Aside from a handful of games that require DX10/11 as a minimum - half of which are pretty naff, the other half very subjective to taste - theres not many cases where DX11 really is used to much potential over the DX9 version if available.
Soldato
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You don't need to spend anything on an OS, considering there are many freely available that support OpenGL 4.1.
Which sums it up pretty nicely for Wayne, DX11 is still [imo] in it's preliminary stage.
I think part of the problem is a lot of the mainstream games are built on top of various flavors of the Unreal Engine which is still heavily rooted in DX8/9, tho it does have some DX10 functionality but often with the bugbear of various incompatibilities for instance HDR/deferred shading and AA. Maybe Unreal Engine 4 will change that and see a wider adoption of DX11 effects.
Similiar story with a lot of engines really - right now most are offshoots of engines that have been built on top of the original DX7 generation, porting to DX8 and 9 was relatively painless but a lot of stuff needs rewriting for DX10 and 11... once people do start to do that we should see a big shift over.
Similiar story with a lot of engines really - right now most are offshoots of engines that have been built on top of the original DX7 generation, porting to DX8 and 9 was relatively painless but a lot of stuff needs rewriting for DX10 and 11... once people do start to do that we should see a big shift over.
Caporegime
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One thing I would say Rroff, is that the shadows thing is pretty noticeable, I remember all the way back to Bioshock, the only real difference between dx9/10 was the smoke, soft edges vs clipped edges is very noticeable. It used to be the smoke would look like a cloud with the corridoor(or whatever else) superimposed on top and so the clipping line where its just sitting "over" the smoke. But honestly I'll say I've not noticed it in many other games, maybe their dx9 smoke was just crap, who knows.
As for DX11, realistically theres VERY little a new API brings with it that CAN'T be done before, theres several things that were too complex with too big a performance hit to use without a new API but not really much thats impossible.
DX9/10/11, the main reason is to add improvements and simple make things easier, add short cuts, change rules that don't work and add ones that do.
At the moment due to consoles most people are still coding for DX9 from the ground up(well not quite dx9, but closer to dx9 than dx11) which means a lot of what we get now is tacked on. If it doesn't work under DX9 efficiently its not going in as especially for mainly console games theres little point spending a lot of time on effects that have to be disabled on your primary focus for release.
Tesselation is a hardware shortcut/aceleration of something VERY possible to do before hand. The memory usage and power drain of creating one of those tesselated uniengine images without tesselation would be immense though.
As for DX11, realistically theres VERY little a new API brings with it that CAN'T be done before, theres several things that were too complex with too big a performance hit to use without a new API but not really much thats impossible.
DX9/10/11, the main reason is to add improvements and simple make things easier, add short cuts, change rules that don't work and add ones that do.
At the moment due to consoles most people are still coding for DX9 from the ground up(well not quite dx9, but closer to dx9 than dx11) which means a lot of what we get now is tacked on. If it doesn't work under DX9 efficiently its not going in as especially for mainly console games theres little point spending a lot of time on effects that have to be disabled on your primary focus for release.
Tesselation is a hardware shortcut/aceleration of something VERY possible to do before hand. The memory usage and power drain of creating one of those tesselated uniengine images without tesselation would be immense though.
DX11 Shadows do have several advantages - contact hardening means they don't interact funny with multiple shadowmap/stencil volumes intersecting but also older shadows would often clip through surfaces or also show on both sides of blocking geometry which would look very odd. However you don't always notice the difference when playing through the game.
z-feathered smoke/particle effects are nice too - but unfortunatly not used very much as you mentioned - that is one effect I would like to see more.
z-feathered smoke/particle effects are nice too - but unfortunatly not used very much as you mentioned - that is one effect I would like to see more.
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tbh everybody has they own likes / dislikes. its very difficult to say if it's worth it or not.
has more games are being made they'll be using dx10/11 and more effects of dx11..
also tbh if you've already got a dx10/11 card it makes sense to get the most out of it (detail/effects and performance)
has more games are being made they'll be using dx10/11 and more effects of dx11..
also tbh if you've already got a dx10/11 card it makes sense to get the most out of it (detail/effects and performance)
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Hello arc@css 
I'm just trying to dig down into the DirectX® side of things and check out the facts . . . I do agree with what uv said though about not apportioning all of the Windows 7 asking price soley on its "improved" DirectX® tech but still it is probably one of several main selling points so its good to examine . . .
Sorry If I didn't make this abundantly clear but I beta tested Windows 7 for a year and am aware of 99% of what it offers . . . I didn't get to test out all the DirectX® stuff though as I was using a nVidia 8800GT at the time . . . I couldn't see any difference between DirectX® 9.0c and DirectX® 10.0 . . .
I'm just trying to dig down into the DirectX® side of things and check out the facts . . . I do agree with what uv said though about not apportioning all of the Windows 7 asking price soley on its "improved" DirectX® tech but still it is probably one of several main selling points so its good to examine . . .
What are these games please? . . . I'll have a nose and see what I can see . . .
It's a buzz word isn't is? . . . DirectX® 11 oohhhhh
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Cheers Rroff, thats a good bit of info!
Yeah although the "value for money" is not strictly to do with DirectX® 11 . . . unless of course you are meaning in terms of a technological investment which it sounds like you are . .
Can't be argued really . . . I certainly have no insights into what the future brings . . . there could be some games in 6-12 months that really benefit from a specific piece of DirectX® 11 hardware . . . personally I would be of the mind of crossing that bridge when I come to it! . . .
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Hey 'Wes
That's interesting! . . . I've not heard that games can actually run faster using a more modern DirectX® version? . . . intuitively I would have thought the opposite to be true . . . although going by what Rroff has said when combining a more modern card with improved feature set alongside a more modern DirectX® version I suppose its possible? . . .
Yeah, again I would say thats not strictly to do with DirectX® 10/11 and just more to do with updated design/manufacturing technology . . . unless there is some part of the newer DirectX® 10/11 API that is responsible for power saving functions?
Well I guess the future proofing is a gamble.
One thing I should probably mention - a lot of my buying decision was based on having a 120Hz display so I wanted a GPU that would get as high as possible framerates while still offering reasonable value for money - which just happened to be a DX11 card. Which doesn't really affect the OS I guess which was the original post question.
EDIT: Ah I remember why I went Windows 7 now... I was rebuilding my gaming PC at the time when Win 7 was on the pre-order specials - I picked up 2 copies at like £41 each... which wasn't a big deal over sticking XP back on it (the other copy went on my laptop which was a new clevo chassis with no OS).
One thing I should probably mention - a lot of my buying decision was based on having a 120Hz display so I wanted a GPU that would get as high as possible framerates while still offering reasonable value for money - which just happened to be a DX11 card. Which doesn't really affect the OS I guess which was the original post question.
EDIT: Ah I remember why I went Windows 7 now... I was rebuilding my gaming PC at the time when Win 7 was on the pre-order specials - I picked up 2 copies at like £41 each... which wasn't a big deal over sticking XP back on it (the other copy went on my laptop which was a new clevo chassis with no OS).
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Rroff, is there something in DirectX® 10/11 hardware technology that when combined with an updated O/S would improve the quality/framerate of a DirectX® 9.0c title? (or a title played using the older API?) . . .
i.e is there something about the newer stuff that handles the older stuff more efficiently?
i.e is there something about the newer stuff that handles the older stuff more efficiently?
Thats not a straight forward story - on the face of it an unmodified DX9 game shouldn't run any different under XP than Win 7.
In practise you have 3 issues - DX9 performance can sometimes be very slightly degraded on Win 7 and/or some older games aren't 100% compatible but on the flipside a lot of developers now concentrate on Windows 7 for performance, compatibility and quality improvements in their latest drivers so you may see better results in that way - quite a lot of developers are now starting to phase out improvements in their drivers on older platforms.
I wouldn't rush out and update from XP -> Win 7 right now unless I happened to have the cash spare and not sure what to do with it but I'd certainly be starting to think about it now as XP support is starting to be left behind.
In practise you have 3 issues - DX9 performance can sometimes be very slightly degraded on Win 7 and/or some older games aren't 100% compatible but on the flipside a lot of developers now concentrate on Windows 7 for performance, compatibility and quality improvements in their latest drivers so you may see better results in that way - quite a lot of developers are now starting to phase out improvements in their drivers on older platforms.
I wouldn't rush out and update from XP -> Win 7 right now unless I happened to have the cash spare and not sure what to do with it but I'd certainly be starting to think about it now as XP support is starting to be left behind.
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Soldato
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If you are a student you can upgrade to win7 ultimate for 40 if you shop around.
