DirectX 11 - Does it have future?

DX10 seems to be pretty much ignored now, most games only mention DX9 or DX11

 

DX11 is a superset of DX10. So games stating 'DX11' are really DX10 with a few DX11 niceties tacked on.

Basically, most of DX10 IS DX11 anyway. And DX11 (well Direct3D11 to be more precise) is backward compatible, so will only call for functions available in DX10 hardware if available (which could still be elements of DX11 spec, even with a DX10/9 card -i.e multi threading, tesselation, compute shader etc etc).

In fact, there is no reason for developers to use anything other than DX11, as its function call feature makes it compatible all the way back to DX9. (this was first introduced in DX10.1)

Its the DX10/10.1 features that really do most of the magic above DX9:

• Unified pipeline architecture) 10
• New state object to enable (mostly) the CPU to change states efficiently.10
• Shader model 4.0 10
• Geometry shaders, which work on adjacent triangles which form a mesh.10
• Texture arrays enable swapping of textures in GPU without CPU intervention.10
• Predicated Rendering 10
• Instancing 2.0 support10
• Mandatory 32-bit floating point filtering. 10.1
• Mandatory support for 4x anti-aliasing 10.1
• Shader model 4.1 DX10.1
• Feature levels DX10.1
• Tesselation Support DX11
• Compute Shader DX11
• SM 5.0 DX11
• Multi-threaded rendering DX11

 

The engines, like the ubiquitous Unreal, its main goal to make life easier for developers to use the APIs?

 

Well, yes and no......

DX is a API for 3D rendering. It's a framework that "only" covers this low level aspect, for a certain technology (DX)

A game engine is a superior framework for developing games, that (tries) covers many aspects of the game development, not only graphics ......

Sometimes, yes, it makes things easier, since it abstracts undelying APIs (like DX).... but usually implementations are "standard" or "normal".....

games engine's can "wrap" diff tech (openGL/DX) under the same "engine lib or API), thus abstracting both into a single easier-to-use API or lib......

BUT ........

when you need to optimize code for a certain platform or a problem (i.e. performance problem) the only way to do it "right" is to get down at API level and do it yourself, instead what the game engine offers .......

 

Is it me or does it seems that there are more DX11 titles in this list than DX10 titles that are available?
Anyway, DX11 has just been released. Things will evolve over time. It is good that most developers are slowly embracing DX10(.1) now. It's a start.

Now about OGL3.0 games.....

 

Gracias por aclarar esta cuestión, Ibitato.

 

I can think of 3 titles(fix me if im wrong) that ware first build to the PC and then ported to consoles, but only 1 of them is released to date. Dragon Age Origins, (still not released)The Witcher 2 and Battlefield 3.
Dragon Age Origins is a pure example of how the games should be made.
Oh btw... i'm happy that that console version of The Witcher 2 was canceled(for the moment) so it will first came out for the PC and "maybe" will get a console release later on.
As we can see there is a very few developers that actually cares about PC capabilities.... sad, but true!

 

PC's are too much of a variable to solely dedicate too. Unlike 10 years ago when hardware was limited and had plateaus of performance today's hardware is vast and difficult to understand at what the plateau of performance is currently at, especially with Intel and Nvidia/AMD coming out with bigger, faster architecture every few years.

Consoles are still at this plateau and are easy to build off of.

So until consoles set the next performance plateau that developers can Count on to make $$ we won't see a sudden significant change in the PC gaming world. We will continue to see trends like now with specific titles by few companies to use the latest and greatest.

This is not necessarily a bad thing either, we PC gamers have access to the better toys now while consoles have to wait to be gifted their upgrades.

But when that change does happen it will be like a Tsunami in transition.

 

I do think that besides poor adoption rate, DX11 doesnt bring anything too new into the table.

Its not like the difference between i dunno, GTA 3 and Crysis (first DX8, second DX9c). We wont have that kind of differences between DX9c/DX10 and DX11.

Well get mostly polishing of the current top notch effects (physics, SSAO, soft shadows, parallax, tesselation), but i dont think that DX11 will bring something that screams "this is DX11 biachs!"

For example, STALKER CoP implementation brought almost no visual impact (tesselation on characters and contact hardening shadows) but, it brought something fairly new, SSAO done on computa shaders, that didnt do anything stunning, just gave better perfomance compared to DX10.

I think that future games on DX11 will bring that, better performance for already available effects, some polishing of said effects and thats it.

Until we can start to ray trace at 60fps of course.

 

I actually think the opposite is true.

For DX10 and 11, the hardware MUST support all features - this was not always the case.

Hence, its easier these days to code, as the huge range of hardware available (mostly for different performance segments) still must adhere to the same spec.

Total, 100% compatibility is down to driver development - which is not the job of the game dev (though it does help if they work hand in hand).

Obviously, consoles are easier to develop for though, as they have a fixed range of functions and performance limits. You don't need to code granularity into a game, as they all run with the exact same settings on each platform.

 

I miss Glide

 

Old consoles with poor performance and DX7-DX8 (fake DX9) shaders are slowing us PC players alot.

 

1) DirectX is not just about Graphics but Audio !

2) Crysis was DX10 at launch, not added with a later patch as many keep claiming !

3) Nvidia did not bribe MS and MS does not need their money, simply put Nvidia had their DX10 GPU's already as good as finished so any major changes MS could do to Vista could mess up Nvidia really badly.

On up side as ATI came late to table with DX10 GPU's they made them DX10.1.

IMO DX10/DX10.1/DX11 could have been used much better if it were not for crappy consoles which many kiddies think are so great but are subsidised over milked crap with overpriced games.

But if your MS and Sony who can blame them for milking as they are out to make money and kiddies are dumb enough to pay them.

Look back are early 2000's when PC games were PC games and they launched when ready not rushed and hardly ever needed 1 patch never mind multiple patches to make even playable.

 

I doubt that it will, more than likely a new DX will come out around the release of the new round of consoles. Developers will then actually use that.

 

I don't think we will be able to move on from DX9 until the next gen consoles comes out.

 

I said along time ago that dx11 is a fad,its still a fad now,thats why i havent upgraded my gpus yet as its pointless performance wise.Dx11..meh

 

I thought the same but my GTX 285 is not the coolest or quietest card at idle (do not care about load) !

Added to fact it no longer can Max some newer games at 1920x1200 with Max settings esp AA with 1GB of video memory !

I got a very good deal on an Asus GTX 580 so it arrives tomorrow !

 

DX11 will rise when game developers stop focusing on consoles so much...I always think sometimes, what if game consoles weren't around? If they weren't then I think we would all be playing games with the graphics quality of a freakin like pixar movie.
Game developers should really look at what PC has to offer. Games should be ported to consoles not the other way around...I bet some game devs don't even know what DX11 is lol

 

Hahahahahaha!!!! Seriously? Yeah it looks good, but seriously did it really need all that extra crap added in? It just destroyed the performance/frame rate of the game. No one could play it maxed with out frame rates dropping sub 20's which is NOT good utilization as you put it. In fact I think its the worst ever. I do not see any good utilization of DX11 in any game out at all. Most of the time its a little addition like water simulation, or tessellation that destroys frame rates or its an all out DX11 game and still no one can run it. Why ATI/Nvidia do not have multi-core rendering enabled in their drivers for DX11 is beyond me!? That would increase performance by around 10-15%.

I am waiting for Crysis 2 to show us how DX11 should be done, but I think we shall be disappointed once again.

Other than tessellation, or directcompute, DX11 looks literally no better than DX9 did and that performs 10x better yet still looks great.

 

Actually DX11 should run DX9 features faster as that is what they claimed.

And I can say a proper DX10 game looks far better than DX9 but I ain't seen a proper DX11 game yet (played Metro 2033 on GTX 285).

I do not listen to naysayer cause they would have us all on XP 32bit with DX7 and things would never evolve !