KodiackTech Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 (edited) DirectX 10 has been an option for developers since Vista's release on November 8, 2006. That's over five years ago. DirectX 10.1 added some minor incremental changes and wasn't overall groundbreaking, and it was rolled out to the public en masse on February 4, 2008. DirectX 11 - the latest and (supposed) greatest version of Microsoft's API - made its debut on July 22, 2009 with Windows 7. What's currently the latest version of DirectX 11 still isn't seeing much mainstream use by developers despite it being two and a half years old. DirectX 9 is still a solid API, but it's just not keeping up to pace. Any modern graphics card from the GeForce 8000 series or later and the ATI Radeon HD 2000 series or later is capable of running at least shader model 4 stuff. Even Intel's modern integrated graphics chips are DX10-compliant. SWTOR is a fun game, but it could be improved. A handful of games (particularly MMOs) have started supporting DirectX 11 in hopes of better performance. World of Warcraft added support with the release of the Cataclysm expansion pack, it's been added to the (rather infamous) Star Trek Online MMORPG for a short while, and Lord of the Rings Online has always been a bit quick at jumping on the bandwagon. Neither title sees any graphical boost with the API, although both games net performance increases. World of Warcraft usually sees about a 30% boost to framerates, sometimes going even higher. I have done some benchmarking on my system and realized roughly a 50% increase in framerates by simply running DX11 over DX9. If you're interested, my benchmarks are available here: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3229374095 Adding DirectX 11 support is definitely more complex than hitting a button and throwing together a couple lines of code, but in the end I personally believe it would be a positive investment. I've seen a few sites mention that Bioware was/is considering possibly adding support in a future patch, and I would like to personally vouch my support for that. It would be an excellent addition. SWTOR has a lot of potential and the sooner it's extensively polished with robust features, the better. Now, let's see what kind of replies this thread gets... ¬_¬ Edited January 19, 2012 by KodiackTech Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thasaint Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 Maybe somebody can prove me wrong, but the hero engine does not support DX11... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SWGVet Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 Hereo engine only supports DX3. Sorry bro. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aleutius Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 The funny part here is the comparison of technical polish to switching from dx10 to dx11 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RickRedOne Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 Maybe somebody can prove me wrong, but the hero engine does not support DX11... But the original WoW engine didn't either. Their DX11 support only came out with CAT. It can be done, but will take time to modify the Hero engine to support it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HELhikari Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 I believe a lot of games are running on engines designed to run on both PC and 360, which is, afiacr, stuck at DirectX 9. And the Hero engine doesn't support DirectX 10 or 11, afaik. They've been talking about adding support for DirectX 11 for ages. I believe currently it supports DirectX 8 and 9. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KodiackTech Posted January 19, 2012 Author Share Posted January 19, 2012 (edited) The funny part here is the comparison of technical polish to switching from dx10 to dx11 I admit that I did an absolutely terrible job linking the two, or even comparing them for that matter. I'll edit the post if I can come up with better wording. **EDIT Reworded it slightly. Edited January 19, 2012 by KodiackTech Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monjiay Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 "What is DX11?" -Gabe Amatangelo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thasaint Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 But the original WoW engine didn't either. Their DX11 support only came out with CAT. It can be done, but will take time to modify the Hero engine to support it. cept blizzard made that engine... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CapitaFK Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 BioWare can't even optimize properly on DX9. I don't even wanna know how bad they'll screw up DX11. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KodiackTech Posted January 19, 2012 Author Share Posted January 19, 2012 BioWare can't even optimize properly on DX9. I don't even wanna know how bad they'll screw up DX11. DX11 can be used as an optimization technique. A poor implementation would indeed hurt performance, although getting it done properly could possibly make a substantial difference. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corpsevapor Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 (edited) The hero engine team is working on adding a OpenGL 2.1 client and later DX11. But with that said Bioware has done alot of work on the hero engine so there is no telling if its in a state where they can use the updates made by the hero engine team. Edited January 19, 2012 by Corpsevapor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aleutius Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 The hero engine team is working on adding a OpenGL 2.1 client and later DX11. But with that said Bioware has done alot of work on the hero engine so there is no telling if its in a state where they can use the updates made by the hero engine team. Isn't speculation fun? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
faulteroy Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 Isn't speculation fun? It'd be even more fun if we had some actual input from EA/BioWare on the performance issues. Instead, we get "We're looking in to it." Meanwhile, people running top-end hardware are getting 5-10 FPS in certain situations. It should have been looked in to during beta, not a month after release. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhazesx Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 The hero engine team is working on adding a OpenGL 2.1 client and later DX11. But with that said Bioware has done alot of work on the hero engine so there is no telling if its in a state where they can use the updates made by the hero engine team. According to the Top Heroengine Dev, Bioware hasn't used their updates in years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crimsonhart Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 It'd be even more fun if we had some actual input from EA/BioWare on the performance issues. Instead, we get "We're looking in to it." Meanwhile, people running top-end hardware are getting 5-10 FPS in certain situations. It should have been looked in to during beta, not a month after release. What are you talking about the game is perfect!!! I know this guy, who gets good framerates, so yea, there's no problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ozirizo Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 LOTRO started with DX9, then added DX10, then DX11. It will happen, in time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shoxc Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 LOTRO started with DX9, then added DX10, then DX11. It will happen, in time. Lotro was released in 2007. Used dx9. Then dx10 came out, they added dx10, then dx11 came out, they added dx11. Swtor was released in 2011. Uses dx9... what? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KodiackTech Posted January 19, 2012 Author Share Posted January 19, 2012 LOTRO started with DX9, then added DX10, then DX11. It will happen, in time. D'oh, dunno how I forgot to include that one in my examples. Thanks for posting! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Traumahawk Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 According to the Top Heroengine Dev, Bioware hasn't used their updates in years. Please cite your source on this. I'm interested in reading it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KodiackTech Posted January 19, 2012 Author Share Posted January 19, 2012 (edited) Please cite your source on this. I'm interested in reading it. http://wiki.heroengine.com/wiki/HeroEngine_Roadmap I'm not sure how much this would affect SWTOR's implementation, though. I'm sure that by now the engine Bioware's developing on is heavily branched off from the one the HeroEngine devs are updating. Only time will tell! Edited January 19, 2012 by KodiackTech Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kennkra Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 PLEASE DONT GIVE THEM ANY IDEAS FOR GODS SAKE. Maybe in a year or so, but for now, plz, ability lag>combatlog/dmgmeters>balance>bugs>create ticket hotkey Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KodiackTech Posted January 19, 2012 Author Share Posted January 19, 2012 (edited) PLEASE DONT GIVE THEM ANY IDEAS FOR GODS SAKE. Maybe in a year or so, but for now, plz, ability lag>combatlog/dmgmeters>balance>bugs>create ticket hotkey For most games being developed, stuff like interface, balance, and possibly even game responsiveness fall to different teams of people than those that would handle the graphics engine and/or optimization. Edited January 19, 2012 by KodiackTech Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LaManoNera Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 LOL they can't even get AA right. You're being too hard on the interns with this request. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grammarye Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 DX11 would be nice; things like full support for VRAM virtualisation or multi-threaded preparation of rendering tasks are very nice additions to the DX line. However, I'm neither surprised that TOR went with DX9 (for mass market appeal) nor that it'll be a while before they went DX11 (even though I asked really nicely during beta! ) When we start seeing games that don't support XP, we'll see DX11 being taken on heavily. I'd give it another couple of years yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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