EggXpert

I noticed that the new 5000 series of the Radeon HDs support the new DirectX 11 standard, but what exactly does this mean? Does this mean that 10.1 cards will never be able to access the benefits of DirectX 11, or that they simply have not be tested and confirmed to work with DirectX 11 but, for practical purposes, will run DX 11 games just as well at DX 10 games (provided they are properly patched of course).

Mongoose:

Does this mean that 10.1 cards will never be able to access the benefits of DirectX 11,

Yup, DX11 has a bunch of improvements, most of them related to making things look more realistic, but there are also some neat improvements such as being able to call a render from any thread of the game running on a multi-core CPU.. Previously, there was only one thread that could deliver the final render frame to the GPU while other threads did other things like A.I. or game mechanics..  Now, you can have all 4 threads doing render calls simultaneously which is an important leap forward for making games more parallel and helps the game balance it's processing load across the cores more evenly so that one overloaded core running a single thread doesn't slow down the whole game...

There's also a few more tricks in DX11 that makes curved surfaces look a more realistic and smooth without sacrificing performance..By using DX11 tesselation, the game can at Run-Time increase the number of polygons that make up ANY form of object.. Previously such techniques had to be done beforehand and saved as separate meshes...

In previous versions of DirectX, the developers save the mesh once with 100 polys and then save the mesh again at 500 polys then save the mesh again at 1000 polys.. As the player gets closer to it, you have the game swap the meshes out so the card isn't drawing extra detail when the object is very far away..).. DX11 provides tesselation which means you just store the 1000 poly mesh and the DX11 card will be capable of rebuilding the mesh at any any poly count automatically on the fly in the middle of a game..  That is one heck of an amazing feature if you stopped and did some research on just how complicated the math is that's involved in simplifying meshes..  It gives significant opportunities to raise the quality of the scene without losing performance.. Basically making the rendering more efficient by drawing even less detail that will never be seen.. Also, it frees up a lot of video memory so you're not storing redundant meshes to be used when the object is different distances from the player.

 

Mongoose:

, or that they simply have not be tested and confirmed to work with DirectX 11 but, for practical purposes, will run DX 11 games just as well at DX 10 games (provided they are properly patched of course).

Nope, the capabilities of DX11 are VERY specific to the chip.. Chips that don't presently support DX11, will NEVER support DX11.

*sob* thank you very much for that excellently detailed and informative answer. *gives medal* *kisses feet* *withdraws*

DX11 sounds better than it is and/or will be in real world. The extra eye candy will not be without a cost (uses more resources). Not all future games will use it (some will, some wont). We have seen microsoft fail at upgrading DX (9 to 10 for example, many still use 9 cause 10 blows). I would by no means be comfortable spending more on a DX11 card that performs less than its DX10 counterpart. Now if they were the same price and performed identically, it would be a no brainer since even if DX11 tanked, it can still utalize DX9 or 10. Not being able to utilize DX11 is by no means a deal breaker for even the hardcore gamers.

DX10 doesn't "blow" the only reason DX10 didn't catch on was because Vista "blows"...

Now that Windows 7 is out, The attitude between DX10 and DX11 are completely different than DX9 vs. DX10 as any OS that runs DX10 will also run DX11.

 

Sidicas:

DX10 doesn't "blow" the only reason DX10 didn't catch on was because Vista "blows"...

Now that Windows 7 is out, The attitude between DX10 and DX11 are completely different than DX9 vs. DX10 as any OS that runs DX10 will also run DX11.

Your correct, both Vista AND DX10 "blow".

MaGicMaX,

Vista and DX10 did not blow.  The lack of support for DX10 in games is where the problem is present.  Of the DX10 capable games I played such as Hellgate: London, the grapics were noticeably improved using DX10 over DX9.  I am hoping that with both Vista and Windows 7 being more prevalent starting now that game devs will start releasing more games that do take advantage of the GPUs capabilities.

Tekran:

The lack of support for DX10 in games is where the problem is present.

Thanks for explaining why DX10 "blows". Lets hope the same issues don't plague DX11.

MaGicMaX:

DX11 sounds better than it is and/or will be in real world. The extra eye candy will not be without a cost (uses more resources).

If they didn't even increase the resources used by programs what is the use of buying say ........... two $400 video cards in order to run it?  In a world of ever increasing speed in processing do you really expect they would be trying to develop programs they can't even fully use them? And how would the programs / Games ever get any better?

 

MaGicMaX:

We have seen microsoft fail at upgrading DX (9 to 10 for example, many still use 9 cause 10 blows).

The main problem with DX-10 in its earliest days was the lack of ability for game makers to properly code games to run it, there were several DX-10 games the were so terribly coded they wouldn't even run in DX-10 mode. Current DX-10 games run perfectly fine.

 

MaGicMaX:

Not being able to utilize DX11 is by no means a deal breaker for even the hardcore gamers.

 You don't know very many gamers do you?

 

 

There are two reasons I am willing to buy a DX11 card: first, because its future-proof and second because these newer cards run better in benchmarks than previous generations (in most cases as I remember). Now, mind you, it might be a good idea to wait a bit before cracking open the good ol' 800$ (:P) to see if DX11 catches on at all, but if it is even a few games I can easily see where it would be worth it. Age of Conan is DX11 for one thing... Anyway, those are my vague, random thoughts on the issue.

Can you post some links for proof that AoC is DX 11 capable?  To my knowledge, AoC is only DX 10 capable, not DX 11.

As mentioned, if the new DX11 card actually performs better, its a no brainer, but thats not always the case (eg. 4870vs5750). Paying more for DX11 ONLY is a mistake, paying more for DX11 on a card that does not perform as well... is just plain stupidity (even for a hardcore gamer). If you want DX11 go for a card that also makes a jump in performance, like the 5850, otherwise go 4870, or wait a bit for prices to change, is my advice. Eventually DX11 will be equal in cost (become mainstream), its best to wait for now, its not like your missing out on many great must have DX11 games yet.

GmsCool:

The main problem with DX-10 in its earliest days was the lack of ability for game makers to properly code games to run it, there were several DX-10 games the were so terribly coded they wouldn't even run in DX-10 mode. Current DX-10 games run perfectly fine.

  Well, I'm sure that the nvidia drivers that were quite late and also quite buggy when Vista first came out had something to do with it also.. At least with Windows 7's launch, you don't have to deal with seriously buggy drivers.. The driver support for Vista when it came out was absolutely terrible, especially on the nvidia side..  I had a copy of Vista from a week before it was released and didn't install it until about 6 months ago ..  But yea, it's all good now and I'm happy with it as well as the driver support..   Vista and Windows 7 are now definitely ready for mainstream.

MaGicMaX:

Eventually DX11 will be equal in cost (become mainstream), its best to wait for now, its not like your missing out on many great must have DX11 games yet.

I do expect games to support DX11, but might not necessarily require it.. Just as how Crysis supports DX10, but certainly doesn't require it..  Running Crysis on Vista is nice, because you can enable the DX10 hardware accelerated features if you want them..  It gives you more flexibility with your options..  Most people put DX10 as requiring faster hardware than DX9 and that's not necessarily true.. If you really like DX10 "god rays" then you can turn them on and turn down your texture quality a little bit to get the same performance..   I'm just saying, the option to have DX10 enhancements in your graphics settings is very nice, rather than having a bunch of greyed out boxes.

 I'd pick a DX11 card over a higher performing DX10.1 card simply to have more cool graphics options to play with, even if I can't run all of them maxed out.

Sidicas:

GmsCool:

The main problem with DX-10 in its earliest days was the lack of ability for game makers to properly code games to run it, there were several DX-10 games the were so terribly coded they wouldn't even run in DX-10 mode. Current DX-10 games run perfectly fine.

  Well, I'm sure that the nvidia drivers that were quite late and also quite buggy when Vista first came out had something to do with it also.. At least with Windows 7's launch, you don't have to deal with seriously buggy drivers.. The driver support for Vista when it came out was absolutely terrible, especially on the nvidia side..  I had a copy of Vista from a week before it was released and didn't install it until about 6 months ago ..  But yea, it's all good now and I'm happy with it as well as the driver support..   Vista and Windows 7 are now definitely ready for mainstream.

Even on perfectly stabil drivers the same games don't play in DX-10 worth a dang.

 

 

Tekran:

Can you post some links for proof that AoC is DX 11 capable?  To my knowledge, AoC is only DX 10 capable, not DX 11.

Uhoh, I'm terribly sorry. I could have sworn that the "features" page of their "new since launch" link said it was DX11, but now that I check back again its DX10. Wikipedia confirms this. I'm glad you caught me on that one.

So, in short, no, I can't. ;)

Sidicas:

There's also a few more tricks in DX11 that makes curved surfaces look a more realistic and smooth without sacrificing performance..By using DX11 tesselation, the game can at Run-Time increase the number of polygons that make up ANY form of object.. Previously such techniques had to be done beforehand and saved as separate meshes...

Well, not exactly.  ATI video cards have supported tessellation for the last 8 years.  This feature could be used in some popular games, including: The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, Half Life, UT 2K3 and 2K4, a few Star Wars games, Command and Conquer: Renegade, Quake (1 and 2), Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, and Serious Sam (1 and 2). Unfortunately, it never really took off, since nVidia pressured Microsoft into leaving that out of Direct X.  It was used more extensively on Xbox 360 games, as the ATI video card used in the console supported it. 

In fact, tessellation was originally supposed to be included in Direct X 10.  It was in the original draft spec, and ATI built in hardware support for this DX 10 tesselation in to their Radeon 2xxx video cards.  However, nVidia complained(as their cards did not support it), and Microsoft decided to hamstring DX once again.

According to rumors, even the new nVidia GT300 Fermi cards don't support tesselation, and nVidia is planning to run that feature through GPGPU software emulation, and not dedicated hardware acceleration. 

Oh, and OpenGL supports tessellation natively on ATI 2xxx, 3xxx, and 4xxx video cards.  OpenGL can run tesselation on older cards(back to the Radeon 8500) using an ATI add-on. 

 

http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=149550

http://http.developer.nvidia.com/GPUGems2/gpugems2_chapter07.html

 

 

Looks like it might Compwiz.

While you never know until its actual release, I can't imagine Nvidia would allow them selves to be one upped that far by ATI.

And the recent drivers for NVidia have been coming with OpenGL support.

 

Good find, maybe they will have a dedicated unit.  

As for the GPU Gems link, it appears that that is running through the normal shaders.  ATI has had a dedicated Tesselation unit in their GPU's since the Radeon 8500, so Tesselation has little impact on performance.  

GmsCool:

http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=149550

Wow, in that link is a great demo vid:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkKtY2G3FbU