DirectX 10 POWWWWWWWAAH!

[deepfried]

Yes, in case you didn't catch it, the title of my thread is positively weeping sarcasm from open sores.

Why?

Let me start at, well, the start (It's a VERY good place to start.)

A few weeks ago, after purchasing my yummy little new 'puter, I thought I'd sit back and engage in the sweet, sweet eye candy of Far cry 2.

Installation? fine? performance check? "Well done, your system is totally ready to kick ass son!", which is groovy.

Hell, I played it on mostly high/est settings and still got playable framerates,

So why the long face?

Directx10, that's why.

Now, Even though the game is patched to the newest version, my graphics drivers are blazing edge and my system brand spanking new, this game, for some unknown reason, HATES DX10.

So why not run in DX9c? A good question, and for obvious reasons I reverted the game to engine engine number 9, bringing me back to the hectic world of malaria and molotovs I love so dearly, and all was well.

The thing that DOES bug me however, is that games developers seem to be pushing us towards DX10 hardware with chants of "ZOMG YOU GET REALISTIC SMOKE AND SHINY THINGZZZ." Nice. On the other hand, I like more than 12 FPS, thank you very much.

So even though I'm on DX10 hardware, with new drivers, a brand new game with a brand new patch, as mentioned, I still get an unplayable experience.

Here's a tip Nvidia/Ubisoft. Don't lie to me please. You can scream "REALISTIC SMOKE AND GLASS" all you like, but at the end of the day if my game resembles a jerky 1800's sepia motion picture then I'm not going to be a happy bunny, no matter how oily the smoke.

On a parting note, I've tried DX10 Far cry on different systems VS dx9 with the same result. Maybe I'm unlucky, or maybe, just maybe, we're not all quite so version 10 ready as they'd like us to believe.

Your thoughts? Any other major offenders? feedback is welcome. :wavey:

 

[Rastalovich]

Dx10, great ideas, poor implementation and support for it. Perhaps a botch and patch too far.

Hoping for better with Dx11. (unlikely)

(oh and the realistic smoke effects I can live without too tbh, not fps related or anything, just know myself that the game engines can do this just as well)

 

[deepfried]

Very true, I actually noticed no real difference in image quality, although perhaps that was due to me being busy shouting "WTF IS THIS SH*T, I SPEND £300 for THIS? :O"

I hope for better with DX11 as well, Im frankly appalled by the general...well, badness of 10, I'm amazed it ever made it past the drawing board.

 

[Rastalovich]

I do honestly think, as a general sweeping remark for the whole industry not just m$/Dx, that they've reached a level where they are either only interested in producing small steps of improvements instead of anything breathetaking or the best way to make cash.

It`s not good for progress, but it's all either cash related (my opinion) or competancy related (which I used to believe, but now I think they're more holding back on purpose).

 

[Jaster]

mmmm....one thing overlooked is that DX10 engines are only used by PC's...most consoles are using development tools for DX9...one of my mates who works at infrogrammes has already stated on more then one occasion that until the consoles catch up with PC's (which lets face it is gonna be some time) that were not going to see a vast number of developers utilizing, correctly may I add, the DX10 SDK, and it predominantly used as an after thought. It sucks. He was saying that the SDK for the Cell Engine heavily utilises DX9 components to make it easier to develop games for the PS3, after the jump ship attitude of alot of the game developers after the PS3 was delayed, and delayed again. He also stated that even though it getting easier to develop for multiple consoles and pc, its harder to optimise for each accordingly.

Sucks hard I know, but the moneys with the consoles guys. And the consoles choice is DX9, although rumour has it that Xbox 360 is in for a major overhaul and the SDK's in beta are utilising, some, and I say that loosely, dx10 extensions. But as we all know, dx9 + god rays does not equal dx10...

 

[Hyper]

I totally agree with you here,

Its one of the reasons I bought an Xbox 360 since you would never know if your computer is going to run the next new game or not,

GTA IV on the pc is a great example of this, it runs fine on the Xbox 360 which is of a much lower spec than my computer but runs terrible on my PC,

I am not the only either, only people with the very latest graphics cards running in SLI get a good framerate with the settings turned upto a decent level (I would say the same standard as 360 but I know I would get flamed),

But yes anyway back to the point,

Why cant more devolopers be like Valve and produce an engine that actually runs smooth on semi decent hardware.

 

[deepfried]

Good point

You made a good point there,. I just got left 4 dead, and it'll happily run ony dads pc (I was bored lol) and that doesn't technically meet the minimum requirements. It also looks very pretty, now Granted it doesn't have the massive sandbox feel of other shoot em ups these days, but it hits heavy in all the right areas.

Maybe it's just too much too soon, even for pc's?

Far cry 2 has about 50 kilometers square of land, which is impressive enough, but it seems that trying to apply DX10 to all that is a step too far.

I'm just a little sore about the fact I shelled out for a DX10 card and got nothing from it (other than a Gpu core currently clocked at just under 700mhz )

 

[Rastalovich]

It`s the age old story of "why bother allocating memory properly - when we can assume everyone has atleast 2g in their machine anyway".

 

[Jaster]

lol Rast...but at current DDR2 pricing everyone should have at least 2GB..

One other thing though that Ive noticed alot especially with vista users is that the ammount of times I'm turning off super fetch and altering the page file for people to enhance performance (and I'm talking about users who are quite technically adept as well) is frankly quite astonishing. If you plan on gaming these 2 things are a must to free up RAM in Vista. Obviously turning off indexing and a few other things helps but super fetch is a biggie as it chews up resources no end.

 

[Rastalovich]

Yeah, it`s assumptions and doing the job properly that separates the proper programmer from some1 who just learnt it in school/college.

 

[Jaster]

hahaahahaha....your right ...dead right...

"want a real job, career with prospects, learn games design in your own time and as little as 2 years with learn direct".......the people who do these courses wouldnt of got a YTS back under thatchers rule ... but its these people who are responsible for the crappy engines were seeing....

 

[JN]

hahaahahaha....your right ...dead right...

"want a real job, career with prospects, learn games design in your own time and as little as 2 years with learn direct".......the people who do these courses wouldnt of got a YTS back under thatchers rule ... but its these people who are responsible for the crappy engines were seeing....

Haha that made me laugh. Hate those f**king adverts. In fact I hate any adverts that try to lure idiots into earning masses of money by studying for a job in Information Technology.

Some balance needs to be restored in this world. Idiots sweep floors. Intelligent people support/programme computers.

 

[Rastalovich]

I still don`t, to this day, understand how some1 in such a position can be capable as far as a job is concerned, and not have a pc at home. I know people who work in just IT in general who are in that situation.

If it`s a creative job, I wouldn`t touch u. If however ur in imacs or service, I can understand how it would and does work. Still being a bit confused mind.

 

[Jaster]

my dad got retrained throuh computeach and has more microsoft certifications then I care to mention, after 7 years of constant studying and at a cost of over 12K he can't get a job. Reason. It took him 13 hours over 2 days to sort out my sis's computer out, all it was was a simple "no sound" issue, after this time he gave up, phoned me, I went round, within 2 secs I had sorted it. The problem. Speakers not plugged into the correct port.

I actually had a barny with one of there so called "advisors" after my mate chris fell for the spiel that he could become a games developer in 2 years. The actual advisor couldn't answer me this simple question "Which SDK's and low level programming knowledge will be taught through the course" his reply "whats an SDK"...That again was computeach and they only wanted 3K. Its a con, train you in something that sounds impressive but to be honest if you fall for these schemes, then a McDonalds Apprenticeship is probably more then you can handle.

I swear the whole world needs a foot up its arse. Sorry for ranting but I have had some grade A morons on the phone this morning, including one guy who was wondering why his laptop werent working after sitting in the bath with it watching the Man U match last night. And I mean in the bath and not in the bathroom.

 

[Jaster]

Some balance needs to be restored in this world. Idiots sweep floors. Intelligent people support/programme computers.

Yeah I suppose we should assign floor sweeping to idiots, thats the politically correct route, I would of said thats womans work....

Joking...She's gonna be on the doorstep with a rolling pin when I get home tonight

 

[Rastalovich]

Not only "PC", but it is becoming too much the norm that a college/university place is attainable after school.

It used to be the case that u had to be the best in ur school to get into these places. Then they widened the acceptance grades. Then they gave all the colleges run in sheds university status. Then they took out alot of specialize content from school curriculum. Made the exams/courses very hard to fail in many cases.

People need to be able to deal with not being good enough for certain things, and not being made to feel they can do what every1 else is doing, because they want to and can pay for it.

It`s going to have similar consequences to allowing people to take no deposit mortgages at 10x (eg) their salaries.

At some point in time we, as a breed of animal, will get bitten on the arse. Expect something to be solved by people we`ve told are good enough.

 

[Jaster]

yep..when I studied computing science at college (1993 to 1995) you had to do maths a level as well... 40% of the course was based on boolean logic, binary, floating point and machine code. The following year they cut the sylabus and removed all this and replaced it with a module in microsoft office applications....I found that very very dubious....it just staggers belief that more and more kids are leaving school with better qualifications yet at the same time we have the largest level of illiteracy for school leavers...huh...dont tell me there not "dumbing down" the educational establishment...

 

[Rastalovich]

First day of physics A level was spent physically ripping pages out of text books as they were no longer required to be known.

It was obviously a display by some1 within the profession in terms of what they felt about the changes from the previous year.

Still sure u dont need to know things today as u get some sheet during exam time with all the formulas & equations.

Did a c&g last week that was open-book and multiple choice. I'm now a qualified pat tester. Kinda worrying

 

[Jaster]

that is a bit worrying...hope your business liability insurance is up to scratch

Apparently though the exam markers are having a laugh...I remember reading this a whilst back

http://www.birminghampost.net/news/...ks-for-swearing-on-exam-paper-65233-21207054/

Bring back the cane thats what I say...

 

[painejake]

I totally agree. The DX10 in Farcry 2 made me actuallly want to cry it is SHOCKING. Unbelivable, hell i ent gonna even start :'(