37 réponses à ce sujet

[TallBearNC]

A lot of people seem confused on hi rez textures vs high and very high DETAIL settings in the game. So here's the 411. Feel free to correct me,  but I'm pretty knowledgable in these areas Also some fixes for theme, mouse, and error messages are posted here. Each section will end with *'s for clarity and easier reading

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**First off the details settings vs the high rez pack have NOTHING to do with each other. Totally sep things.

DX 9 vs 10 vs 11
Second, VERIFY your card is a DX9, 10.x, or 11 card. For nvidia people, DX11 didn't start till the 400 series if remember correctly. DX10 is the 8000, 9000, 100-300 lines if I remember. I can't speak for ATI cards as I haven't used an ATI card since 2002. EDIT: I think the first ATI DX10 card was the 2900XT, and the 5870 was ATIs first Dx11 card.  Based on that, I'd assume the 3000,4000, and lower numbered 5000s are DX10 cards, and anything 6000+ are DX11

If you use the DX11 renderer
(and you can only use it if you have a DX10 or 11 card as well as Windows 7 or vista (with the proper service pack)):

Low-Med = DX9 effects (using the DX11 renderer)
High = DX10 effects (reqs a DX10 or 11 card - using the DX 11 renderer)
*Very high = Dx11 effects (reqs a DX 11 card to even select it)

*If you have a DX10 card you will never be able to select very high, but this doesn't prevent you from using the hi rez texture pack.

DX11 doesn't require a DX11 card like DX10 did. You can run the DX11 renderer with a DX10 card, but you can't use DX11 effects.

If you use the DX9 renderer:
Low-Med = DX9 effects using the DX9 renderer
High = can't select regardless of video card
Very high = can't select regardless of video card


For NVIDIA people, 267.59 beta drivers, or future drivers, offer the best performance
(social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/300/index/6571278) is a link for nvidia people and how to install the drivers. Huge thanks to the OP of that thread for making it. That really helped a lot of us nvidia people

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High Rez textures

High/low res textures usually do not affect performance. High rez textures just consume more video memory (mostly because they use less compression).
 
If your card only has 512MB of ram, then the hi rez pack would probably exceed that. in that case performace WOULD be affected. A modern card (still supported by currect drivers) can NOT run out of memory (well it could, but, currently it is HIGHLY unlikely). Instead system memory is used/shared. Video cards can address up to 4GB of ram (be it on the card or shared with the system)

How does this slow things down? Swapping memory to/from the card to system ram takes more time, the GPU can't just access the system memory.  So if textures are sitting in system ram vs vram (this happens when there is not enough vram), they must by swapped to the vcards vram, then the GPU can use it.

Again, Keep in mind, very high/high details, has NOTHING to do with hi rez textures. Hi rez textures can even be used in DX9 mode. Hig rez textures are just less compressed, and with more detail, and thus consume more memory. The pack doesn't add more polygons, etc for the GPU to draw.

So in most cases, hi rez TEXTURES will not slow you down one bit (unless you have a 512MB or less VRAM). For hi rez textures, Id recommand a card with 1GB-1.5GB of memory, but 1GB is BWs official rec specs for the high rez texture pack.

**=EDIT: The hi rez pack is VERY noticable under full DX11 rendering (game set to very high details). When that's on, with the hi rez pack, people's faces become VERY VERY detailed, as well as their gear and environmental textures. This is very noticable on the 2 default male hawke's. On high detail (even with the hi rez pack), he doesn't look so old. On VERY HIGH, he looks "aged" like he's in his late 40s as his face becomes VERY detailed with wrinkles.

*********************************************************

Fixing mouse, resource error messages, and performance warnings by Visa and 7

Works for disc, steam, EADM, etc

Default locations for Disc and EADM are:
"C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Electronic Arts\\Dragon Age™ II\\bin_ship" (64bit OS)
"C:\\Program Files\\Electronic Arts\\Dragon Age™ II\\bin_ship" (32bit OS)

Steam:
"C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Steam\\steamapps\\common\\dragon age ii\\bin_ship" (64bit OS)
"C:\\Program Files\\Steam\\steamapps\\common\\dragon age ii\\bin_ship" (32bit OS)

D2D:
I do not know. I only use retail, eadm, or steam. never used d2d

Steps:
1) open up the dragon age 2 program folder (see above for locations)
2) right click DragonAge2.exe and choose (send to desktop (create shortcut)), OR you can hold down shift+control and drag and drop the icon to the desktop to make a shortcut.
3) right click the shortcut on the desktop
4) click comapability tab
5) click DISABLE DESKTOP COMPOSITION

#5 will auto switch you to basic when you run the game, and auto switch you back to your normal theme within 5-15s after you exit the game. This will save you from having to manually set it each time Doing this will also get rid of those ANNOYING messages when you alt tab or exit from DA2 that your vista or windows 7 machine resources are low and/or the message that your system is having performance issues.

Don't mess with other options as they can slow the game down.

HOWEVER, you can feel free to also check "run this program as adminitrator". This will assure the game runs with admin privs always. Of course, on a properly set up OS (for more advanced users), you should never have to run anything as the admin as you are always in admin mode.

**********************************************************

side notes & geeky tech facts for those inclined:

Why don't we see video cards with 2, 3, or 4 GB of vram? because many people still use 32bit versions of windows. That video memory HAS to be addressable by the system. Since 32bit versions of windows are limited to 4GB, every bit of video memory TAKES AWAY system memory. So a 4GB rig under a 32bit version of windows with a 2GB video card would only be able to use 2GB of system memory and 2GB of video memory. Put that same rig under a 64bit version of windows, and 4GB of system memory, and 2GB of pure video memory are available. The more people that switch to a 64bit OSes, the higher the vram will grow on video cards. I hope you get the picture.. a 4GB video card is impossible on a 32bit OS, and even a 3-3.5GB card would be VERY impracticle on a 32bit OS.. and with SLI and crossfire, there's even more video ram that will suck up space on a 32bit system.

Note that SLI/Xfire vram does NOT "stack" So if you have 2, 1.5GB cards, you do NOT have 3GB of video memory for use for textures. Why? In very basic terms, the cards are treated as one card by the system and applications. The drivers do all the dirty work. Although the total memory must be mapped and accounted for. Hence why all that space for system ram is lost under a 32bit OS. I'm not going to go into the technical details, but if you were to look this up, you could find the details

However, any 32bit app on 64bit windows must undergo "emulation" Thus, a 32bit game running on a 64bit system *will have some performance hits*  Gaming companies SHOULD be releasing BOTH 32bit and 64bit versions of their games. It doesn't take many changes to make a 64bit game. It doesn't have to use all the features that a 64bit os can provide. So you don't have to redo all your variables, etc. But just having it be a 64bit client will greatly imporve the game's performance on a 64bit rig.



Edit: Edited for better formatting, Added default path locations to the executable file
EDIT: Edited to fix formatting issues, spelling, grammar. Added some side notes/factoids.
EDIT: Added mouse/theme, resources error fixes

Modifié par TallBearNC, 19 mars 2011 - 10:27 .

[RaenImrahl]

Excellent guide, thank you. Deserves a sticky.

[TallBearNC]

Heh don't I wish most things that should be stickied don't get stickied - unless there's a ton of replies to it. I'll bookmark this and maybe bump it once a week for a while if need be.

[Ragadurn]

Great overview indeed!

One thing that could be added would be that, given how the DirectX 11 renderer uses the texture files, although the high resolution textures can be used without it, the picture quality improvement will be most noticeable while using DirectX 11.

That is roughly what devs said when releasing the pack and might be due to some DirectX 11 effects directly depending on texture information.

Modifié par Ragadurn, 19 mars 2011 - 09:24 .

[TallBearNC]

Yes the high rez pack is VERY noticable when you turn on very high details and DX11 tessalation kicks in. I forgot about that. Thank you. I added it as an EDIT to my OP.

An example of this is male hawk using either of the 2 preset "main" hawke profiles. His actually fairly "aged", but this is not very noticable unless you're on very high details with the high rez pack.. then you see a LOT of wrinkles and lines on his face that make him look like he is in his late 40s.

Modifié par TallBearNC, 19 mars 2011 - 09:30 .

[Kayden SiNafey]

Your assumption about High is incorrect from the evidence I have found. It still uses DX11 rendering and until you can prove other DX11 features are disabled while using this mode such as Tessellation (which you can not manually control) I still think this is causing the performance hit while running in High. The problem is DX10 is not compatible with Tessellation and just to say High is only DX10 only because it can be enabled isn't looking into why there is such a problem with performance. Now you could very well be right and this is what Bioware intended this but there is nothing in game to prove Tessellation is off, because by there own requirements for you to use DX11 features you need a DX11 card thus if DX11 is enabled those features are enabled and nothing about DX10 is in the requirements to run features just that you have an os supporting DX10 (cause you need DX10 to run DX11). I implore you to edit that because there is nothing to support that theory.

[TallBearNC]

@Kayden very very wrong. I've been a gaming programmer for over 20 yrs and use DX11, 10, and 9 APIs on a daily basis

[Slakky]

For DirectX compliance information, see the comparisons of AMD and nVidia GPUs on Wikipedia.  You can mostly just go by the series number, but there is some crossover at the low end, especially with integrated chips.

[TallBearNC]

Dx11 has made different modes it runs in depending on your hardware, so yes, the game can, and DOES, sense that, and disables very high mode (tessalation and other fx), and only limits you to high if you have a DX10 card and only provides DX 10.x effects. Technically if you had a DX9 card, you could STILL run the DX11 renderer, but you would be limited to low and medium settings.

Now if the game's DX 11 calls are crude and buggy as well as the GPUs video drivers.. well.. then yes.. you will suffer issues in DA2 with DX10 and 11 cards. Which is why the game flys in under the DX9 renderer. It's old, but safe and solid.

BTW, tessalation doesn't even get used in DA2 in "high" mode. High is STRICLTLY DX10 effects... just moust hover over it in game and it tells you that... want me to show u a screenshot? Very high is full DX11 fx.

Modifié par TallBearNC, 20 mars 2011 - 05:56 .

[TallBearNC]

Let's see.. screenshots of the game actually disabling and enabling things like tessalation, etc in the DX11 renderer...

http://www.flickr.co...rnc/5543831758/

http://www.flickr.co...rnc/5543831428/


If you'd like, I can even post gaming screenshots showing tessalation going OFF while in high mode.. it's VERY VERY visable.. especially at 2560x1600

Edit: cropped pictures to show detail levels better and set permissions to public so they are viewable. Once in flickr, just click the pic to see it zoomed in

Modifié par TallBearNC, 20 mars 2011 - 06:17 .

[xoxiin]

Kayden SiNafey wrote...

Your assumption about High is incorrect from the evidence I have found. It still uses DX11 rendering and until you can prove other DX11 features are disabled while using this mode such as Tessellation (which you can not manually control) I still think this is causing the performance hit while running in High. The problem is DX10 is not compatible with Tessellation and just to say High is only DX10 only because it can be enabled isn't looking into why there is such a problem with performance. Now you could very well be right and this is what Bioware intended this but there is nothing in game to prove Tessellation is off, because by there own requirements for you to use DX11 features you need a DX11 card thus if DX11 is enabled those features are enabled and nothing about DX10 is in the requirements to run features just that you have an os supporting DX10 (cause you need DX10 to run DX11). I implore you to edit that because there is nothing to support that theory.

You can easily tell when tesselation is off. Go to any location outside the city and look at the hills. When in "Very High" the ground is clearly smoother, and when in "High" it's clearly more jagged. You can also clearly see the contact-hardening soft shadows, and the diffusion depth of field.

If you mouse-over the settings in game it gives you a description. It clearly states that "High" requires DX10 hardware and "Very High" requires DX11 hardware.

[TallBearNC]

@xoxlin, yep, and when you go from high to very high... the default hawke model shows MANY more wrinkles and looks much more aged. you can clearly see the game going from DX10 fx to DX 11 fx, and like you said, you can also see it in the environment as well. What's unfortunately is ATI and Nvidia have not fully optimized their drivers for DX11 (and DA2) *and* the game needs some work on its DX11 engine

Modifié par TallBearNC, 20 mars 2011 - 08:22 .

[BTCentral]

Both informative and factual. Thank you very much TallBearNC.

[TallBearNC]

Kayden SiNafey wrote...

Your assumption about High is incorrect from the evidence I have found. It still uses DX11 rendering and until you can prove other DX11 features are disabled while using this mode such as Tessellation (which you can not manually control) I still think this is causing the performance hit while running in High. The problem is DX10 is not compatible with Tessellation and just to say High is only DX10 only because it can be enabled isn't looking into why there is such a problem with performance. Now you could very well be right and this is what Bioware intended this but there is nothing in game to prove Tessellation is off, because by there own requirements for you to use DX11 features you need a DX11 card thus if DX11 is enabled those features are enabled and nothing about DX10 is in the requirements to run features just that you have an os supporting DX10 (cause you need DX10 to run DX11). I implore you to edit that because there is nothing to support that theory.

why would I edit your above info in when it's totally off base?

1) You CAN control tessellation. Just because you are in DX11 mode does NOT mean tessalation is auto applied. Now some games may auto apply it when in DX11 modes, but that's THAT game. tessalation is just like turning SSAO on or off. The only difference in DA2, is they don't have a check box for tessalation. They have a *detail level* for it. If you don't think you can manually turn T on and off, then you should read up on DX11 and study the DX 11 APIs. Until you do, you really have no basis for making that statement that you can't control it.

2) How do I KNOW it's off on high?
Theoretically: no DX11 features are run while the game is in "high" mode. DX11 itself will not allow DX11 fx to be run on a DX10 card (it can not be emulated).
Oberservation: I can CLEARLY see DX11 effects, including, tessaltion go OFF when I go to high mode, and ON when I go to very high mode. I can also slap in a DX10 card, and very high is greyed out, and there are only DX10 fx going on, and the card performs about what it should for 2 8800s.
Technical Tools: I can fire up nvidia tools and see what's being used or not used on the card

Clearly, so far there is no basis for me to adjust my OP based on what you have said.

Now.. what you can arguably say is "I think DX10 cards take a performance hit when running DX10 fx under a Dx11 renderer" that is a VERY VERY VERY valid argument and calls into question on how well can DX11 handle DX10 fx on a DX10 card in a DX11 rendering environment. Many things can then be questioned: Is the application coded properly, are the drivers optimized properly, is there a bug in DirectX II itself? All are very, very valid questions and arguments. Or you can argue that DA2 DX10 support under DX11 is crappy. Another valid point. If this is what you are trying to say, then I fully agree with you.

But when  you say things like tessalation can't be controlled, that's not quite true. You can turn it on, or off. 

Now if I ran on high with a DX11 card *and* I noticed tessalation being ON both by observation and by the tools I have, then I would have to partially agree with you and say that "high" mode has a performance bug for DX11 only cards where it keeps tessaltion on, but I see no evidence of that

Modifié par TallBearNC, 20 mars 2011 - 08:58 .

[MaxPayne37]

Kayden SiNafey wrote...

Your assumption about High is incorrect from the evidence I have found. It still uses DX11 rendering and until you can prove other DX11 features are disabled while using this mode such as Tessellation (which you can not manually control) I still think this is causing the performance hit while running in High. The problem is DX10 is not compatible with Tessellation and just to say High is only DX10 only because it can be enabled isn't looking into why there is such a problem with performance. Now you could very well be right and this is what Bioware intended this but there is nothing in game to prove Tessellation is off, because by there own requirements for you to use DX11 features you need a DX11 card thus if DX11 is enabled those features are enabled and nothing about DX10 is in the requirements to run features just that you have an os supporting DX10 (cause you need DX10 to run DX11). I implore you to edit that because there is nothing to support that theory.

Apparently you're just not looking at the proof that is given, and not testing DX10 hardware to prove your theories. If you compare a screenshot with Tessellation to the max a DX10 card will support, you will notice you will NOT see Tessellation on the DX10 card as it's not supported. It just seems like you're the one that wants to be right now, when you're not giving any proof otherwise, but we are.

I say all this because I DO NOT want to give false information to people when we could possibly solve their issues, not just work around them.

Now.. what you can arguably say is "I think DX10 cards take a performance hit when running DX10 fx under a Dx11 renderer" that is a VERY VERY VERY valid argument and calls into question on how well can DX11 handle DX10 fx on a DX10 card in a DX11 rendering environment. Many things can then be questioned: Is the application coded properly, are the drivers optimized properly, is there a bug in DirectX II itself? All are very, very valid questions and arguments. Or you can argue that DA2 DX10 support under DX11 is crappy. Another valid point. If this is what you are trying to say, then I fully agree with you.

There is a performance hit, because it is enabling DX10 effects over the DX9 ones, but not DX11. The DX11 renderer is just used for backwards compatibility for DX10 effects, which it does support, and is supposed to do.

But I do believe that the DX11 renderer in DA2 does need work, both in DX10 rendering and DX11 rendering, just due to the performance issues people are having, even with driver updates.

Modifié par MaxPayne37, 21 mars 2011 - 12:16 .

[TallBearNC]

MaxPayne37 wrote...

Kayden SiNafey wrote...

Your assumption about High is incorrect from the evidence I have found. It still uses DX11 rendering and until you can prove other DX11 features are disabled while using this mode such as Tessellation (which you can not manually control) I still think this is causing the performance hit while running in High. The problem is DX10 is not compatible with Tessellation and just to say High is only DX10 only because it can be enabled isn't looking into why there is such a problem with performance. Now you could very well be right and this is what Bioware intended this but there is nothing in game to prove Tessellation is off, because by there own requirements for you to use DX11 features you need a DX11 card thus if DX11 is enabled those features are enabled and nothing about DX10 is in the requirements to run features just that you have an os supporting DX10 (cause you need DX10 to run DX11). I implore you to edit that because there is nothing to support that theory.

Apparently you're just not looking at the proof that is given, and not testing DX10 hardware to prove your theories. If you compare a screenshot with Tessellation to the max a DX10 card will support, you will notice you will NOT see Tessellation on the DX10 card as it's not supported. It just seems like you're the one that wants to be right now, when you're not giving any proof otherwise, but we are.

I say all this because I DO NOT want to give false information to people when we could possibly solve their issues, not just work around them.

All you said was DX10 was one of your DX10s supposed to be 11?

I assume when you said "Tessellation to the max a DX10 card will support" you meant "Tessellation to the max a DX11 card will support" ?

Modifié par TallBearNC, 21 mars 2011 - 12:08 .

[MaxPayne37]

TallBearNC wrote...

MaxPayne37 wrote...

Kayden SiNafey wrote...

Your assumption about High is incorrect from the evidence I have found. It still uses DX11 rendering and until you can prove other DX11 features are disabled while using this mode such as Tessellation (which you can not manually control) I still think this is causing the performance hit while running in High. The problem is DX10 is not compatible with Tessellation and just to say High is only DX10 only because it can be enabled isn't looking into why there is such a problem with performance. Now you could very well be right and this is what Bioware intended this but there is nothing in game to prove Tessellation is off, because by there own requirements for you to use DX11 features you need a DX11 card thus if DX11 is enabled those features are enabled and nothing about DX10 is in the requirements to run features just that you have an os supporting DX10 (cause you need DX10 to run DX11). I implore you to edit that because there is nothing to support that theory.

Apparently you're just not looking at the proof that is given, and not testing DX10 hardware to prove your theories. If you compare a screenshot with Tessellation to the max a DX10 card will support, you will notice you will NOT see Tessellation on the DX10 card as it's not supported. It just seems like you're the one that wants to be right now, when you're not giving any proof otherwise, but we are.

I say all this because I DO NOT want to give false information to people when we could possibly solve their issues, not just work around them.

All you said was DX10 was one of your DX10s supposed to be 11?

I assume when you said "Tessellation to the max a DX10 card will support" you meant "Tessellation to the max a DX11 card will support" ?

No, I meant if "you compare a screenshot with (DX11) Tessellation, to the max a DX10 card will support (the two comparisions)..." Sorry for the wording

Modifié par MaxPayne37, 21 mars 2011 - 12:12 .

[BTCentral]

TallBearNC wrote...

I assume when you said "Tessellation to the max a DX10 card will support" you meant "Tessellation to the max a DX11 card will support" ?

I assumed it he meant: "If you compare a screenshot with Tesselation (therefore a DX11 screenshot), to a screenshot with the maximum settings a DX10 card will support".

Edit: 'd.

Modifié par BTCentral, 21 mars 2011 - 12:13 .

[MaxPayne37]

Also, stated by BioWare themselves...

http://blog.bioware....ge-ii-–-part-2/

One of the major goals of the team was to make the game look great on all platforms. Having accomplished that, we started researching what additional features we can offer to our users that have invested on higher end PC hardware. The latest PC GPUs that have been recently released on the market are very powerful. DirectX 11 technology is a great way for us to target this advanced GPU hardware, as DirectX 11 is fully backwards compatible with DirectX 10. So if you have a video card that supports DirectX 10, DirectX 10.1 or DirectX 11, and Windows Vista SP2 or Windows 7, you’ll be able to benefit from additional technology features as described in this post.

Modifié par MaxPayne37, 21 mars 2011 - 12:25 .

[TallBearNC]

That's a great link! Thank you. May I edit it into my OP?

[MaxPayne37]

TallBearNC wrote...

That's a great link! Thank you. May I edit it into my OP?

Please do, to prove a point, especially to Kayden

[DABhand]

Kayden SiNafey wrote...
The problem is DX10 is not compatible with Tessellation and just to say High is only DX10 only because it can be enabled isn't looking into why there is such a problem with performance.

Not sure if it is you Goran..

But DX10 can very very much handle Tesselation, even Instanced.

[MaxPayne37]

DABhand wrote...

Kayden SiNafey wrote...
The problem is DX10 is not compatible with Tessellation and just to say High is only DX10 only because it can be enabled isn't looking into why there is such a problem with performance.

Not sure if it is you Goran..

But DX10 can very very much handle Tesselation, even Instanced.

Not in any game or benchmark, without emulation. DX11 more specifically, can handle dynamic tessesllation, when DX10, cannot. Once again, tessellated supported games and benchmarks on DX10 will prove this, because you will not see any, because this type of tessellation is not supported, only on DX11.

I don't believe instanced tessellation was used much on DX10, if at all, besides demonstrations, because it was not dynamic, and lowered performance more than DX11 tessellation does now.

Modifié par MaxPayne37, 21 mars 2011 - 03:59 .

[DABhand]

But it was used, instanced tessellation is great. And besides, when did Dynamic Tessellation start coming into the conversation. Was only responding to something Kayden said in that there is no tessellation on DX10 which is wrong.

DX10 can handle float4 2^nx2^n tessellation.

[MaxPayne37]

DABhand wrote...

But it was used, instanced tessellation is great. And besides, when did Dynamic Tessellation start coming into the conversation. Was only responding to something Kayden said in that there is no tessellation on DX10 which is wrong.

DX10 can handle float4 2^nx2^n tessellation.

There is no tessellation on DX10 in DA2, and that's a fact. Other types of tessellation in other applications might be true, but not this one.