As the options for the Renderer indicates there are DirectX 9 and DirectX 11 effects in the game, depending of course on the chosen settings. Now, in the configuration tool it says "if available" for DirectX 11, which of course has to mean that if I don't have the hardware for DirectX 11 (DirectX 11-capable video card) then I shouldn't be able to even chose that Renderer in the first place, but even if I can select it (which is my case) then the game won't actually provide any DirectX 11-specific effects since the hardware can't run them anyway, correct?
Ok, in my case my video card is a GTX 285, and it doesn't support DirectX 11, it only goes up to DirectX 10.1. I can chose the DirectX 11 Renderer in the utility however, and I can chose the DirectX 11 Renderer in the in-game video options as well even though my card doesn't support that. At first when I selected my in-game options even before starting my first playthrough I assumed that if I would chose the DirectX 11 Renderer option that I would in fact not get any DirectX 11-specific effects (that's a given) but that I would get at least some DirectX 10/10.1 effects (that in other words chosing DX11 meant that DX10 effects were included as well, even though it isn't mentioned per se). I've recently been told that in fact Dragon Age 2 only has either DirectX 9 or DirectX 11 effects, there's no effects that are specific to DirectX 10 or 10.1, I don't know if it's true, but I'm stating what I've been told anyway, but correct me if I'm wrong please.
Now, there's a few things I'd like to know... because I'm confused to be honest, I took some pictures to better describe what I'll be referring to:
IN-GAME VIDEO OPTIONS
Those specific options are the ones I'm using as of now, and as a side note the game is perfectly stable with those in-game options. But something is confusing me. As you can see I'm using the DirectX 9 Renderer on the Medium details, but I'm wondering why is it that Anisotropic Filtering is grayed out? I don't know much about DirectX effects but I'm pretty sure that Anisotropic Filtering has been a visual/filtering effect that has been existing since a very long time even before DirectX 9 arrived, yes? Well I think, but why is it that DA2's in-game A-F option is grayed out when DirectX 9 is chosen? The only way for me so far to actually have the A-F applied in the game when I run the DX9 Renderer is to "force" it via the NVIDIA control panel, and it does work, but otherwise the textures in the game are not "filtered", very blurry and the A-F effect is non-existant. But as I said, isn't DirectX 9 supposed to be enough for A-F?
As you can see now, if I stay with the DX9 Renderer then both the "High" and "Very High" options are grayed out, but if I look at their descriptions I can see the following...
This description is for the "High" setting when I hover the cursor on it. Ok, first it tells me that it requires the DirectX 11 Renderer option to be selected and a DirectX 10-capable hardware. Is that a mistake? I do have a DirectX 10-capable video card, but how can DirectX 10 effects even be applied in the game if the Renderer implies that DirectX 11 is to be used? What I mean in other words is that if the game indeed provided DirectX 10-specific effects then why don't we have a "DirectX 10" Renderer option as well? Aren't DirectX 11 effects only specific to DirectX 11? Or is it possible for a DirectX 10 video card to actually "run" DirectX 11 effects? I'm confused about that.
It also says (as you can see): «It provides additional details like dynamic lightning, higher quality shadows, and soft particle edges. It is also a requirement to enable screen space ambient occlusion.»
Ok, but which one of those additional details can be run with a DirectX 10-capable video card exactly? And which one are actual DirectX 11-only effects if any? Also, if any of them can be run with a DirectX 10-capable hardware then why do we only have a DirectX 9 and DirectX 11 Renderer option? Why not DirectX 10/10.1 as well? Additionally, when it says "higher quality shadows", I believe that to be quite a vague description, how "higher" of a quality exactly? Is there a technical name of the specific shadow effects applied in comparison to the shadow effects applied in DirectX 9 mode?
And, finally, it says that a requirement is to enable the screen space ambient occlusion option... does that mean that all the previously-mentioned additional effects are in fact dependent to the screen space ambient occlusion effect? I'm asking this because the screen space ambient occlusion effect can only be enabled if I chose the DirectX 11 Renderer... but again I'm wondering how can a DirectX 10-capable hardware would be able to do anything for a game that uses DirectX 11 Renderer, unless of course that the DirectX 11 option in fact "includes" DirectX 10 effects... still, we don't know which one is "for" DX10 and which one is "for" DX11, even though everything seems to be placed within the same Renderer anyway (DX11).
Ok, now this shows the description of the "Very High" option. In that description is says more clearly that not only the DirectX 11 Renderer option must be chosen but that a DirectX 11-capable hardware must be present. All the additional effects mentioned in that description - from what I can understand - are DirectX 11-only effects, and those effects simply cannot be run by a DirectX 10-capable video card. Am I correct? So, does that mean that as previously shown the "High" setting is DirectX 10-only? Even though the Renderer is named DirectX 11 even for those effects? Or does that mean that the "High" setting is a "mixture" of DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 effects?
Ok, now the description of the Renderer themselves. For the DX9 Renderer it's pretty clear, we chose that Renderer obviously if we run Windows XP or simply if we want better performance even if we run another operating system, that's clear enough (and even if we have DX10 or DX11 capable hardware installed I guess, although at that point I'd guess that running DX9-only would be somewhat of a waste, but who knows it could always help).
Ah, now the main meal, the description for the DirectX 11 Renderer. Everything is clear indeed, well most of it... and in my case specifically I'm using Windows Vista with Service Pack 2 (plus the automatically-installed Microsoft updates that followed since the OS installation), and the latest official WHQL NVIDIA graphics drivers (version 275.33 as of today). The last part of the description however sends me back at my original head-scratching questioning. It does mention that it "includes" the effects as shown (in the description), but those specifically-mentioned effects are DirectX 11-only effects as far as I can understand (correct?). Now, it does also mention prior to that in the description that we must have at least a DirectX 10-capable video card... ok, but then - and again - which one of all the mentioned effects are DirectX 10-specific ones? And why do we only have a DirectX 11 Renderer option to chose from if in fact we can have DirectX 10-specific effects applied in the game? Shouldn't we also have a DirectX 10 Renderer option for a total of three Renderers to chose from instead of two? Where did DirectX 10 go? See, I'm also confused there.
Ok, to better show how confusing it is I actually selected the DirectX 11 Renderer (as well as the "High" Graphics detail being chosen), now see for yourselves what happens...
1) The highest Graphics Detail option I can chose while using the DX11 Renderer option is "High". The "Very High" option is grayed out. I can understand that "Very High" is grayed out since that one seems to be for DirectX 11-only effects (and video cards, of course). Is that correct? I just want to make sure about this point.
Ok so two things change when under the "High" setting. The Anisotropic Filtering option becomes available, and at that point I can remove the "forced" A-F effects I had previously set in my NVIDIA control panel since otherwise and as described earlier the A-F option is grayed out (curiously the Anti Aliasing option always remains available whatever is done in the options). Additionally, the "Screen space ambient occlusion" effect is available, so I assume that the effect is one that a DirectX 10-capable video card can run/support, correct?
2) Two options remain grayed out however, namely "Diffusion depth of field" and "High-quality blur" Are those specific effects DirectX 11-only? Also, what is "High-quality" for the Blur effect that is being mentioned? Isn't Blur just Blur? Blur can be "low-quality"? What is a "high-quality" Blur in comparison to say... a "normal" Blur? Or am I just being naive here or something? A better, more precise description on specific visual effects might be in order, no? Also, is the "Blur" here one of those "HDR" effect that I sometimes hear about? (Just curious about that one, not confusing but just curious).
Ok so with all that said... I wonder something else.
If I chose, select and apply the in-game video options as show in the picture above (using the DX11 Renderer, using AA and AF at maximum, and using the Screen ambient occlusion effect) then the game becomes very unstable and freezes on a regular basis. The freezing in fact also freezes the entire system, not just the game, trying to Alt+Tab out of the game or trying to Crtl+Alt+Del does nothing, there's no response/activity, everything freezes and a hard-reset of the computer is necessary. I THINK that there may well be a problem with the DirectX 11 Renderer and the options that can be chosen when selecting that Renderer when specifically running the game with a DirectX 10-capable video card, but of course I'm not 100% certain. What I think is happening is that some (perhaps not "all", but some) effects that are only possible with a DirectX 11-capable video card are "trying" to run in the game even if the video card of the user happens to be able to only run DirectX 10 effects, which is when the graphics drivers/system just freaks out and freezes.
As I mentioned earlier, if I run the game with the Medium settings as shown in the first picture then everything is stable and I can literally play for a day without a single freezing or crash. In fact I never even experience an actual game crash yet, the only thing I do experience (when using DX11 Renderer) are game/system freezes, no crash to the desktop per se. So if there is issues with the DirectX 11 Renderer then I would suggest something to the engineers at BioWare responsible for those options (humble suggestion). My suggestion is to bring everything that "belongs" to DirectX 10 specifically under a new DirectX 10-only Renderer, and bring everything that belongs to DirectX 11 under a revised DirectX 11-only Renderer, which in turn might (well, should) split the DX10 and DX11 effects which otherwise I believe are conflicting with each others as it is right now.
So anyway, if any of you guys or anyone at BioWare can provide more information/details about my questions I'd highly appreciate that.
Thanks.
Modifié par Lyrandori, 04 juin 2011 - 07:16 .
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