144 réponses à ce sujet

[Joseph Warrick]

Sorry the thread went badly OP.

 

DX12 is not confirmed for ME:A because nothing is confirmed except that it will be released between November and March. Personally I hope it uses it so my upgrade to Windows 10 is not a total loss.

[UniformGreyColor]

Sorry the thread went badly OP.

 

DX12 is not confirmed for ME:A because nothing is confirmed except that it will be released between November and March. Personally I hope it uses it so my upgrade to Windows 10 is not a total loss.

 

I agree with your sentiments. I myself upgraded to windows 10 and I don't see good reasons not to. With that said, to me, it only makes sense that ME:A makes the switch to directx 12 since there is really no downside considering its largely developed for console.

 

Xbone, which runs on direct x 11 currently, will be making the switch, but it is unsure when exactly. All we know is that it will be announced a month before release and that preview members will be the first to be able to use Xbone with direct x 12. We know for sure that there will be no hardware update for Xbone and I can only assume microsoft was already aware of a new API when they created the Xbone.

 

So it really is a matter of time with this. When microsoft is ready to make the switch to Directx 12 for Xbone is, IMHO, the key factor for if ME:A is going to use the new API. I would say that for ME:A to use DX 12 that it would have to be implemented on Xbone at least a few months prior to the game's release.

[Sanunes]

I agree with your sentiments. I myself upgraded to windows 10 and I don't see good reasons not to. With that said, to me, it only makes sense that ME:A makes the switch to directx 12 since there is really no downside considering its largely developed for console.

 

Xbone, which runs on direct x 11 currently, will be making the switch, but it is unsure when exactly. All we know is that it will be announced a month before release and that preview members will be the first to be able to use Xbone with direct x 12. We know for sure that there will be no hardware update for Xbone and I can only assume microsoft was already aware of a new API when they created the Xbone.

 

So it really is a matter of time with this. When microsoft is ready to make the switch to Directx 12 for Xbone is, IMHO, the key factor for if ME:A is going to use the new API. I would say that for ME:A to use DX 12 that it would have to be implemented on Xbone at least a few months prior to the game's release.

 

A good reason is the PC market might not have enough market saturation to support DX12, unlike the XB1 where you know everyone that uses the console will have DX12 supported systems.  I rather not see a person get a popup saying unless you upgrade your OS to Windows 10 you are not allowed to play this game. Even looking at PC media it was a big deal just a decade ago to get a game on DVD when at the same time Sony was shipping all their games on Blu-Ray and I see other areas being very similar to that.

[UniformGreyColor]

A good reason is the PC market might not have enough market saturation to support DX12, unlike the XB1 where you know everyone that uses the console will have DX12 supported systems.  I rather not see a person get a popup saying unless you upgrade your OS to Windows 10 you are not allowed to play this game. Even looking at PC media it was a big deal just a decade ago to get a game on DVD when at the same time Sony was shipping all their games on Blu-Ray and I see other areas being very similar to that.

 

So clearly, it then, once again, comes down to a matter of sales. Honestly, there is so much intertwining of different companies competing for consumers money, it could make your head spin. I suppose for those thinking about whether or not they want to upgrade to Windows 10 they must consider why Microsoft is providing a free upgrade, and more importantly, what is microsoft getting out of it. I say all this because the sales of this next Bioware game is tied into the needs of many different companies, namely, Nvidia, AMD, Intel, Microsoft and last but certainly not least, EA.

 

EA, the publisher of Biowar, the maker of Mass Effect: Andromeda, has to balance whether it will be a net gain to release a game that is by and large, graphically stunning and as a byproduct, incorporate directx 12 as its frame of reference. What EA has to do is measure the sales lost to sacrificing the graphics and go with directx 11, thereby keeping a consumer base that is going against what Microsoft wishes and deciding not to upgrade to Windows 10 and measuring that against how many more sales they will get from making a AAA game title that will be that much better of a game graphically and technically using directx 12.

 

Also to consider, is just how important is getting this ME:A game to be in the running for GOTY this year and measure that up with whether they want to go for a holiday release and risk the game not utilizing directx 12 vs. a later release to ensure that directx 12 is used thereby creating a more polished game which will lead to increase sales and measuring that up with their chances for a possible GOTY for 2017 with an early 2017 release knowing that releases that are earlier in the year do not have as good of a chance to win GOTY because if a game is released later that means they probably started later which means that they have access to newer technology which means they can make a better game relatively speaking. Ofc the game can always be delayed further, but I am trying to simplify things a bit.

 

Every game dev publisher wants their devs to make games that win GOTY because people will see their game won GOTY which will not only help their sales for that particular game, but for other titles that they will be releasing in the future through a bias that their companies game are great because they so often are nominated for and win GOTY.

[Khrystyn]

This article describes the strengths and weaknesses with NVidia Maxwell and AMD graphics cards in the Win 10 DirectX 12 environment. I found it interesting.

 

Anyone have experience and comments about playing DirectX 12 optimized games?

[UniformGreyColor]

This article describes the strengths and weaknesses with NVidia Maxwell and AMD graphics cards in the Win 10 DirectX 12 environment. I found it interesting.

 

Anyone have experience and comments about playing DirectX 12 optimized game?

 

I saw a video about that. It def paints Nvidia in a bad light. I'm actually looking forward to some directx 12 released titles to do a real comparison.

[Andrew Lucas]

You and this thread.

While I usually tend to agree with the majority of your posts, you should chill. The OP didn't kill your dog, wife or burned your games. You don't need to click on the thread to begin with.

Behavior like yours only makes the community looks worse than it already is.

[Andrew Lucas]

I agree with your sentiments. I myself upgraded to windows 10 and I don't see good reasons not to. With that said, to me, it only makes sense that ME:A makes the switch to directx 12 since there is really no downside considering its largely developed for console.

Xbone, which runs on direct x 11 currently, will be making the switch, but it is unsure when exactly. All we know is that it will be announced a month before release and that preview members will be the first to be able to use Xbone with direct x 12. We know for sure that there will be no hardware update for Xbone and I can only assume microsoft was already aware of a new API when they created the Xbone.

So it really is a matter of time with this. When microsoft is ready to make the switch to Directx 12 for Xbone is, IMHO, the key factor for if ME:A is going to use the new API. I would say that for ME:A to use DX 12 that it would have to be implemented on Xbone at least a few months prior to the game's release.

Xbox One has DX 12 since the W10 update, back in november.

[UniformGreyColor]

Xbox One has DX 12 since the W10 update, back in november.

 

Thanks for letting me know. It shows just how far away I am from the console world (not that I have anything against consoles).

[DaemionMoadrin]

This article describes the strengths and weaknesses with NVidia Maxwell and AMD graphics cards in the Win 10 DirectX 12 environment. I found it interesting.

 

Anyone have experience and comments about playing DirectX 12 optimized games?

 

The article itself says that they only tested on DX12 game so far and that their results should be taken with a grain of salt because other games might perform differently. The performance of NVIDIA graphic cards stays basically the same (which means their DX11 optimization is really good and the DX12 isn't even close to that) while AMD does better. Which shouldn't matter anyway because AMD is pushing Mantle as an alternative to DX12.

 

While I was pleased at first to hear that Win10 would use the offered resources more efficiently, the reality shows that the difference is too small to justify an upgrade to Win10. If I take all the drawbacks of Win10 into account, then I'm going to stick with Win7 for a while longer. So far, it has never let me down or sent data to MS when I told it not to.

[Khrystyn]

.... looking at PC media it was a big deal just a decade ago to get a game on DVD when at the same time Sony was shipping all their games on Blu-Ray and I see other areas being very similar to that.

 

Would EA ship Andromeda on Blu-Ray if a customer did not want to download through Origin? Would it be necessary due to DirectX 12 and the HD graphics that are apparently planned?  In my Origin Games folder [inside the Program Files (x86) system folder] on my Win 7's PC boot drive, the ME-1 folder is 11GB, 16GB for ME-2, and 20GB for ME-3.  I assume all game files are compressed on the optical disks. I don't know enough about the PC gaming field, and not even sure if I'm asking an intelligent question here. Do these factors matter at all?

[UniformGreyColor]

Would EA ship Andromeda on Blu-Ray if a customer did not want to download through Origin? Would it be necessary due to DirectX 12 and the HD graphics that are apparently planned?  In my Origin Games folder [inside the Program Files (x86) system folder] on my Win 7's PC boot drive, the ME-1 folder is 11GB, 16GB for ME-2, and 20GB for ME-2.  I assume all game files are compressed on the optical disks. I don't know enough about the PC gaming field, and not even sure if I'm asking an intelligent question here. DO these factors matter at all?

 

Depending on the disk, a blue ray disc can hold 32 GB on a single side; If you have a double sided disc, then that makes 64 GB. Not only that, but back in the old days, plenty of games could not even be run on a single disk. FFVII is one such game that was on the PS1 that required several discs. No, the amount of data that a game typically has is not really an obstacle for console games. Now if say, they start coming out with games for the next gen that is at 1440p or higher resolution, then yes, game devs could definitely run into a problem fitting data onto a singly disc.. But, DA:I is a game that requires 26 GB of data and you can still get that game on a single disc for PC and console alike. Also, putting a game on multiple discs is not something that is outdated. The Witcher III requires four discs if you are to download it to your computer from disc.

[AlanC9]

While I was pleased at first to hear that Win10 would use the offered resources more efficiently, the reality shows that the difference is too small to justify an upgrade to Win10. If I take all the drawbacks of Win10 into account, then I'm going to stick with Win7 for a while longer. So far, it has never let me down or sent data to MS when I told it not to.

Going way OT, but what have you found the W10 drawbacks to be? I've been using it for a while, and it seems OK to me. Of course, I always do everything from desktop icons rather than the Start menu -- I was a Mac guy once upon a time -- so that's probably got something to do with it.

[Sanunes]

Would EA ship Andromeda on Blu-Ray if a customer did not want to download through Origin? Would it be necessary due to DirectX 12 and the HD graphics that are apparently planned?  In my Origin Games folder [inside the Program Files (x86) system folder] on my Win 7's PC boot drive, the ME-1 folder is 11GB, 16GB for ME-2, and 20GB for ME-2.  I assume all game files are compressed on the optical disks. I don't know enough about the PC gaming field, and not even sure if I'm asking an intelligent question here. DO these factors matter at all?

 

I think there are still enough people interested in physical copies for the PC that they still sell games that way.  Its probably just cheaper for them to stay with DVD technology for the negatives outweigh the positives.  Games are compressed on the physical media for games for Mass Effect 1 is only 1 disk, but Mass Effect 2 and 3 both use two disks.

[Sanunes]

Depending on the disk, a blue ray disc can hold 32 GB on a single side; If you have a double sided disc, then that makes 64 GB. Not only that, but back in the old days, plenty of games could not even be run on a single disk. FFVII is one such game that was on the PS1 that required several discs. No, the amount of data that a game typically has is not really an obstacle for console games. Now if say, they start coming out with games for the next gen that is at 1440p or higher resolution, then yes, game devs could definitely run into a problem fitting data onto a singly disc.. But, DA:I is a game that requires 26 GB of data and you can still get that game on a single disc for PC and console alike. Also, putting a game on multiple discs is not something that is outdated. The Witcher III requires four discs if you are to download it to your computer from disc.

 

I haven't seen Dragon Age: Inquisition on a single disk for the PC, I know for the PC it is on four disks using DVD format and that the XB1 and PS4 versions use a single Blu-Ray.

[AlanC9]

What percentage of gamers' PCs even have a Blu-Ray drive?

[Sanunes]

What percentage of gamers' PCs even have a Blu-Ray drive?

 

It is hard to say because there really isn't a way to look for that data.  I really wasn't trying to say that games should be available on DVD just that Blu-Ray technology has been around for awhile and hasn't become mandatory.  My feeling with DirectX 12 support will probably be there in some fashion, but I don't think it will have that much of an impact for the hardware that supports the technology wouldn't have that high of an adoption rate yet if I remember the Steam survey results it is less then 10%.

[UniformGreyColor]

I haven't seen Dragon Age: Inquisition on a single disk for the PC, I know for the PC it is on four disks using DVD format and that the XB1 and PS4 versions use a single Blu-Ray.

 

Are you sure? I don't remember.. I got the game on disc for PC at midnight release for Gamestop. I could be wrong, but I thought it was one disc, maybe 2. Anyways, I didn't even bother to download it through disc because ethernet is faster download. I still have the disc(s) around here somewhere. I just used the CD key and then used Origin.

[Sanunes]

Are you sure? I don't remember.. I got the game on disc for PC at midnight release for Gamestop. I could be wrong, but I thought it was one disc, maybe 2. Anyways, I didn't even bother to download it through disc because ethernet is faster download. I still have the disc(s) around here somewhere. I just used the CD key and then used Origin.

 

It was either 3 or 4 disks. My copy went missing, but I remember it being at least 3.

[Sartoz]

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Since DA:I supports Mantle, I suspect that ME:A will support DirectX 12 / Vulkan in some fashion.

 

In any case, both AMD and Nvidia will be giving presentations at the GDC in March 14-18, 2016, at the San Francisco Moscone Center. Both will showcase their tools to help the game studios transition to the low level APIs (ie: Microsoft DirectX 12 and Khronos Group's Vulkan).

 

Jeffrey Kiel from Nvidia will host the GeForce Tools presentations, while Doron Ofek will host AMD's the Optimizing DirectX 12 and Vulkan performance with AMD CodexXL.

 

Good news is that Nvidia will discuss their NVIDIA Nsight Visual Studio Edition to develop VR applications.

 

I'm so looking forward to VR/AR games.

[Novak]

You actually can increase the capacity of Blu-Ray discs by triple layering or quadruple layering disc to achieve either 100 or 128 GB storage capacity. Experimental Blu-Ray discs have been developed to hold up to 200 GB of data on six layers with each holding 33 GB of data.

Beyond that the Holographic Versatile disc has also been developed (though not released to the consumer market yet) and still under development in many ways but the principle already works. It uses a dual laser system in which one laser is used to determine position and the other one is used to actually read all the data. (well it's a little more complicated but that's the basic idea)

Discs were already produced with 100 to 200 GB capacity but so far read only. Theoretically the disc space can be expanded up to 6 TB but I'm not aware if that expanded beyond a laboratory (note that in labs they were also able to achieve 500 GB with Blu-Ray).

 

As for DX12 and the theoretical ME:A implementation it's complete guesswork and there is no information about it. So don't expect any solid answers. But I'm guessing you want people to guess int his thread so here we go.

 

We know ME:A will be running on the latest frostbite engine made by DICE. Now here comes the fun part, much of the development of the frostbite engine was developed in cooperation with AMD. Now, this wouldn't say much at all but part of the reason why DICE did this was simply because AMD approached them to make an easy mantle implementation. By that point you first have to know what mantle is (in case you don't here are the basics) Mantle is a new API developed by AMD which is able to give the devs access to the low level functions and interact more directly with the graphics card. This removes a lot of software overhead and can distribute resources much much better. This also opens up a door for something which is called Asynchronous computing, in which certain calculation tasks can be effectively distributed between ACE units so if one core could do textures the other physics and so on. So why wasn't that possible before? Well not every task can be split and not everything is effective to split and therefore the devs can't just let the high level API do it since you're bond to run into a lot of problems. With a lower level API with more direct access to the hardware (ACE units)  and assign computing tasks individually. This is much like console optimization (still not as low level but close) in which devs can even assign what goes in and out of the z-buffer (blur etc). 

 

BF4 was one of the first games to use the frostbite 3 engine and at the same time one of the first AAA titles to ever use the mantle API as an alternative to DX. Which means the frostbite engine was not only capable of low level API features (like Asynchronous computing) but was also one of the first major engines to have it properly and effectively implemented. Technical director of DICE has also stated that frostbite is fully DX12 capable with all it's features. 

Which goes back to AMD's earlier attempt to design and push out a low level API and had DICE's cooperation in both design and engine delivery. Frostbite had already all the capabilities for DX12 before it was even released. Which means when the technical development of ME:A started it already had all the capabilities to pull of DX12 related stuff. 

 

Which makes it extremely likely that ME:A will have DX12 support since the engine is designed to deal with low level API's and has many features already streamlined so they're relatively easy to implement. So it's kinda a no brainer to use at least some DX12 capabilities which would require DX12 support. 

So that's my guess. But as I said before that ain't worth much. 

 

Oh yea btw, mantle has been discontinued when Vulkan was announced and DX12 also increased the pressure and wasn't competitive anymore since mantle only worked for AMD. 

 

As for the lack of hardware support by maxwell. I have only a few things to say. It is true that Maxwell has shown some weird latency irregularities with high load of command queues and the corresponding latency. 

When tested maxwell gpu's didn't increase the latency up to 31 command queues. But it has shown a linear increase in time to compute each tasks if the command queues exceeded 31. Which means it doesn't compute Asynchronously. 

 

Although when you speak about GPU's you will often hear something about parallel computing but some tasks have not been run parallel but instead run serialized. Which was a given by the current API. And Nvidia kept that in mind when they were designing the Maxwell architecture so they don't have to put more stuff in than is needed. But AMD, as they often do, took a different route they wanted to have Asynchronous computing capabilities on a hardware level because they were already putting it to use with mantle so they designed their GPU's with that in mind and as a result the R9 2xx series already has the whole hardware architecture down. 

Nvidia stated that Maxwell is DX12 compliant which is only a half truth. What they basically did is something similar to intel's hyperthreading (not really but the principles are the same, CPU's work serialized and it's a whole different architecture too much to get into) in which there is still only one hardware core given but with the use of specialized software pipelines they can actually grab info from the ram etc and get everything ready for computing (calculating is actually not the bottleneck most of the time it's getting ready which takes long). They did something similar with their drivers in which they added a software layer which would sort of act as if it could split the individual task and calculate them parallel but this is just a fake software layer. The software works and performs the same up to a point but at some point it's too much. task > 31

 

I'm sure Nvidia will update with Pascal to make it truly capable of Asynchronous computing but as of right now you're out of luck. AMD users have an edge here. 

 

[Novak]

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Since DA:I supports Mantle, I suspect that ME:A will support DirectX 12 / Vulkan in some fashion.

 

In any case, both AMD and Nvidia will be giving presentations at the GDC in March 14-18, 2016, at the San Francisco Moscone Center. Both will showcase their tools to help the game studios transition to the low level APIs (ie: Microsoft DirectX 12 and Khronos Group's Vulkan).

 

Jeffrey Kiel from Nvidia will host the GeForce Tools presentations, while Doron Ofek will host AMD's the Optimizing DirectX 12 and Vulkan performance with AMD CodexXL.

 

Good news is that Nvidia will discuss their NVIDIA Nsight Visual Studio Edition to develop VR applications.

 

I'm so looking forward to VR/AR games.

 

Damn it, you posted while I wrote. Now I'm redundant.

[Novak]

Nevermind that, Diablo 4 was announced last night.

 

So? I thought Diablo 3 was kinda shitty (okay not shitty but they puked WoW style all over it) and unless it's completely reworked I don't really see the point of the game. 

 

But that's just my opinion, I bet a lot of people are excited.

[Khrystyn]

Novak and all, thanks for your insights regarding DX 12 for the NVidia and AMD based GPU cards. I'm using  an Asus NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770 GPU, and haven't yet researched it's compatibility with DX 12 yet, vis-a-vis gaming video performance and compatibility. I wasn't sure if this was the proper thread to bring up the topic of DX 12 and current gen. graphics cards. It will be interesting to see what the minimum and best hardware and software requirements will be for Andromeda.

[UniformGreyColor]

Novak and all, thanks for your insights regarding DX 12 for the NVidia and AMD based GPU cards. I'm using  an Asus NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770 GPU, and haven't yet researched it's compatibility with DX 12 yet, vis-a-vis gaming video performance and compatibility. I wasn't sure if this was the proper thread to bring up the topic of DX 12 and current gen. graphics cards. It will be interesting to see what the minimum and best hardware and software requirements will be for Andromeda.

 

Nvidia has said they would release a new chipset for the next gen of Nvidia cards. As seen by Novak, he believes that the Maxwell based cards (https://developer.nv...te-architecture) are not fully optimised for direcx 12 and that the new generation, Pascal (http://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/3711/~/which-nvidia-gpus-will-support-dx12%3F), will just improve on that front, but I think they likely will just implement new features.

 

http://nvidia.custhe...l-support-dx12?