DiRT 2: DirectX 11 Game Performance Compared And Analyzed

[razor512]

[citation][nom]sihastru[/nom]One down, one or two to go Until DX11 does not become mainstream (eg. 90% of the users will have DX11 capable cards) you can't expect to see differences between DX11 and DX9/10 modes. Why? Because they won't make games where one player sees something and the other does not, to the point that will actually mean something and affect the gameplay.So anyone that bought the cards for DX11 will not get anything extra from the DX11 code path. No developer that wants to sell a game would code it so that you'd need a new card to play the game. They would not shoot themselves in the foot.DX11 is now in the position PhysX was, and I'm not necessarily speaking about the CUDA PhysX version, but the original PhysX by Ageia, when you needed a PCI card for it. It had and still has great potential, but you can't use it to it's full extent until people embrace it and make it mainstream. Until then, all the developers can do is to use certain features here and there, so that it gives you a glimpse of what it could be, but not so much that it makes a difference and modifies the experience too much. They just don't want to give up customers, it's not just that they don't want to use the technology.And when DX11 finally becomes mainstream, in 6-12-18 months, the current DX11 cards will be nearly obsolete performance wise... truly tragic. But that's the way the cookie crumbles...It's a bit of a troll-ish post (it may seem that way, if you have an ATI DX11 card), and I will get "-1" all round but it's the truth if you think about it from a safe distance. Too bad you... yes... you... the one clicking the "Useless message" icon, won't even get to this last paragraph.[/citation]


yep This has happened when every new card or CPU or any other hardware through out history pretty much.

the technology is introduced, the hardware is unreasonably expensive and the new stuff thats supported has not been properly adopted by the market, but when it finally is all of the cutting edge hardware for the time which was total overkill at the time is now a power hungry obsolete slab of junk.

this is whats going to happen to the radeon 5800 series, as well as for what ever competing card nvidia releases.

Dirt 2 is not the most demanding game, what happens when games start using the using the improvements of dx 11 on a large scale like in something that may be in a game like crysis 2 or some other game yet to be released that will try to 1 up the makers of crysis 2, if it is causing such a large performance impact on a game like dirt 2 which only uses the enhancements in a few laces, imagine when a game comes out where it is applied to everything

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]Jedimind06[/nom]All that you put on the table from nvidia is a GTX260? WTH happened with GTX285 or GTX295? You test 9 products from ATI and 4 from Nvidia? With what purpose?[/citation]

I explain that on page 5. Please read the article before commenting on it.

 

[rambo117]

Is tom's going to review Stalker COP when it comes out like they did with Clear Sky? I want to see more indepth info about it's performance before I invest in a DX11 card.

 

[cptnjarhead]

Well.. it seems my cheapness has actually paid off when it comes to GPU's..
I waited until ATI 4870 DX10.1 cards were cheap enough to buy..then i bought bought a bunch of DX9 games ..now i do have some DX10 games.. but it seems the majority of Game companies haven't really embraced DX10 ... is this because current consoles do not support DX10? or is using DX10 such a performance hit..that it limits your customer base?.. DX11 sounds cool but I'm betting that DX12 cards will fair better and fit my budget right at the perfect time for a system upgrade.. then most of those DX10/10.1/11/11.x games will be in the $20 bargain bin.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Don, I think you're right with regards to tesselation and cars, while I'm sure it's beneficial, it's a question of what more can you do to a detailed high-poly model required for the DX9 car to begin with. It's not like you can add scales or much in the way of surface features that would improve much on the basic lines of vehicle which are relatively flowing lines to start with.
I would've like to see them add something in the way of body panel features, but there seems to be little need for it without it becoming a tack on feature. You could probably do it in a rim, or something but that would likely add a huge workload with very limited game enjoyment impact.

I agree with a few of the others, I think Stalker will offer a little more than DiRT, but even that I think would off less opportunity compared to something like Oblivion with did well with parallax mapping to add virtual surface detail. Which isn't surprising considering their previous work with tesselation in Morrowind.

Anywhoo, nice look at the game, even if the results aren't as worthy as one would hope; but I think people need to realize it's still pretty early, far ahead of DX9 and DX10 feature introduction/adoption.

PS, Flying overhead E->W tomorrow afternoon.

 

[chechak]

DirectX 11 enhancements aren't noticeable too much but after all it will be much better in future games.

 

[warezme]

First off, this review brought to you by AMD...,

Second, why did Codemasters develop this as a DX9 and DX11 game. What happened to DX10? If DX9 is so close to DX11 as to be indistinguishable in this game why do we have DX10? Something doesn't make sense.

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]warezme[/nom]First off, this review brought to you by AMD...[/citation]

If you could clarify how that possibly makes sense?

This is far from a DirectX 11 love-in.

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]TheGreatGrapeApe[/nom]I think Stalker will offer a little more than DiRT, but even that I think would off less opportunity compared to something like Oblivion with did well with parallax mapping to add virtual surface detail. Which isn't surprising considering their previous work with tesselation in Morrowind.[/citation]

Yeh. I'm predicting the first Dx11 killer-app will be Rebellion's new Aliens vs. Predator. I loved their original version, and if the gameplay is as good, and the aliens look as good tesselated as they do in the screenshots, it'll give Dx11 a lot of traction early on.

[citation][nom]TheGreatGrapeApe[/nom]PS, Flying overhead E->W tomorrow afternoon.[/citation]

Heheh. Try to avoid a return flight on new-years, us Winnipeggers tend to shoot a lot of ammunition into the sky...

In any case, merry belated christmas and an early happy new year, Ape!

 

[randomizer]

[citation][nom]Cleeve[/nom]If you could clarify how that possibly makes sense?[/citation]
Come on Don, we know that if your review hasn't been bought by NVIDIA, it's been bought by AMD. It's just logical. :lol:

Reviews are not supposed to show winners otherwise it's not fair play. Your results should be identical for every test.

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]randomizer[/nom]Come on Don, we know that if your review hasn't been bought by NVIDIA, it's been bought by AMD. It's just logical. Reviews are not supposed to show winners otherwise it's not fair play. Your results should be identical for every test.[/citation]

Heheh. Aint it the truth?
And don't forget Intel. Apparently, we're working with and against everybody at the same time.

Maybe we should add a button at the start of every review asking which company the reader is emotionally involved with so they can see the results they want.

 

[shubham1401]

DX11 is meaningless for anyone with small screen...

 

[razor512]

[citation][nom]warezme[/nom]First off, this review brought to you by AMD..., Second, why did Codemasters develop this as a DX9 and DX11 game. What happened to DX10? If DX9 is so close to DX11 as to be indistinguishable in this game why do we have DX10? Something doesn't make sense.[/citation]

look at these comparisons between dx 9 and dx 10

http://www.gamespot.com/features/6182140/index.html
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/bioshock_directx10_performance/page4.asp

how much better does dx10 look to you. not much, in crysis all you notice is slightly more contrast in certain spots (that can easily be corrected in game settings or driver settings

in bioshock, the only difference is slightly smoother smoke (but dx9 can do smooth smoke also, there hundreds of dx 9 games that can do very smooth smoke.

dx 10 has more cons than pros for the gamer, as most of what it does, doesn't improve the overall look of a game and to see any improvements you generally have to look very closely and compare screenshots

dx 11 offers one good feature, which is the tessellation which allows a higher mesh count with a lower performance drop. if you start out with a object or character that has a very dense wire frame, it will cause a much larger performance drop than having the videocard do it as an enhancement.

much of what dx 10 and dx 11 can do, it can be simulated in dx 9 but at a higher performance overhead.

but in many cases, when dx 10 and dx 11 offer these enhancements, it causes a pretty big performance drop for something thats hardly noticeable to most people

 

[chaoticjoy1]

this game looks to nice

 

[jowunger]

Microsoft abused DirectX as a selling point and even cheated with graphics in the past when they showed 2 different pictures, one simple and one more detailed when they claimed the simple one was DirectX 9 and the better looking one was DirectX 10 (at that time for Vista).

In the end there is not much difference anyways as it is more a sale assistant for graphic card vendors and OS sellers.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Yeh. I'm predicting the first Dx11 killer-app will be Rebellion's new Aliens vs. Predator. I loved their original version, and if the gameplay is as good, and the aliens look as good tesselated as they do in the screenshots, it'll give Dx11 a lot of traction early on.

Yeah I'm looking forward to that too, had the original and loved it too... up until XP killed it (damn patching that was so painful it wasn't worth it), it was one of the main reasons I still kept Win2K (one of the few things I know of that didn't work on XP but was fine on W2K, usually you needed to roll back to W98SE). I almost want dust it off out of the archives to fire it up on Vista/Win7 and see if it will work anymore.

Looking forward to some more interesting exploitation of DX11, but as we both know, it's just a toolset, people can use it poorly or exquisitely which usually determines the outcome more than just the API itself. It's like the OGL vs DX, Linux vs Windoze debates, or even more recently Havok v PhysX v OpenCL, they are pointless without good context/content.

I like some of the improvements like found in Battleforge's SSAO, and hopefully some of the long term implementations will combine visuals and performance. I'm expecting something like an HD5670/5750 in my next laptop so it would be nice to have a bit of both worlds, especially if it's worthwhile, and especially for a game like AvP which is the only confirmed title on my 2010 must-play list sofar. I of course also have hopes for ElderScrolls-V but that's supposedly not coming until 2011, so who knows what route they take and even if DX11 will still be relevant or if they go another path. I can only imagine what an ES game would look like in DX11 with Tessellation and DirectCompute power to work with to help with the already massive workloads of foliage and lighting.

Heheh. Try to avoid a return flight on new-years, us Winnipeggers tend to shoot a lot of ammunition into the sky...

In any case, merry belated christmas and an early happy new year, Ape!

No Winterpeg wing-shots on the way back pretty smooth, although leaving the cottage/folks in Northern Ontario in a Dash8 @ 6am to get to T.O. was rough with all the new security (bet there for 4:30a)! Although it helps prep for leaving early tomorrow morning to drive out to the mountains for a ski-NewYear's, but of course @ 5:30p tomorrow, skiing and everything stops for the Junior BattleRoyal, maybe can get TSN at the hot tub, good thing the GF likes hockey otherwise could be a lonely New Year's.

Thanks for the best wishes, and belated Festivus to you too, and a great 2010! Keep up the good work, eh!

 

[randomizer]

I never played the original, only AvP2.

 

[hannibal]

ElderScrolls-V development has started allready so it most propably is not dx11. Most propably it will be dx9 maybe dx10, but douptly even that. Of course it's possible that it may have dx11 hack on it, but it is not the same as DX11 engine.
New DX version takes time, it allways have, but many people are hopefull that dx11 has faster take of time than dx10 did. Maynly because dx11 is "only" minor upgrade from dx10.
Yes tessalation in big improvent that can even give more speed, in lover end machines when keeping other eye candy at reasonable level.

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]randomizer[/nom]I never played the original, only AvP2.[/citation]

The original game from Rebellion was a far, far better game than Monolith's sequel AvP2. The graphics look dated now, but the core gameplay was years ahead of the competition.

[citation][nom]TheGreatGrapeApe[/nom]Yeah I'm looking forward to that too, had the original and loved it too... up until XP killed it (damn patching that was so painful it wasn't worth it), it was one of the main reasons I still kept Win2K (one of the few things I know of that didn't work on XP but was fine on W2K, usually you needed to roll back to W98SE). [/citation]


Someone made a patch a while ago that will let you run the game on XP/Vista with no problems, I'll see if I can dig it up and internet it to you...

 

[SlyNine]

I donno, subjectively the game looks a lot better in DX11. It seems to me something is lost when I take a screen shot. Maybe some of the post processing is done and the framebuffer doesn't catch it?

I don't know man, But when I read this I was relieved and promptly forced DX9 on Dirt 2 and immediately noticed how much more bland it looked. I went back and forth a few times and concluded that my subjective analysis certainly suggests that something else is going on here.

I brought others in and without explaining to them the difference they thought DX11 looked more "lively".

There's something missing, I'm goanna go get drunk for the new years but when I get back im goanna try and take some shots with a camera to see if I can capture the difference I observe.

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]SlyNine[/nom]I brought others in and without explaining to them the difference they thought DX11 looked more "lively".There's something missing...[/citation]

I think what you're noticing is the 'blurring' effect in Dx9 caused by what I think is half-resolution post-processing (although I'm getting clarification from the devs: might take a while with all the holidays going on)

This results in a clarity in Dx11 mode compared to Dx 9 mode. But I'd be hard pressed to call Dx 11 'better', IMHO the half-resolution processing causes an anti-aliasing effect that doesn't hurt visual quality, just makes it different.

Like you say though, it's subjective. But from what you've said I think you'd probably agree with me that there isn't a massive difference that would cause you to recommend waiting for a Dx 11 card to play the game.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Someone made a patch a while ago that will let you run the game on XP/Vista with no problems, I'll see if I can dig it up and internet it to you...

Sweet, that would be nice! The first patch was SUCH a HASSLE it was PAINFUL which just made me lose interest.

Hope you watched the game, it was awesome!

Anywhoo, just thought I'd check in (love the new high speed AirCards [using the SW 306 right now]) while waiting for a wardrobe change to head out to the party on the hill, chat ya' in the New Year. [:thegreatgrapeape:3]

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

ElderScrolls-V development has started allready so it most propably is not dx11. Most propably it will be dx9 maybe dx10, but douptly even that. Of course it's possible that it may have dx11 hack on it, but it is not the same as DX11 engine.

That doesn't mean it isn't DX11, development starts long before the finalization of the engine support (if they've even chosen one yet), right now it's likely story-boards, art, themes, story, and basic UI type stuff. And the engine side of the equation can develop in emulation long before even the DX hardware lauches. That happens with many games that take years to develop.

And like I mentioned, that's IF they decide to go down the standard DX path and not some alternative combination.

It may be an add on to an engine that is built for base DX10 support, but those add-ons can be integral especially for things like surfaces and lighting where it's a different experience, as happened with Morrowind and Oblivion. Based on their past history I would expect it to go well into the DX11 tool-box, but I would also expect the title to possibly be delayed/pushed-back to bast on that same past, just hopefully not to 2013 like some rumours, or 2015 like the worst I heard which seems unrealistically (Duke Nukem Forever-like) far away.

Unfortunately we'll have to wait and see. Anywhoo, I'm Outtie! Ciaola!

 

[hannibal]

It may be an add on to an engine that is built for base DX10 support, but those add-ons can be integral especially for things like surfaces and lighting where it's a different experience, as happened with Morrowind and Oblivion. Based on their past history I would expect it to go well into the DX11 tool-box, but I would also expect the title to possibly be delayed/pushed-back to bast on that same past, just hopefully not to 2013 like some rumours, or 2015 like the worst I heard which seems unrealistically (Duke Nukem Forever-like) far away.

That is true! They have not been in harry with their releases, so bigger upgrade may be possible. And even minor things can made difference in these kind of program. Better flowing clothes etc. where little things can make it look better than normal DX9 version.

 

[DjEaZy]

... don't know, i have a HD4870 GPU@800 and MEM@4400... PIIx4@3500Mhz... 8GbDDR2@1066Mhz CL5-5-5-15... WIN7... at 1650x1050 all maxed out, that's possible... there is stable 62FPS... i noticed, that when the v-sync is turned on, the average FPS is holding at 62 and rarely drops... but when you turn the v-sync off, then max FPS sometimes peaks at 74~85, but at times FPS can drop as low as 25~35 FPS... wonder why... may be is a trytool glitch...