First DX12 Game Available Today, 'ARK: Survival Evolved' Free Through The Weekend On Steam

[kcarbotte]

"Ark: Survival Evolved" will be getting an exciting update later today. The "Early Access" game is to receive the highly anticipated DirectX 12 update, making it the first commercially available DX12 title.

First DX12 Game Available Today, 'ARK: Survival Evolved' Free Through The Weekend On Steam : Read more

 

[wysir]

Great game and great Devs! Do note that the game is still in early access alpha; there are bugs abound, but overall the game is very enjoyable, esp if you find a good unofficial server.

 

[jimmysmitty]

Looks like I might be adding this game to my collection this weekend to do some benchmarking. I want to see if DX12 helps at all. Sure I only have a HD7970GHz but it should still see some benefit since DX12 11_1 is the level that focuses on performance which GCN 1.0 supports.

 

[josejones]

That's great but, don't we need to have Windows 10 and a DX12 GPU and DX12 game to get full potential out of DX12? We still aren't sure how well a non-DX12 OS, GPU, CPU and game will perform with DX12 and at what level.

I'm holding off Windows 10 until the bugs are worked out and the other issues are worked out like the privacy issue and forced automatic updates etc.

I am looking forward to a thorough review and benchmarks of the
$500 GIGABYTE GA-Z170X-Gaming G1
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=13-128-833

with the Skylake i7, 3200 ram and an NVMe SSD or M.2 and Windows 10 with DX12.

 

[blasc]

searched some videos, but haven't still found anything around the net.. anyone got something so we can see the difference?

 

[jimmysmitty]

That's great but, don't we need to have Windows 10 and a DX12 GPU and DX12 game to get full potential out of DX12? We still aren't sure how well a non-DX12 OS, GPU, CPU and game will perform with DX12 and at what level.

I'm holding off Windows 10 until the bugs are worked out and the other issues are worked out like the privacy issue and forced automatic updates etc.

I am looking forward to a thorough review and benchmarks of the
$500 GIGABYTE GA-Z170X-Gaming G1
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=13-128-833

with the Skylake i7, 3200 ram and an NVMe SSD or M.2 and Windows 10 with DX12.

DX12 wont be transferred to anything lower than 10 so if you are on Windows 7/8 then DX12 wont make any difference for you.

 

[thezooloomaster]

When they say free, you should read: "if you purchase a 1500$ top of the line gaming PC".

 

[childofthekorn]

That's great but, don't we need to have Windows 10 and a DX12 GPU and DX12 game to get full potential out of DX12? We still aren't sure how well a non-DX12 OS, GPU, CPU and game will perform with DX12 and at what level.

I'm holding off Windows 10 until the bugs are worked out and the other issues are worked out like the privacy issue and forced automatic updates etc.

I am looking forward to a thorough review and benchmarks of the
$500 GIGABYTE GA-Z170X-Gaming G1
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=13-128-833

with the Skylake i7, 3200 ram and an NVMe SSD or M.2 and Windows 10 with DX12.

You can still play it on Windows 7 via DX 11. Dx11 performance was meh when I played. You'd have to use steam launch options -sm4 -d3d10 -useallavailablecores to get amazing frames. But the devs are amazing and have done many optimization passes. I played the hell out of the game till I was burned out. I haven't looked at the patch notes in prolly a month, month and a half and they were patching daily with optimization passes every 1-2 weeks.

 

[comprodigy]

Great game and great Devs! Do note that the game is still in early access alpha; there are bugs abound, but overall the game is very enjoyable, esp if you find a good unofficial server.

Yes, more 'bugs' than there are dinosaurs

 

[childofthekorn]

When they say free, you should read: "if you purchase a 1500$ top of the line gaming PC".

Top of the line and 1500...nah. Purchased my rig for ~1200 5 years ago and it was able to play this fine. HD 5850 and FX-8320 and was able to play the game. Just gotta use the performance launch options for steam.

 

[josejones]

Do DX12 games have to be made from scratch with DX12 or can DX12 be added later with an update and/or patche?

 

[grimdeathseeker]

They DID NOT add DX12 in this update...

 

[grimdeathseeker]

They DID NOT add DX12 in this update

 

[josejones]

That is what they said about the game in the article:

"ARK: Survival Evolved launched on Steam in "Early Access" in June of this year and has been one of the most popular games sold on the platform since its release. Currently, the game is #11 on Steam's top sellers list, among massive titles such as Rocket League and Grand Theft Auto V. Being an "Early Access" title, the game receives frequent updates and patches, and today it will receive one of the most hotly anticipated updates: DirectX 12 support is coming to the game, making it the first title available using Microsoft's latest API. "

So if DX12 cannot just be added in an update or patch, please explain?

 

[genrldisaray]

The dev said that they are having driver issues and the DX12 patch won't be until next week.

http://steamcommunity.com/app/346110/discussions/0/520518053440119300/

 

[braneman]

Why the heck are they updating this with dx12 when it doesn't even run properly on dx11? I mean seriously the game runs like crap but everybody is like "but there's dinosaurs in it" as if that would excuse how horribly this game runs on any computer.

 

[anubis44]

They're probably giving this a DX12 update because DX12 leaves less leeway to the drivers than DX11 does, which means it's much more likely to be stable in DX12. I've already updated to Windows 10, and loving it, so I'm probably going to give this a try once the DX12 update is released for it.

 

[kcarbotte]

Why the heck are they updating this with dx12 when it doesn't even run properly on dx11? I mean seriously the game runs like crap but everybody is like "but there's dinosaurs in it" as if that would excuse how horribly this game runs on any computer.

The answer to that is, DX12 is supposed to improve performance by as much as 20% in this game according to the dev.

Keep in mind, this is an Early Access game, which means it's in constant development. There's still 10 months before the game is actually scheduled to be released.

 

[Quixit]

Why the heck are they updating this with dx12 when it doesn't even run properly on dx11? I mean seriously the game runs like crap but everybody is like "but there's dinosaurs in it" as if that would excuse how horribly this game runs on any computer.

The answer to that is, DX12 is supposed to improve performance by as much as 20% in this game according to the dev.

Keep in mind, this is an Early Access game, which means it's in constant development. There's still 10 months before the game is actually scheduled to be released.

I read "early access" as the developer has no obligation to finish the game because stupid people have already given them their money.

 

[boju]

Do DX12 games have to be made from scratch with DX12 or can DX12 be added later with an update and/or patche?

That is a good question, seems ARK was made for DX12 inmind and just to get some funds back, made it operational on earlier DX versions.

Another discussion, found this site explaining DX in simple terms the differences between 11 and 12.

http://www.littletinyfrogs.com/article/460524/DirectX_11_vs_DirectX_12_oversimplified

DirectX 11: Your CPU communicates to the GPU 1 core to 1 core at a time. It is still a big boost over DirectX 9 where only 1 dedicated thread was allowed to talk to the GPU but it’s still only scratching the surface.

DirectX 12: Every core can talk to the GPU at the same time and, depending on the driver, I could theoretically start taking control and talking to all those cores.

That’s basically the difference. Oversimplified to be sure but it’s why everyone is so excited about this.

The GPU wars will really take off as each vendor will now be able to come up with some amazing tools to offload work onto GPUs.

What I get from that is Directx11 has gimped everyone and just a bottleneck for demanding games.

 

[kcarbotte]

Why the heck are they updating this with dx12 when it doesn't even run properly on dx11? I mean seriously the game runs like crap but everybody is like "but there's dinosaurs in it" as if that would excuse how horribly this game runs on any computer.

The answer to that is, DX12 is supposed to improve performance by as much as 20% in this game according to the dev.

Keep in mind, this is an Early Access game, which means it's in constant development. There's still 10 months before the game is actually scheduled to be released.

I read "early access" as the developer has no obligation to finish the game because stupid people have already given them their money.

Valve has previously removed and issued refunds for games that have fialed to continue development from Steam.
Early access is meant to be an econimic boost for developers to fund the progress of the game, but the game has to be resonably complete before it will be accepted.
Games in early access are also cheaper than they would be after release.

the developer has every reason to continue development after getting into early access. Also, ARK is one of the most actively updated game in Early Access. The game has recieved 204 updates so far in 2 months time, and the developers are very active in the community updating as they go.

It's not fair to even compare this game with the bulk of early access games like you have.

 

[cats_Paw]

Looks like I might be adding this game to my collection this weekend to do some benchmarking. I want to see if DX12 helps at all. Sure I only have a HD7970GHz but it should still see some benefit since DX12 11_1 is the level that focuses on performance which GCN 1.0 supports.

There seems to be contradicting information on this subject. Its been proven so far in many cases that the problem is that DX12 would help in very specific scenarios, but the bottleneck is not coming from the CPU in most cases.

However, Considering that WIndows 10 is free as an upgrade for legit win7/8 users, I feel like Win 10 most likely will not be as good as win 7. (I dont see microsoft being that generous, especially with forced updates).

Call me cynical, but life tought me that if something is too good to be true, its probably a scam.

 

[Inferno83]

That's great but, don't we need to have Windows 10 and a DX12 GPU and DX12 game to get full potential out of DX12? We still aren't sure how well a non-DX12 OS, GPU, CPU and game will perform with DX12 and at what level.

I'm holding off Windows 10 until the bugs are worked out and the other issues are worked out like the privacy issue and forced automatic updates etc.

I am looking forward to a thorough review and benchmarks of the
$500 GIGABYTE GA-Z170X-Gaming G1
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=13-128-833

with the Skylake i7, 3200 ram and an NVMe SSD or M.2 and Windows 10 with DX12.

That's great but, don't we need to have Windows 10 and a DX12 GPU and DX12 game to get full potential out of DX12? We still aren't sure how well a non-DX12 OS, GPU, CPU and game will perform with DX12 and at what level.

I'm holding off Windows 10 until the bugs are worked out and the other issues are worked out like the privacy issue and forced automatic updates etc.

I am looking forward to a thorough review and benchmarks of the
$500 GIGABYTE GA-Z170X-Gaming G1
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=13-128-833

with the Skylake i7, 3200 ram and an NVMe SSD or M.2 and Windows 10 with DX12.

I am using windows 10 insider for about three months and haven't reach any problems at all. About privacy and updates you can set up everything in windows so far except for updates for insider users like myself but you still can schedule updates to be installed when you like. Too bad i was busy working over weekend and didn't had chance to try this out to share my experience.

 

[scolaner]

The dev said that they are having driver issues and the DX12 patch won't be until next week.

http://steamcommunity.com/app/346110/discussions/0/520518053440119300/

Hey, thanks for the heads up. We wrote a follow-up article: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/ark-directx-12-patch-delayed,29956.html

 

[GObonzo]

That's great but, don't we need to have Windows 10 and a DX12 GPU and DX12 game to get full potential out of DX12? We still aren't sure how well a non-DX12 OS, GPU, CPU and game will perform with DX12 and at what level.

yes, you need Windows 10 and a DX12 compliant GPU to run DX12 games with Dx12 effects.