Are you excited about Direct X 10?

Dyre Straits

DudeBoyz,
One thing I've noticed about ATT is that, even if you uninstall it, if you don't clean up the registry keys, too, it will "remember" your last settings. So, if you had it set to show these things on a previous install, it's likely it'll just pick up where you left off. That may be why you got the impression that it does certain things by default.

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X1800XTTOP

Im not excited simply because UT3/Crysis aren´t that much nicer on DX10, but instead just "faster" - wich can be discussed if it isnt simply because the 8800GTX simply is that much faster than the X1950XTX - i.e. its the hardware, not directx10 itself.

Im currently running my games in very high settings, so upgrading a gpu would be 'pointless' for me.

This is how i run a few games in terms of AA/AF (rest of settings are ALL maxed out (incl. HDR in oblivion) at 1280X1024);

Fear: 4xQAAA/16xHQAF
Oblivion: 4xAA/16xAF (lowest settings i have to use in any game supporting AA/AF)
Call of Duty 2: 6xAA/16xHQAF
BF2: 6xQAAA/16xHQAF
HL2/EP1: 6xQAAA/16xHQAF

Most of my games, i do run with 6xQAAA/16xHQAF (making profiles in ATT is the best thing ever - and the shortcuts it creates uses the same icon as the original .exe). People with X1900 and X1950 would only run games even better - making an upgrade to DX10 only for increased performance - wich doesnt really make much sense to me (id rather wait for a 9800GTX/X3800XT then..) and DX10b (or whatever it will be called-if its updated).

DudeBoyz

Interesting. When I was first trying to install it and get it to work, it did goof up my machine a few times. Perhaps I inadvertently set that when poking around. The right mouse button menu seems "jittery" with that app - perhaps I have something in my mouse driver or with my AVG anti-virus resident app or the MultiRes app or something that got me goofed up.

Too bad Ccleaner doesn't rip it out of the reg.

I wonder why people write such sloppy uninstall code? When I was hardcore programming I almost ALWAYS had a series of checklists indicating the purpose of every variable (ya didn't have to declare variables in some versions of Microsoft IDE's at the time), setting, CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT entry that I placed in there, etc. And when I wrote error trapping and uninstall stuff, I tried to make sure that every item on that previous list was addressed with specific code instead of just doing a few and relying on the "if other do this" type of code that so many folks use as a shortcut. Same thing with Pointers into memory locations. It was particularly key when "peeking and poking" in assembly. You leave one of those pointers active when you close out the app, it can lead to memory leaks and system instability.

I guess I was taught to do it more stringently. I sure do wish others were taught to be more meticulous today.

It's great that people write us some free programs, but I guess I can't help but sound a bit ungrateful when I say I wish they took it a bit more seriously.

Anyway, thanks for the info.

DudeBoyz

That is why I was so excited about the X1950 Pro AGP version.

I have a 9800 Pro 128, an X800 Pro and an X800 XT AIW and thought I would never be able to get a faster AGP card.

I actually bought an inexpensive and less full featured replacement socket 939 motherboard with a PCI-E on it so that I could eventually move to a new level of card when games demanded it. I didn't want to sacrifice my investment in CPU, RAM, etc. I had gotten a 939 system because I wanted to be able to upgrade. I just didn't realize that there would be this huge rush to mothball the AGP interface, especially so fast.

So when I heard that PowerColor was going to release ATI's 3rd fastest individual card as an AGP product, I was pretty darn happy. None of those 1300/1600/1650 cards beat the X800 XT in performance, and the Nvidia 7800GS pretty much runs neck and neck with it, so there was no card besides the slightly higher clocked X850 series that could beat it, and then only with a huge double slot cooling solution.

Once PowerColor announced it, suddenly you had a group of folks jumping on the same bandwagon and you had VistionTek, HIS, Diamond MM and Sapphire announcing their products for AGP as well.

Sure enough, the AGP version is either right with the PCI-E version or even faster in benchmarks.

So I snagged myself a 512 meg version of the X1950 Pro AGP and while it isn't perfect, it was $249 and is wicked fast.

I think I paid $329 for my 9800 Pro and $399 for my X800 Pro and was lucky to even FIND one at the time.

Then I snag a much faster card with more memory for large textures and higher resolution Anti-Aliasing, and it was $150 less.

Sometimes you are the bug, other times you are the windshield. Today, I'm the windshield.

Have you thought about getting an X1950 Pro AGP card? The 256 meg versions are as low as $179, I believe.

Lelisevis

Wow ive been looking into Alan Wake a little and it looks like a graphics card upgrade isnt going to be enough for DX10. From the developers:

The developers have stated that the game will not run on any single-core platform, although it might just about work (with reduced graphics and physics, of course) on a Pentium-4 with Hyper Threading enabled. What the game has been thus far demoed on has been a heavily overclocked 3.73 GHz Core 2 Quad system. This is simply because in the most intensive sequences, such as when a twister is running through a trailer park, the real-time physics calculations alone will use one of the processor cores, leaving the rest of the necessary simultaneous processes to the remaining processors.

DudeBoyz

I think I'll stick with UT2004...

RoyBatty

I guess I'll have to, but from what Lelisevis said about Alan Wake maybe I will be able to run it and watch the slideshow

DudeBoyz

Yeah. Just because a game has killer graphics does not mean it won't suck. Doom 3 and Quake 4 both were very sub-par to me. I fired up Quake 3 Arena, which still looks great with all that awesome texture work, and it was a totally good time.

Far Cry was all about the graphics and was a surprisingly good romp, but Serious Sam II was all about the graphics and the gameplay really suffered.

Ya just never know.

normr

directx 10 is the thing..........that's why i shelled out for ultimate..........but i guess i won't be installing that for a few months until nvidia sorts their driver nightmare........on the other hand 9c on xp works and the 8 series are hot cards

Lelisevis

Dualboot on a seperate drive and get used to Vista, it takes a little while to familiarise yourself with the new layout, Im still finding new things everyday.
I've got XP on one drive and vista on another and use boot priority to switch between them in the bios. That way they are completely independant.

Vista, 8800 single card and Nvidia chipset and video drivers are a more than acceptable gaming system now. It's only SLi that raises issues. Don't listen to the Whql rubbish, it still amuses me the number of people in uproar over those 4 little letters added by microsoft when the same people moan and complain about every little thing Microsoft does.

mainman

I'm happy with my x360 right now, maybe in a year or so, but right now it's not worth it for me.

DudeBoyz

All DirectX does, primarily, is support a unified shader architecture. What new effects or other features does it offer?

Why is it worth all the hassle of dealing with Vista?

mainman

ATM if your main focus of upgrading is gaming it's really not worth it really. Almost all dx10 games coming out for PC are also coming out on the next gen consoles. So why spend thousands of dollars upgrading your pc for dx10/vista when you can get pretty much the same effect with a 400 bucks console (in the x360 case). But that's just my view on things.

Judas

DX10, the main feature that is damn unique, is Geometry Shader, and when it's in action... it's utterly amazing...

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DudeBoyz

I agree. I still like my Playstation 2 a great deal.

But on the PC, I'm just trying to figure out what is so compelling about DirectX 10. Unified shader - fine. But what else makes it worth the effort?

DarkFoss

I upgraded to Linux instead

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Judas

Geometry Shaders i said... That's one feature that is the major compelling things that i could see in DX10, aside from DX10 being ALOT cleaner and easier to code for as well (while providing simpler and more complex graphical advancements)

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ET3D

It's kind of varied, these days. Several of years ago I was a graphics programmer for a game that didn't eventually find a publisher. Now I still sometimes do 3D work and some GPGPU work as part of my job, though they're not the major part of what I do.

DX10 is a real improvement in terms of programming abilities over what can be done in DX9. That's good for both graphics and GPGPU work. This makes the programmer's like easier (except for beginners, IMO), and allows complex effects to be achieved more easily. (Simple graphics, OTOH, are more difficult, due to some DX9 semantics being dropped in favour of more general functionality, which is why I think that DX10 will be harder on beginners.)

The main reason I'm currently not all that excited about DX10 from the gaming perspective is that I think it's too new to really show its potential, because programmers will still have to deal with DX9 for a while, and because IMO 3D programming has become so complex that it's really hard to take full advantage of the hardware. It'd take some time to really take advantage of what DX10 has to offer.

DudeBoyz

Don't existing products have Geometry Shaders? DX 9 level stuff?

ET3D

Geometry shaders are a new feature for DX10.

DudeBoyz

Thanks.

It's not an actual graphical enhancement, but a programming thing? Or can it be seen visually, like Anti-Aliasing or bump mapping or something?

Judas

Geometry shaders basically work like this in it's simplest form:


They can randomly and intelligently create landscapes and objects and just about anything that actually has polygon/triangler makeup. That's what i know of it's basic, MOST basic advantages.

From other things i've seen or read, it looks like it can be used in just about any senario. Meaning it or things can be modified on the fly. Remember the "transformation" part of TnL? Well now i think this little specific option really puts hardware rendering to the test. As you could on the fly, do a transformation of any conceiveable object into any form or substance or anything you could wish without having to do a pile of manual animation coding. Or so i understood.


Now i had posted this in a few places previously..

but:


http://www.geisswerks.com/ryan/whats....html#cascades

That's where a designer and creator of the cascades demo posts his own journal related stuff.

but heres the real nice thing about DX10

http://www.gamespot.com/pages/video_...id=6161515&pid=

That's a video of cascades and DX10 in action. It'll show you a few things the geometry instanceing can do.. but other things dx10 will bring to the table.

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PandaZ3

I am not currently upgrading to Vista, That would require a new card for DX10, a new Motherboard for Vista, A big outlay for Vista itself and with the exception of a more capable card, I would have precious little to show for it. XP works well, I don't need "Wow". There are no applications DX10 wise that have me drooling over them.

My current 939 machines are going to work for at least one more year before I upgrade. (unless I win the Lottery)

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Video cards in house, 5770, 4650, HD 3870, X1950 XTX, X1900 XTX, X1900 XT and X1900 Crossfire, 2 X1800 XT's, X850 Pro, X800 Pro, AIW 9600XT, 9600 Pro, 9550 SE, 9200, 7000. XFX 6800 GS

DudeBoyz

It'll probably end up being like when they got those Pixel Shader things, and everybody mis-used them so that even rusted metal had a glare on its surface and wood planks were all "Shiny".

Oh gawd...

I'm just gonna wait for Direct X 15 and see what develops...

ET3D

Geometry instancing is a programmer level hardware feature, so you won't see it directly. Most of the direct abilities on current GPUs are something that users don't see directly. They allow the powerful algorithms currently in use in graphics.

Anti-aliasing is a user level hardware feature, so users know about it. It's an image quality feature that doesn't have much effect on programming, except that you have to consider it, so it can be a minor nuisance. Bump mapping is an effect, an algorithm, which doesn't have much to do with specific hardware features.

Tipstaff

I guess for me.. I'll have to. I mean, if I plan to sell it to my clients I damn well better know what it's about, right? But will I use it for gaming? Probably not. At least not for a year or so.

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DudeBoyz

Thanks for the info.

Guess I'm still wondering visually what the diff between DX9 and DX10 will be. Figure I'll have to see a game in action before I understand really.

I'm in no hurry. DX9 still looks awful purdy.

Blazer

I will also be getting an ATI dx10 card if it is affordable when it gets released

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Judas

Geometry Instancing and Geometry Shaders are completely different things.

While instancing has quite a serious affect on improveing distance graphical details while maintaining performance, Geometry Shaders effectively provides unlimited abilities to form truely randomly and unique things right from nothing or manipulate things already created.

Did anyone watch the video i showed?

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DudeBoyz

I look at Unreal Tournament 2004 and Lord of the Rings Battle For Middle Earth II and I cannot for the life of me figure out what is missing graphically...