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DICE's Johan Andersson wants Win10+DX12 as minspec for holiday 2016 Frosbite titles

CryptiK

Member
What graphical glitches?
There are a few. The map with the most is Zavod. The middle of the map between the middle buildings likes to disappear so you can see through the ground, the under area likes to have a one way wall https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zw25vXdRR0Q. Every no and then it gets a bit rainbowy across the ground. Dawnbreaker has a pretty big one that has never been fixed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOLfKz6z6mc its been there since release.

And there are plenty more all not fixed since release.
 

A-V-B

Member
You would rather buy a PS4 than run Windows 10....... what does that even mean?

It means I'm a silly little primate who finds a company like Microsoft offering their brand new OS for free to be mesmerizing, and would rather let the other excited apes test this sudden messianic miracle en masse before I upset my warm and comfy habitat in the name of zoological Science :)
 

Baleoce

Member
There are definitely good reasons to wait a while before upgrading.

Personally, I'm gonna jump in the Win 10 ship asap so good news for me.
I'll likely try and give it half a year to three quarters. Give the OS some time to get the inevitable critical updates in, and also give developers enough time to expand support to the OS for existing hardware / software. I had a lot of trouble with my sound card for the first few months of win8. Also gives time to scope out the general consensus of the OS.
It just seems like the prudent thing to do, especially as it replaces the license for your existing OS.
 

DieH@rd

Banned
I haven't been following much of DX12, other than the GTX 970 (my card) apparently supporting it. I wonder what kind of realistic, real world performance increases for, say, Mass Effect 4 one could see between Win 8 + DX11 versus Win 10 + DX12.

Mantle/DX12/Vuklan are not only enhancing GPU performance, but more importantly CPU performance. The age of single-core friendly DX11 needs to stop. With low level APIs, the user with older CPUs will get a tons of new performance, Mantle benchmarks are already showing this clearly.

DX12 + Ubi open world games = finally not messy PC performance caused by CPUs
 

KKRT00

Member
There are a few. The map with the most is Zavod. The middle of the map between the middle buildings likes to disappear so you can see through the ground, the under area likes to have a one way wall https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zw25vXdRR0Q. Every no and then it gets a bit rainbowy across the ground. Dawnbreaker has a pretty big one that has never been fixed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOLfKz6z6mc its been there since release.

And there are plenty more all not fixed since release.

Those are assets bugs, not rendering bugs.
Repi or any other DICE's graphics or engine engineer are not responsible for those.
 

FordGTGuy

Banned
It means I'm a silly little primate who finds a company like Microsoft offering their brand new OS for free to be mesmerizing, and would rather let the other excited apes test this sudden messianic miracle en masse before I upset my warm and comfy habitat in the name of zoological Science :)

Microsoft is saving money by ending the fragmentation of Windows; they will no longer have to continue supporting older operating systems.
 

hodgy100

Member
There are a few. The map with the most is Zavod. The middle of the map between the middle buildings likes to disappear so you can see through the ground, the under area likes to have a one way wall https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zw25vXdRR0Q. Every no and then it gets a bit rainbowy across the ground. Dawnbreaker has a pretty big one that has never been fixed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOLfKz6z6mc its been there since release.

And there are plenty more all not fixed since release.

I don't see anything in the first video? are you talking about the frame hitch near the end before disconnecting? thats more likely to be a general networking bug, its normal for games to hitch like that in those situations.

The second video shows an occlusion calculation bug, not a graphical rendering one :) The game is trying to work out which objects are actually visible and it will turn off chunks of the level when it thinks they aren't visible so that the render doesn't waste time rendering them. But it isnt a rendering bug.
 

CryptiK

Member
I don't see anything in the first video? are you talking about the frame hitch near the end before disconnecting? thats more likely to be a general networking bug, its normal for games to hitch like that in those situations.

The second video shows an occlusion calculation bug, not a graphical rendering one :) The game is trying to work out which objects are actually visible and it will turn off chunks of the level when it thinks they aren't visible so that the render doesn't waste time rendering them. But it isnt a rendering bug.
In the first one there is a wall to the right where it shouldn't be. That is the entrance to an under pass.
 

Kezen

Banned
Mantle/DX12/Vuklan are not only enhancing GPU performance, but more importantly CPU performance. The age of single-core friendly DX11 needs to stop. With low level APIs, the user with older CPUs will get a tons of new performance, Mantle benchmarks are already showing this clearly.

DX12 + Ubi open world games = finally not messy PC performance caused by CPUs

But will Ubisoft support DX12 on PC ? My understanding is that it's a much more difficult API, expensive as well compared to DX11 so Ubisoft might chose to stick with DX11 for costs reasons, performance inevitable suffers but from the point of view of Ubisoft this could be the more cost-effective solution.

It's not at all surprising to find DICE jumping on the DX12 bandwagon considering they always had a focus on technology and PC. Ubisoft don't seem that "commited" to PC gaming hence why I suspect we won't see DX12 games (on PC) coming from them.
I'm sure they will make the most out of DX12 on the Xbox since it's a fixed platform but having a well performing and stable DX12 layer on PC is perhaps much more difficult and ergo expensive.
 

leeh

Member
It means I'm a silly little primate who finds a company like Microsoft offering their brand new OS for free to be mesmerizing, and would rather let the other excited apes test this sudden messianic miracle en masse before I upset my warm and comfy habitat in the name of zoological Science :)
They're trying to avoid fragmentation, why wouldn't you upgrade for free and dual boot between the OS'? You don't want to get to the point where you can't upgrade for free. Even though I can imagine them only saying its for the year to move everyone faster onto W10 and then making it free for lifetime.
 

dr_rus

Member
DX12 + Ubi open world games = finally not messy PC performance caused by CPUs
Yeah, considering their DX11 efforts so far I'll have to see their DX12 renderers before making such claims. There are a lot more places where you can screw up in DX12.
 

Baleoce

Member
They're trying to avoid fragmentation, why wouldn't you upgrade for free and dual boot between the OS'? You don't want to get to the point where you can't upgrade for free. Even though I can imagine them only saying its for the year to move everyone faster onto W10 and then making it free for lifetime.
An upgraded license replaces your old one.
 

aravuus

Member
I'll likely try and give it half a year to three quarters. Give the OS some time to get the inevitable critical updates in, and also give developers enough time to expand support to the OS for existing hardware / software. I had a lot of trouble with my sound card for the first few months of win8. Also gives time to scope out the general consensus of the OS.
It just seems like the prudent thing to do, especially as it replaces the license for your existing OS.

Oh sure, if you've only got one license, better to be safe than sorry. Pretty sure I can get a couple of more free Win8 licenses from my uni so it doesn't really matter.

And when I said asap, I didn't really mean like day 0. I suppose I'll give it a month or two too.
 

Kezen

Banned
Yeah, considering their DX11 efforts so far I'll have to see their DX12 renderers before making such claims. There are a lot more places where you can screw up in DX12.

That's what worries me with DX12. My DX11 experience has been remarquably stable save for a few crashes here and here, and Ubisoft games on PC have very rarely caused me headaches, but with a much lower level API like DX12 which lets the topography of the hardware show through stability and performance issues could potentially be much more severe than they are now with Watch Dogs or Unity.

DX12 would actually force them to put more effort in their PC versions just to nail down performance and stability, let alone if they want to add another graphical layer on top of their console base. In the hands of Ubisoft Kiev DX12 is dynamite, and that's not good for us.
I know Nvidia have worked with them multiple times in the past and could financially entice them but I'm highly sceptical Ubisoft are that interested by DX12 on PC, even more so if DX11 is sufficient to port the gameplay and graphical features to PC.
Hopefully the "limited" (so we are told) DirectCompute will convince them to invest in DX12.
 

A-V-B

Member
They're trying to avoid fragmentation, why wouldn't you upgrade for free and dual boot between the OS'? You don't want to get to the point where you can't upgrade for free. Even though I can imagine them only saying its for the year to move everyone faster onto W10 and then making it free for lifetime.

The principle of Caution falls to its knees and sobs like a little child on this one. It doesn't put wings on my shoes, but the sounds it makes are very sweet and heartbreaking, so I am obliged to listen, at least for a time.

Sorry.
 

FordGTGuy

Banned
How well for them.

You wanted to know what they were getting out of this deal... well now you know.

The principle of Caution falls to its knees and sobs like a little child on this one. It doesn't put wings on my shoes, but the sounds it makes are very sweet and heartbreaking, so I am obliged to listen, at least for a time.

Sorry.

You've so far added nothing but concern to this topic......
 

TheSeks

Blinded by the luminous glory that is David Bowie's physical manifestation.
Don't see why not outside of DX12 not being on... 90%(?) of PC GPU's. Win 10 is a free upgrade for the first year for Win7 and 8 owners, so people have no excuse for that one.
 

kraspkibble

Permabanned.
i have a 290 at the moment. i read it will support DX12? either way holiday 2016 is quite a bit away. i'll have definitely upgraded my GPU by then.
 

Locuza

Member
For those who don't know:

Johan Andersson pretty much single-handedly wrote the AMD MANTLE spec.
This is now the main basis for Vulcan and Direct X 12.
Cool story.

All DX11 cards will be supported by DX12.
Not all, the older VLIW GPUs from AMD and Ivy-Bridge will not be covered.

But will Ubisoft support DX12 on PC ? My understanding is that it's a much more difficult API, expensive as well compared to DX11 so Ubisoft might chose to stick with DX11 for costs reasons, performance inevitable suffers but from the point of view of Ubisoft this could be the more cost-effective solution.
In comparison to the whole game, the costs are very low.
We just need to look at Mantle Games like Thief.
An Unreal Engine 3 Game, getting a new API Render-Back-End from an external studio.

For Ubisoft, as one of the big players, it should be relatively easy to add DX12 Support.
 

A-V-B

Member
You wanted to know what they were getting out of this deal... well now you know.



You've so far added nothing but concern to this topic......

Human beings are granted great many privileges in an open forum. Concern is one of them.
 
When was rendering tech not working in any DICE title?

its kind of hard for a game to ship with the foundational rendering tech not working, but frostbite 3 doesnt do johan any favors. how do you ship a fully native dx11 title at the end of 2013 with z fighting issues, polygon clipping and warping, and texture seaming filling the screen on a near constant basis. that hasnt been around since ps1. how do you include a particle system that can drop performance by 1000% in common use cases.

then theres the crashing. dice la is STILL identifying and fixing crashes in bf4 and the game is 1.5 years old. i dont even want to think of the results when the frostbite team doesnt have dx11 to hold its hand. uggghhh.
 

Kezen

Banned
In comparison to the whole game, the costs are very low.
We just need to look at Mantle Games like Thief.
An Unreal Engine 3 Game, getting a new API Render-Back-End from an external studio.
Mantle is only for the GCN though, with DX12 they would have to support Nvidia and AMD hardware, and Intel iGPUs.

For Ubisoft, as one of the big players, it should be relatively easy to add DX12 Support.
Even if it was, would they ? I'm not so sure.
 

pottuvoi

Banned
Yes, it will support DX12. All GCN cards are supported by DX12.
Indeed.
Pretty much all GPUs released within ~4 years are DX12 compliant, So the dx12 requirement is not an issue for games going to be released late 2016.

Also WDDM2.0 and thus Windows10 requirement is not that bad due to the upgrade offered by MS.
If it makes developers life a lot easier, we should be enthusiastic for the change as it will give us improved experience.
 
I'll likely try and give it half a year to three quarters. Give the OS some time to get the inevitable critical updates in, and also give developers enough time to expand support to the OS for existing hardware / software. I had a lot of trouble with my sound card for the first few months of win8. Also gives time to scope out the general consensus of the OS.
It just seems like the prudent thing to do, especially as it replaces the license for your existing OS.

For what it's worth, I'm running the Win 10 Technical Preview at home right now and the drivers have been brilliant. The only one I had to go out of my way to install was NVidia for my GTX570 - and even before that it had drivers, they just weren't the latest. All my other stuff - USB microphone, camera, PCI-E wifi dongle, on board USB ports, KB/M etc - they were all working when it first booted. The latest Wacom drivers even worked for my girlfriend's Cintiq - I was impressed; It was the smoothest first-boot I've ever had, for sure. Assuming it's only going to improve between now and release, hopefully we won't have too much trouble.
 

KKRT00

Member
its kind of hard for a game to ship with the foundational rendering tech not working, but frostbite 3 doesnt do johan any favors. how do you ship a fully native dx11 title at the end of 2013 with z fighting issues, polygon clipping and warping, and texture seaming filling the screen on a near constant basis. that hasnt been around since ps1. how do you include a particle system that can drop performance by 1000% in common use cases.

then theres the crashing. dice la is STILL identifying and fixing crashes in bf4 and the game is 1.5 years old. i dont even want to think of the results when the frostbite team doesnt have dx11 to hold its hand. uggghhh.

I dont remember any of those issues from BF 3 or BF 4 beta.

Particle system in BF games is one of the most advanced from any engine. Full lit, full shadowed and cast shadows too, also tons of them on screen at once.
 

Agent_4Seven

Tears of Nintendo
+1. PC gamers may well rage, but it would push the platform forward (likely driven by Xbox for a change).
So it is OK not to reveal the full potential of DX11 (not to mention hardware which it uses) and always strive for something new? But wait, that is what PC is all about and will always be.

I wonder, how many games generally use the full potential of DX11/1/2? Do we have seen any game on PC with the visual quality of the Samaritan demo? Nope, even to this day nothing comes close.
 

gossi

Member
The problem you've got is although Windows 10 is a free upgrade, I think Average Joe will struggle to upgrade. Most people don't even know what DirectX is.
 
I dont remember any of those issues from BF 3 or BF 4 beta.

Particle system in BF games is one of the most advanced from any engine. Full lit, full shadowed and cast shadows too, also tons of them on screen at once.

cryengine3 particles do all of the above and dont tank perf by 1000%.

the problems didnt exist on such a scale in bf3. its specific to fb3.
 

Locuza

Member
Mantle is only for the GCN though, with DX12 they would have to support Nvidia and AMD hardware, and Intel iGPUs.


Even if it was, would they ? I'm not so sure.
1. Of course with Mantle it was more focused, but the costs were relatively higher for just one supported hardware-line.
Now you can share more or less a single render-back-end.
From Xbox One, AMD GCN, Intel to Nvidia.

It's not like there is zero hardware-abstraction and zero tools and validation layers.

2. To be honest, I'm also not quite sure.
 

orava

Member
I'm also using win10 as my main os. I haven't noticed any compatibility issues with drivers etc. and it works just as 8.1 in that regard. Understandably there are still some bugs in the ui especially and some features aren't finished yet.
 

orava

Member
The problem you've got is although Windows 10 is a free upgrade, I think Average Joe will struggle to upgrade. Most people don't even know what DirectX is.

Updating is made really easy though. Basically it gives you a message that upgrade is ready and after that it's just few clicks.
 
So it is OK not to reveal the full potential of DX11 (not to mention hardware which it uses) and always strive for something new? But wait, that is what PC is all about and will always be.

I wonder, how many games generally use the full potential of DX11/1/2? Do we have seen any game on PC with the visual quality of the Samaritan demo? Nope, even to this day nothing comes close.

But does that matter? It's like when car companies use their rally or F1 teams to develop new technology that eventually filters into their consumer cars; You don't need to be a rally driver to benefit from, I dunno, a more advanced gearbox. Not having reached the ceiling of DX11 doesn't mean DX12 won't bring performance increases.
 

Kezen

Banned
1. Of course with Mantle it was more focused, but the costs were relatively higher for just one supported hardware-line.
Now you can share more or less a single render-back-end.
From Xbox One, AMD GCN, Intel to Nvidia.
It's not like there is zero hardware-abstraction and zero tools and validation layers.
I'm not convinced by the cost-effectiveness just yet, very few DX12 games have been announced thus far (Fable Legends, the Oxide RTS). Will we see big AAA multiplats with a DX12 layer ? Assassin's Creed Victory, COD Black Ops 3, Battlefront etc..
 

Easy_D

never left the stone age
Literally no reason not to do this when Win10 is essentially free and DX11 GPUs can run DX12
 

derExperte

Member
I'm not convinced by the cost-effectiveness just yet, very few DX12 games have been announced thus far (Fable Legends, the Oxide RTS). Will we see big AAA multiplats with a DX12 layer ? Assassin's Creed Victory, COD Black Ops 3, Battlefront etc..

Afaik the X1 will be able to use DX12 too so there's another incentive for devs to use it.
 

gossi

Member
Updating is made really easy though. Basically it gives you a message that upgrade is ready and after that it's just few clicks.

Last time I looked more people ran Windows XP than Windows 8 and 8.1 combined.

To be honest I absolutely agree DICE (and others) should push to Windows 10 w/ DirectX12 only. It would just cost them $ for a while.
 

Amaducias

Neo Member
All DX11 cards will be supported by DX12. It's still not huge market share according to http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey?platform=pc - DX9 still appears to be the majority.

But will that still be the case in 1 1/2 years? I'd be amazed if it is.

There is a difference between operating systems not supporting DX11 or GPU's not supporting it. It's cheaper to upgrade from vista to 7/8/10 than to buy a new gpu in most cases.

According to that very same steamsurvey over 77% of the gpu's in use support DX11.
Which shows us that if people ever decide to upgrade their OS, they will reap the benefits.

http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/videocard/?sort=pct
 

Locuza

Member
I'm not convinced by the cost-effectiveness just yet, very few DX12 games have been announced thus far (Fable Legends, the Oxide RTS). Will we see big AAA multiplats with a DX12 layer ? Assassin's Creed Victory, COD Black Ops 3, Battlefront etc..
Well, aren't we talking about holiday 2016 and not this year? :)
With tight release windows and the late arrival of windows 10 with DX12 there will be certainly many guys which will wait and do nothing this year.
 

orava

Member
Last time I looked more people ran Windows XP than Windows 8 and 8.1 combined.

To be honest I absolutely agree DICE (and others) should push to Windows 10 w/ DirectX12 only. It would just cost them $ for a while.

Those people who still run windows xp are probably still using PCs from 15 years ago and most of them don't use it for gaming. They aren't relevant unless they upgrade their hardware too. According to steam stats, about t 3.6% are windows xp 32bit users. Win7+ is around 88%
 

Madness

Member
So they're going to lock me out of Mirror's Edge 2 for this bullshit? They can eat my shorts. I'll save hundreds of dollars and afford more things elsewhere.

They're not locking you out of anything. They're simply saying, in about 18 months time, unless you have newer or more capable hardware, you simply won't be able to run the games they're doing. Don't see how it's different than any other time when what you have on PC no longer cuts the mustard. Can't be held back any longer, full steam ahead with DX12 if that's what they want.

Coupled with the fact Windows 10 will be free for everyone, even counterfeit keys from what I read. They could really get majority market dominance pretty quickly with Windows 10 this way.
 
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