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http://www.cmpevents.com/GD06/a.asp?option=C&V=11&SessID=2128

Ritual: Next-Gen Visual Effects on Direct3D 10
Speaker: Douglas Service (Director of Technology Development, Ritual Entertainment), Sam Glassenberg (Program Manager, Microsoft)
Date/Time: TBD
Track: Programming
Format: 60-minute Lecture
Experience Level: Intermediate

Session Description
Ritual Entertainment is targeting Direct3D 10 in their next-generation Windows Vista title, leveraging a revolutionary new graphics hardware and software platform. In this session, discover how Ritual’s engineers are exploiting Direct3D10 Geometry Shaders, Stream Output, Render Target Arrays, Shader Model 4.0, and more, to deliver unprecedented visual effects in their game. Topics covered include an overview of new Direct3D 10 features, followed by a case study of art-content and architecture implications for a game engine that uses Direct3D 10 as its primary rendering path. A variety of visual effects enabled by the new pipeline capabilities are demonstrated in Ritual’s engine, including character and environmental effects.new pipeline capabilities will be demonstrated.

Idea Takeaway
This talk introduces the new features of the Direct3D 10 architecture and how game developers can leverage the power of the Direct3D 10 GPU to accelerate common graphics algorithms and render completely new effects. Attendees walk away with a basic understanding of the capabilities of the new hardware pipeline, and a sneak peek into the unprecedented visual experience that Next-Gen Windows titles will be capable of.

Intended Audience
The educational content in this session assumes previous understanding of the Direct3D9 hardware pipeline. Attendees benefit from prior experience in Direct3D9 development, including high-level shader programming.

 

[Xrenity]

Cool, no next-gen console can beat good ol' DirectX.

 

[Borys]

Cool, no next-gen console can beat good ol' DirectX.

AFAIK no next-gen console is DX10 specific.

That's beyond coolness - this and Physics PU will set apart PCs from consoles. Can't wait to spend some money on that stuff

PC devs: give me exclusive, *undoable* on consoles games, pronto!

 

[Sirolf]

The sheer power of the next-gen consoles cpus is unrivaled....The cell will throw polygons like no others!It will crush the PC's cpus for at last two years.

 

[Borys]

The sheer power of the next-gen consoles cpus is unrivaled....The cell will throw polygons like no others!It will crush the PC's cpus for at last two years.

Since when do the CPU's do the graphics?

That's right since 1980 to 1996.

 

[mrklaw]

AFAIK no next-gen console is DX10 specific.

That's beyond coolness - this and Physics PU will set apart PCs from consoles. Can't wait to spend some money on that stuff

PC devs: give me exclusive, *undoable* on consoles games, pronto!

You'll be waiting a while IMO, if they tap CELL and XeCPU properly. Even then, you might get a couple of great looking games, which will port nicely anyway

I'm happy to stop spending shitloads on my PC for the next few years, until any potential gains really show through.

 

[Sirolf]

Since when do the CPU's do the graphics?

Do you think that the 7 Cell's SPE will be there just for AI and Physics ?
They will work in tandem with the RSX for the geometry setup.Xenon's cores will also be used for this. So the GPU is not alone on these architectures!

 

[Borys]

You'll be waiting a while IMO, if they tap CELL and XeCPU properly. Even then, you might get a couple of great looking games, which will port nicely anyway

I'm happy to stop spending shitloads on my PC for the next few years, until any potential gains really show through.

Yup, I think the first games that will push PCs further than PS3 will come out in 2007 (half to one year after the PS3 release). Gives a lot of time to save the dough for the upgrades, though.

I really hope the PPU add-on card will catch on. I'll take realistic physics over parallax-mapped static shit anyday.

 

[Andrew2]

Since when do the CPU's do the graphics?

That's right since 1980 to 1996.

Well technically speaking,they still do even till this day. Ever heard of scientific imaging? Whether you talking about running a robot, doing CAT scans or just about any kind of imaging, its all CPU controlled

 

[Pimpbaa]

Since when do the CPU's do the graphics?

That's right since 1980 to 1996.

CELL can do graphic work. Weren't the first few ps3 graphic demos done on CELL only?

 

[svenuce]

So you're saying that I could get hot grafix with my 7800GTX and my Pentium 3?! Cool! Where do I sign up?

 

[gofreak]

Since when do the CPU's do the graphics?

That's right since 1980 to 1996.

CPUs have a large indirect role in how games look, and in a closed box can play a direct role too. It could certainly be a win to involve the CPU in direct rendering tasks depending on your needs. They're more flexible than a SM4.0 Vertex or Geometry Shader ever will be too

Anyway, I look forward to Ritual's presentation. I wonder if they'll be presenting on actual DX10 hardware, or on DX9 hardware like Crytek's next DX10 engine? The latest DX SDK update has DX10 stuff in it too, which is cool..

 

[Borys]

CPUs have a large indirect role in how games look, and in a closed box can play a direct role too. It could certainly be a win to involve the CPU in direct rendering tasks depending on your needs. They're more flexible than a SM4.0 Vertex or Geometry Shader ever will be too

Anyway, I look forward to Ritual's presentation. I wonder if they'll be presenting on actual DX10 hardware, or on DX9 hardware like Crytek's next DX10 engine? The latest DX SDK update has DX10 stuff in it too, which is cool..

I find you very tech-knowledgable, gofreak, always providing solid points and arguments (with an added veil of pro-Sony spin, that's my boi :lol).

Now tell me and be frank: do you really, really believe that PCs won't take over PS3 with its massive Cell computing in say 2007? You know better than I than a platform like PC isn't stagnant, in 2007 we will have 1GB DX10 cards and multi-core (3-4) ~3.5-4GHz CPUs, easily.

One had to be really dumb to not look back at the history of consoles and PCs and take notes from within.

Anyway my point is: PCs will take over the performance crown sooner (late 2006, early 2007) than later (early 2008) like some of the Sony fans (I'm a *big* Sony fan by the way) are proclaiming.

DX10 is the first step to putting graphical edge where it always was - on the PC.

 

[Pimpbaa]

Anyway my point is: PCs will take over the performance crown sooner (late 2006, early 2007) than later (early 2008) like some of the Sony fans (I'm a *big* Sony fan by the way) are proclaiming.

DX10 is the first step to putting graphical edge where it always was - on the PC.

Yeah, high end PCs will always have the capabilities to have cutting edge graphics. But the problem is, the games themselves won't. Developers can't build their games around the best cpu and video card, and thus that hinders what they can do.

 

[CarlosX360]

So, does Microsoft own DirectX, or Ritual owns it?

I read somewhere here that Microsoft owns DX.

I'm only asking for clarification...etc.

 

[gofreak]

Now tell me and be frank: do you really, really believe that PCs won't take over PS3 with its massive Cell computing in say 2007? You know better than I than a platform like PC isn't stagnant, in 2007 we will have 1GB DX10 cards and multi-core (3-4) ~3.5-4GHz CPUs, easily.

The GPUs are there or there abouts already. On the CPU side it might be quite a long time before you see any Intel or AMD CPU that matches Cell for FP performance. But if you throw in a PhysX PPU, things might change (but of course it can only be used for physics)..

CPU<->GPU bandwidth will also take quite some time to catch up (though some of that advantage is negated perhaps by higher bandwidth elsewhere).

That's the hardware - on the software side there's an added lag - you'll be waiting even longer beyond hardware availability for games to be actually built from the ground up with a particular spec, or class of spec in mind - and an added layer of "unoptimisation".

Nintendo X - MS is responsible for DirectX.

 

[mckmas8808]

Yup, I think the first games that will push PCs further than PS3 will come out in 2007 (half to one year after the PS3 release). Gives a lot of time to save the dough for the upgrades, though.

I really hope the PPU add-on card will catch on. I'll take realistic physics over parallax-mapped static shit anyday.

Well what happens when Sony shows the world that Motorstorm was the real deal? Will 2007 PC racing games look better than the Motorstorm video?

 

[jman2050]

Well what happens when Sony shows the world that Motorstorm was the real deal? Will 2007 PC racing games look better than the Motorstorm video?

Yes.

 

[Pimpbaa]

Well what happens when Sony shows the world that Motorstorm was the real deal? Will 2007 PC racing games look better than the Motorstorm video?

Considering how few come out for pc, and the ones that do are usually lower budget, my guess is no. Except for the ports of racing games from the ps3 and 360.

 

[hukasmokincaterpillar]

That's the hardware - on the software side there's an added lag - you'll be waiting even longer beyond hardware availability for games to be actually built from the ground up with a particular spec, or class of spec in mind - and an added layer of "unoptimisation".

Ill preface this by saying Im also a PC gamer, but I have to agree with this. Look no further than Far Cry on the PC. That was the first game on the platform to showcase DX 9 class hardware on any significant level, and that was some three years after the Xbox. And really, most new cutting-edge PC games still include a lot of DX 7/8 legacy simply due to the variable nature of the platform. We still havent seen the sum of what software built from the ground up with the SM 3.0 pipeline can really do.

As for DX10 hardware, similar to this past generation I dont expect to see much fruit bared in PC games from the new API until 2 or 3 years from now. Once we get into that fourth generation of PS3/360 software is probably when we'll finally start to see the big gap on the PC start to form, at least graphically.

What I do find compelling in the console/PC divide this round is the paradigm shift in CPU power, especially in regards to physics, animation, AI etc. x86 will of course continue to be general purpose, but both major consoles are now highly specialized toward floating point, especially Cell. As gofreak noted, FP wise PS3/X360 will likely continue to have a big advantage in this area throughout the cycle, even as multi-core becomes more prevelant in the PC space. It remains to be seen how Cell/Xenon will be leveraged in the coming years, but even if "helper chips" for the PC like the PPU reach retail, software fully targeting them will likely be very sparse indeed. Meanwhile the closed box consoles with these powerful floating point heavy chips are going to be turned inside out by developers in the next 5 years. Interesting times ahead I think.

 

[choplifter]

supposedly, the Xbox 360's Xenos GPU comes the closest to DX10 and Shader 4.0 spec.
Xenos is concidered DX9.5 and Shader 3.5 plus it has some tricks up its sleeve that even DX10 won't have, or at least I thought I remember reading that somewhere.
I'm sure Xbox 360 could do a reasonable version of an early DX10 engine, and probably PS3 as well, with Cell handling some of the stuff that RSX cannot do (that Xenos can).
It won't be until later into DX10's lifecycle that we will see stuff that is impossible on X360 and PS3. - but by the time those incredible PC games come out, we will be on the verge of Xbox1080 and PS4