Read my posts above. Upgrades are incredibly important for Microsoft. Not enabling full in-place upgrades which don't break compatibility is a complete obvious show-stopper for everyone involved.
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Advanced DirectX12 Graphics and Performance - Discussion
- Thread starter gamechanger87
- Start date
Read my posts above. Upgrades are incredibly important for Microsoft. Not enabling full in-place upgrades which don't break compatibility is a complete obvious show-stopper for everyone involved.
Multi cores/threads has been the norm for years and devs have been moaning Dx is a ball and chain for just as long.
gamechanger87
Member
Guess not all, but this has been the official one since the beginning. Unless you think this is MSX's secret account and he has managed to get backstage and take set up pictures of the event.
I'll be honest, I kinda doubt it's validity given that it's not verified. Retweeting "Xbox Truther" doesn't exactly fill me with confidence either.
Edit: @HoloLens, @Lumia, @azure and @mscloud are all verified. I suspect @DirectX12 is just a fan.
CrackaF3tt
Member
gamechanger87
Member
They retweeted a tweet which congratulated the team. This must be the worst fanboy twitter account ever I guess.
I guess you could say that Mitch Lum is also being duped by this account? And this random XBO fanboy is also sneaking into GDC to post random DX12 pictures from the event and not falling into console wars?
I understand that people like to be suspicious, but thinking this is some random persons account seems like a lot of work for no feedback. Its likely the DX12 teams twitter account and they haven't felt the need to get it verified. Heck, Frostbite's twitter account isn't verified either.
Here ya go:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/directx/archive/2014/03/20/directx-12.aspx
See my edit. All their other accounts seem to be verified.
This is how I feel about my 980x.
I stand corrected. Just surprised at the inconsistency.
gamechanger87
Member
Just probably haven't bothered. DX12 in general is more developer focused I guess and they haven't bothered to get it verified as all the necessary technical details and other releases come via different channels.
That is a nice rendering time decrease. Is there any possibility for future more advanced feature levels in direct3D 12?
Hopefully this means that some developers, as in the remaining, start to utilize more multithreaded code in their games.
Well a six core X5650 is a nice upgrade for under $100.
Hopefully this means that some developers, as in the remaining, start to utilize more multithreaded code in their games.
Well a six core X5650 is a nice upgrade for under $100.
Turin Turambar
Member
it would have happened, as there was a need for it, but I think Mantle put some fire under their feet, showing to a bigger public what devs knew about overhead and bad cpu use, so it helped to accelerate the coming of Dx12 by 1 or 2 years.
Informative but no talk about Xbox One specifically yet.
It's an old article. It came up because gamechanger and I were discussing the validity of the @DirectX12 Twitter account which that article links to.
gamechanger87
Member
That's a real old article. Per curb above.
The only note about DX12 on the XBO is from the tweet from the DX12 account about it saying that there is a time and a place for everything.
Journey
Banned
If I had to make an educated guess, I would say it's easier to have 2 platforms knocked out using DX12 (PC and X1) because not only does the PS4 have the extra horsepower to brute force performance, but PS4 doesn't have DirectX API at all to begin with, right now developers are making DX11 games for PC and then either direct porting to Xbox One, or a select few taking extra time to code to the metal, and for PS4 using its own API, the higher level one. There's just no reason to stay at DX11, it won't benefit PS4 development in the least.
Do you know of any AAA project using the high level API on PS4 ?
Why would they do that ? It's a waste.
I think the biggest improvement and widespread impact that's going to come out of DX12 and the newer GPUs, is that it's going to be efficient enough, that along with tiled resources, it's finally going to push us over the hump where voxel cone tracing will be now possible on newer GPUs. No clue if it will be enough to pull it off in a reasonable fashion on the X1, but VXGI or other implementations of voxel cone tracing should become a practical reality on newer GPUs, and not just a fancy tech demo.
Sure, putting a current game on DX12 will get you some fps improvement, better AA, higher resolution, or allow you to check a couple of extra boxes on the PC side, but I couldn't care less about any of those things, as I am not and have never been caught up in the resolution or frame rate craziness that's taken over a lot of gamers.
All that is a nice perk, but compared to the ability to actually have the closest thing to path tracing we have ever had, that will completely revamp lighting in gaming as we know it, I really don't understand how people aren't more excited about it.
Most people seem to be excited about Ps nowadays, and rarely actually talk about anything else as if that's all graphics are. It's the craziest thing. It's like everyone's been brainwashed and I'm living in the twilight world. I remember there was a time about 15 years ago when you could actually have real graphics talk on GAF, and people understood geometry pushing power, texturing, shading abilities, etc, and I think the most disappointing part is that today the only thing gamers seem to understand is resolution. It's like neverending arguing about the gloss on your clear coat of your car, while completely ignoring the make up of the car.
So yeah, I'm excited about that, I think it's going to be huge, and I feel very alone in that excitement.
Sure, putting a current game on DX12 will get you some fps improvement, better AA, higher resolution, or allow you to check a couple of extra boxes on the PC side, but I couldn't care less about any of those things, as I am not and have never been caught up in the resolution or frame rate craziness that's taken over a lot of gamers.
All that is a nice perk, but compared to the ability to actually have the closest thing to path tracing we have ever had, that will completely revamp lighting in gaming as we know it, I really don't understand how people aren't more excited about it.
Most people seem to be excited about Ps nowadays, and rarely actually talk about anything else as if that's all graphics are. It's the craziest thing. It's like everyone's been brainwashed and I'm living in the twilight world. I remember there was a time about 15 years ago when you could actually have real graphics talk on GAF, and people understood geometry pushing power, texturing, shading abilities, etc, and I think the most disappointing part is that today the only thing gamers seem to understand is resolution. It's like neverending arguing about the gloss on your clear coat of your car, while completely ignoring the make up of the car.
So yeah, I'm excited about that, I think it's going to be huge, and I feel very alone in that excitement.
So very well said.
Journey
Banned
I'm speaking stricly about games originating on PC and being ported to consoles. GNMX is compatiable with HLSL and is precisely why it was developed, to make porting from and to PC a lot easier.
PC games built from the ground up on DX11 will more often than not see a direct port to Xbox One and PS4 with minimal low level coding at best. DX12 being a low level API will at least give the X1 the benefit of practically guaranteeing that every game gets low level optimizations, and for the games coming to PS4 as well, will also encourage devs to use GNM, unless the PS4 can brute force the performance difference. In any case, I think DX12 is a win for all 3 platforms.
gamechanger87
Member
Unfortunately that bridge has been crossed. I think people focus solely on the Ps because a lot of the complexities of graphics processing is way too far over peoples heads now. When that happens, people just yell resolution figures and quote flops and dive into the war. There are very few true technical discussions around here anymore that don't turn into a battleground. I know NG still has a large group of developers whom check in here, but they seem to post less and less.
I know nothing about how all of the magic happens, but I know enough to know that I shouldn't even try and wade into the conversations around comparing stuff. I think up until now we have seen GPUs trying to brute force stuff to make it look nice, and we may now finally have the toolsets to take advantage of the hardware.
To add further credence to my point and yours, I hoped this thread would turn into a place where people whom are more well informed could provide color to the presentation, but there has been very little of that and this thread is very quiet. Yet the 20% comment from yesterday went to like 20 pages in under an hour.
But the console CPUs are so terrible I have no idea how they would run demanding games with the overhead of a high level API. Which games are you alluding to ?
Aside from very light games graphics wise I don't see the point of GNMX. It's not like devs are clueless in regards to low level APIs so I assume every graphically intensive game is using the GNM on PS4 and the custom DX on Xbox One.
I imagine that you could see a lot of cases where if a studio is doing PC, XB1 and PS4 that they'd lead with DX12 and do PS4 second because of the common dev environment and then show off the PC version but if they're doing XB1 and PS4 only then they might lead PS4 since it has a larger install base and will be more of the showpiece.
Iced_Eagle
Member
You improve performance, you give breathing room to the developer to improve visual fidelity. It allows them to use more advanced techniques, which are now possible because they have more time in a frame they can use since the performance has improved.
Because the entire pipeline is programmable, and not fixed function, the developer can do any graphical effects/techniques they want, assuming they can get it performant enough.
Journey
Banned
We could only wish that were the case, and it's not just black or white, sometimes games begin the porting process using GNMX to speed things up, then towards the end during the optimization period, they start using GNM to squeeze more performance. Games starting from scratch on GNM would naturally have the best use of resources, but hardly no dev would be willing to port that way and it's almost always limited to exclusives.
Do you have any source ? I find that incredibly hard to believe that AAA games would be using the GNM API. Starting from GNMX probably but not shipping with it.
gamechanger87
Member
In your latter scenario, I could also imagine the developer taking a hard look at it and going why don't we release for PC as well. The fact that it is an easy port between the XBO and the PC, seems to make a console only release a little less likely.
It's true. If DX12 makes it as seamless to do essentially the same code between PC and XB1 as it sounds then to me there's really no reason not to a PC version. You'll probably still see some console only stuff but I would think it would decrease.
Journey
Banned
Why do you keep saying AAA titles? I'm not speaking about specific games, just what I've gathered in general regarding the topic. IIRC, there was an interview where The Crew developers spoke about using GNMX at the beginning of the project and were able to get the game translated to PS4 in as little as 6 months, but I believe some more tweaking was done later. I guess that's the incentive here, to save time and money instead of coding to the metal from day one.
gamechanger87
Member
Part of the discussion yesterday revolved around porting, and I believe it took a day to port Shovel Knight from PC to XBO and it took a day to make IDARB cross-play.
But that's only ONE example, it does not mean it's a trend.
Your quote :
Which games ?
Microsoft seems to have put a lot of work into make it easy to put your stuff across multiple platforms. The universal app stuff too. It's a good move on their part.
gamechanger87
Member
Agreed. For them its all about ecosystem which is why crossplay, crossbuy and shared saved are in W10. They don't care if you buy a game on PC or XBO as long is it is from their store, they get a cut.
If you are playing Shovel Knight on your PC and save it, then load up your XBO copy you can pick right up where you left off.
And if you look at mobile, who wouldn't want a bit of Apple's pie? They've had a good ecosystem for a while. Even PSN on a smaller, optional scale enjoys cross save, buy and play. It's the way things are moving. I know I don't want to pay for essentially the exact same thing multiple times.
I upgraded a few months ago from my Q6600 cause i needed more memory (16GB).
First time ever i upgraded because of memory :/
I upgraded to an i5 750 btw.
Journey
Banned
It just seams logical to me for any PC port. Why would a developer not want to save time and money? I gave you one example, The Crew, but Metro Redux and 2033 might be another 2, and there could be more, it's just not the kind of thing that's documented or many developers willing to admit, at the risk of being called "lazy", I mean would it be fair for me to ask you for a list of confirmed GNM only coded PC ports, then say there are none if you can't produce any?
Vast majority of (especially multiplatform) mainstream development is middleware based (pick internal or external solutions depending on the dev), so mostly nothing is built on "hw-APIs" as much as those decisions are already made well in advance by teams responsible for the said middleware.Journey said:
Which isn't to say none of such codebases would be built on high-level console APIs - but that choice is almost never in the hands of game team (unless the said team also owns their entire tech stack).
It does not to me, at all considering how inefficient that is as far as performance is concerned. I don't see AAA devs which aren't ressources starved doing that. I can see them not trying too hard to push X or Y system to its limits but that would greatly surprise me if they used the high level API, I think it makes more sense to use the GNM even if they don't pretend to make the absolute most of it.
Just like it does not mean they are.
You made a claim first, it stands to reason that you have some solid evidence to back that up and it does not sound like you have any.
Well people seem to understand Pixar it seems, want it, and ask for it, but some don't seem to get that resolution and AA, which could just simply be summed up as final image quality, isn't want makes those movies look so good. It's insane polygon count, physics and lighting and it's those discussions that are now pretty much nonexistent, or at least seriously overshadowed by pixel counters and FPS junkies. And in the case of DX12 I think it's going to make it possible for the latest software techniques that are pushing the envelope in those departments, to actually be doable in real time...and yeah it will probably be at 30fps and a lower res to start out with.
I also think devs are partly to blame and they need not to refer to voxel cone tracing, and any other next gen GI engine, as "dynamic global illumination", because they used that terminology for a long time to refer to game engines using dynamic lights and shadow maps. They are 2 completely different animals, even though they are both dynamic. You can easily use shadow maps to fake a dynamic global illumination engine, but it's about as blasphemous to refer to all of these under the same umbrella as "dynamic global illumination" as it is for some devs to refer to SSR(screen spaced reflections) as "ray tracing". The difference in final outcome is at least 1, most likely 2, generations apart.
Journey
Banned
Ok, I gave you The Crew, Metro Redux and 2033 as examples of games that weren't fully ported down to the metal according to interviews, mostly due to time constraints. I never made a claim that I had some insider knowledge, I thought we were just having a discussion and just using plain old common sense based on what's out there in interviews, but if you want to take it there, where is your confirmed list of PC ports that started off as DX11 and are completely redone using GNM or Microsofts custom GNM sytle API?
You're making claims too, so it stands to reason that you have some solid evidence to back it up, and it does not sound like you have any =p
See what I did there?
Sources for Metro please.
Your tone lead me to believe you genuinely knew something, I'm disappointed you were simply speculating.
I never made claims that I knew for sure. I took what you said with a modicum of distance, nothing beyond that.
I mean this does not lead one to believe you are simply guessing :
You wrote this post.
Journey
Banned
Ok, I'm sorry if you took it the wrong way, but now this is getting uncomfortable, is this a court of law, am I being interrogated? Oles mentioned low level options were added on late SDKs but because of time constraint, the game did not ship with it. No offense, but just google it, I'm on the go.
No problem. This is not a trial, I was only very surprised at the claim that skilled devs would be using GNMX considering the inherent advantage of a console is to have complete access to the hardware.
Yeah, but most hardcore PC enthusiasts always say it's best to do a clean install whenever there's a major OS update, even if it's just a Service Pack. I just don't understand how they can find the time and reinstall everything and retain the same setttings, particularly when it comes to certain programs/games that need particular patches, quirky settings, inf/conf file changes etc.. It's like needing to memorize every single programs fixes/configs.
Yeah, Steam lets you do could sync and stuff but not all games support it, and also there's a boatload of GOG stuff too where you have to go into the forums and read carefully how to make certain games run better for certain setups. Hopefully the Cleanup utility is really robust at removing excess/obsolete registries and also does something to keep your PC lean even after a Service Pack install.