So what's the word on Directx12, devs?

[Windscreen Smudge]

I searched the forums for a few minutes and couldn't find a dev post on this, so forgive me if it's a repost.

Can we get an official statement about how much sleep Frontier is losing while waiting for D3d12 to fall into their hot little hands, and maybe a general idea of how long they think it'll take to integrate it?
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I know you guys are planning to squeeze it in as soon as you can. The benefits to performance are big enough that between this and the architecture changes/performance improvements coming to GPU's in the next year or two will mean that you really can push ED towards looking like everything you've conceptualized over the development period. Moreover, I just stumbled upon this intel asteroid benchmark review which shows just how big the performance increase can be in Elite: Dangerous and any game like it. This is directly analogous to the high stress, low framerate situations we see in ED. And if they can switch seamlessly between DX11 and DX12 as the second screenshot on that page seems to indicate, integration should be easier than any other API to date.
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Please, anyone from FD, chime in a moment and let us know. Did you squee just a bit when you saw this? How far do you think the improvements will allow you to take ED? Anything else you'd like to say about DX12, Vulkan, and all of the changes to the game development side of things that're going to be happening over the next year?

 

[knowles2]

Anyone find it odd that Intel is essentially telling us we can now all live with less powerful, thus cheaper CPUs ?

I wonder given Frontier relationship with Microsoft whether they have already gotten access to Direct 12?.

 

[Windscreen Smudge]

Anyone find it odd that Intel is essentially telling us we can now all live with less powerful, thus cheaper CPUs ?

I wonder given Frontier relationship with Microsoft whether they have already gotten access to Direct 12?.

The only positive aspect, and I do mean the ONE AND ONLY, positive aspect of ED porting to the XB1 is that the XB1 is also getting DX12, but in a more integrated manner, so FD will have to bring over at least some of the changes DX12 will be implementing on the XB1 side.

 

[Deleted member 38366]

-- Deleted --

 

[INSTG8R]

The only positive aspect, and I do mean the ONE AND ONLY, positive aspect of ED porting to the XB1 is that the XB1 is also getting DX12, but in a more integrated manner, so FD will have to bring over at least some of the changes DX12 will be implementing on the XB1 side.

But like every DX API it has backwards compatibility so it can easily use DX11 and all before it. Would ED benefit from DX12 features? Sure everything could! But ED is a pretty smooth running and light engine even in DX11.

 

[Windscreen Smudge]

I wouldn't expect "magic" from newer DirectX Versions.

Their realistic, everyday benefits are typically far lower than what you see in their Advertising campaigns

Plus, as others have already noticed, alot of the optimizations go into getting the best performance out of Shared Memory, low-performance iGPUs.
What comes around for Players using dedicated and far more powerful GPUs - that remains to be seen.

I'm sitting by a $3500 PC that's about to get a lot more bells and whistles put into it. In all honesty I don't need the performance improvements because I can already run the game maxed out at 1440p and will be running it at 4k in a few months. Low performance PC's is exactly what I want to see improved, because when their performance increases, FD can increase the standards they set based upon the analytics of the average player's performance, which means they have the capability to improve the overall quality of the game.

 

[Ben Ryder]

More than likely. I think a dev version has been in progress since last november... but dont quote me on that I could be very wrong

 

[INSTG8R]

I'm sitting by a $3500 PC that's about to get a lot more bells and whistles put into it. In all honesty I don't need the performance improvements because I can already run the game maxed out at 1440p and will be running it at 4k in a few months. Low performance PC's is exactly what I want to see improved, because when their performance increases, FD can increase the standards they set based upon the analytics of the average player's performance, which means they have the capability to improve the overall quality of the game.

That I can get behind.

 

[Brakespear]

Elite can (and should) be further optimised with current technology and software before worrying about future DX versions. Speaking as someone with an "sort of okay" machine, the rough edges are very visible - the hangar needs a lot of work, and currently cripples my framerate if shadows are not set to medium or lower, despite not actually featuring that many visible shadows. Meanwhile there are issues with supercruising through "busy" systems (LHS 3447 dropped my framerate to about 15, even though I could see only a single player at the time).

Asteroid fields also cause some odd micro-stuttering, and supercruising towards planets is still causing the occasional (potentially lethal) hiccup as their textures load in.

 

[wreckage]

The big question is if dx12 is worth writing for. If you can do everything needed in dx11 and hit a wider market (windows 7/8) why change. So far it looks like it's streamlined to make cheaper systems run faster. This had to be done due to manufactures giving customers less powerful system to drive down the cost. It also looks like it will be spun as windows 10 marketing ploy. Only time will tell if the public shifts to windows 10 to take advantage of it.

 

[Kiblams]

I wouldn't expect "magic" from newer DirectX Versions.

Their realistic, everyday benefits are typically far lower than what you see in their Advertising campaigns

Plus, as others have already noticed, alot of the optimizations go into getting the best performance out of Shared Memory, low-performance iGPUs.
What comes around for Players using dedicated and far more powerful GPUs - that remains to be seen.

We have seen what Directx should bring in terms of performance in AMDs Mantle (it's basically the same thing and AMD actually helped MS develop it), except it should be to a greater degree as all developers and hardware manufacturers will be supporting it.

 

[Flappers]

There is no point in Frontier putting in effort and resources into an API that is not officially released yet.

We don't even know if it will be available for Windows 7 yet (judging by the way Microsoft has handled newer DX versions, I doubt it) - but there is no point in doing anything yet, until everything is known to be stable.

But even when it is released, I wouldn't expect anything magical or spectacular.
Personally I think that GPU load may go down a bit when rendering certain aspects, but that would only really be a benefit for newer GPU's.

 

[Kiblams]

There is no point in Frontier putting in effort and resources into an API that is not officially released yet.

We don't even know if it will be available for Windows 7 yet (judging by the way Microsoft has handled newer DX versions, I doubt it) - but there is no point in doing anything yet, until everything is known to be stable.

Aside from the performance benefits is the fact that it will make porting to and from the Xbox and ps4 a lot easier, I would be surprised if FD aren't seriously considering it in the near future.

 

[zynaps]

Writing for Vulkan rather than DX12 would offer more benefits. DX12 is Windows 10+ exclusive.

 

[knowles2]

Aside from the performance benefits is the fact that it will make porting to and from the Xbox and ps4 a lot easier, I would be surprised if FD aren't seriously considering it in the near future.

It wouldn't surprise if FD have already started the work on getting Cobra engine to take advantage of DX12 and or Vulkan/Mantel. The question really is will we ever see that work use in Elite Dangerous.

 

[Enakaji]

The big question is if dx12 is worth writing for. If you can do everything needed in dx11 and hit a wider market (windows 7/8) why change. So far it looks like it's streamlined to make cheaper systems run faster. This had to be done due to manufactures giving customers less powerful system to drive down the cost. It also looks like it will be spun as windows 10 marketing ploy. Only time will tell if the public shifts to windows 10 to take advantage of it.

Well, since Windows 10 will basically be a free update for everyone that is currently running Windows 7, windows 8 or windows 8.1 I really don't see why they should't go for it. I've been running the win10 tech preview since last year and, imo, it's the best system that MS has put together since Windows XP.

 

[Rhywden]

It wouldn't surprise if FD have already started the work on getting Cobra engine to take advantage of DX12 and or Vulkan/Mantel. The question really is will we ever see that work use in Elite Dangerous.

Mantle has been discontinued.

Not really much of a surprise there.

 

[VATrevelyan]

The big question is if dx12 is worth writing for. If you can do everything needed in dx11 and hit a wider market (windows 7/8) why change. So far it looks like it's streamlined to make cheaper systems run faster. This had to be done due to manufactures giving customers less powerful system to drive down the cost. It also looks like it will be spun as windows 10 marketing ploy. Only time will tell if the public shifts to windows 10 to take advantage of it.

Since MS is offering free upgrades to Windows 10 for 7 and 8 users, unless they are still rolling XP (and thus unlikely to be able to run ED anyway) or Vista (which has done too badly from the start to worry about sales wise) the option to adopt will likely not be an issue.

DX12 is a low level API, all previous versions have been a high level API that uses a lot more system resources and is thus slow in comparison (but is easier to code for). The same can be said for OpenGL, which is also coming out with a low-level API in GLNext.

Please review this article on AnandTech for a demonstration of why people are excited over it; in short it offers an excellent improvement on graphics performance with the new system. Or, should you want immediate gratification, look at this image from said article.



Needless to say, a 250% increase in a GTX 980, a 500% to an 290X, and a 150% improvement to an ancient GTX 680 (in the setting of an extreme Star Wars style battle scene) is nothing to sneeze at.

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Mantle has been discontinued.

Not really much of a surprise there.

Mantle 1.0 is, but the effort from AMD is in Vulkan now.

 

[Ancipital]

We have seen what Directx should bring in terms of performance in AMDs Mantle (it's basically the same thing and AMD actually helped MS develop it), except it should be to a greater degree as all developers and hardware manufacturers will be supporting it.

Don't keep overrating AMD's influence here. Very little of what they tried to do with their lock in Mantle play was novel. Work on this sort of thing predates Mantle appearing by quite a long way.

 

[knowles2]

Mantle has been discontinued.

Not really much of a surprise there.

It just been announce Mantle will form the foundations of Vulkan.