The Dx10 - v - Dx11 Discussion thread for Horizons.

nosscar · Nov 2, 2015

ED so far has been supporting DX10 cards, (however using DirectX11 API) but as many might be aware, Horizons needs DX11 for the shaders, and needs -

A Graphics Card That Fully Supports DirectX11 Or Greater - Shader Model 5.0 Or Greater

for this reason it will not be available on the Mac just yet. (something to do with Macs not having compute-shader tech)

So this opens up some questions.
1. Will the base game continue supporting DX10 cards, or will it change in some way (i am assuming it stays the same for Mac users)
2. How will this effect in game performance. (better or worse)
3. What other things could change in the game, graphics ect
4. Could this cure the present SMAA, and AMD supercriuse bugs we presently have.
5. How many players will need to upgrade there older cards to get DX11 capable.

Your thoughts please.

lysan · Nov 2, 2015

I sincerely hope this will buff the graphics a lot. Our GPUs are not use by a fraction of what they can deliver ATM.
Remember that the recommended GPU is a GLX 770 card.

nosscar · Nov 2, 2015

Lysander lysan said:
I sincerely hope this will buff the graphics a lot. Our GPUs are not use by a fraction of what they can deliver ATM.
Remember that the recommended GPU is a GLX 770 card.

Quite true, i have stats showing in game using MSI afterburner, the max use of my gpu is 34%, normally runs much less at 25%, my cpu uses less than 50%, and i have ultra settings.

ape808 · Nov 2, 2015

4. Could this cure the present SMAA, and AMD supercriuse bugs we presently have.

On these points:

MBrookes mentioned smaa should be fixed for 1.5.

Amd have confirmed that issue is the fault of their win 10 drivers, it's on their known issues list. So it'll be a future driver from them that solves it. Current workaround is to do a clean install of 14.x drivers.

nosscar · Nov 2, 2015

ape808 said:
On these points:

MBrookes mentioned smaa should be fixed for 1.5.

Amd have confirmed that issue is the fault of their win 10 drivers, it's on their known issues list. So it'll be a future driver from them that solves it. Current workaround is to do a clean install of 14.x drivers.

correct, i am currently using 14.4 drivers for that reason, just wondering if the new DX11 API might improve this though, even without the new AMD drivers. (all depends which comes first to try)

Agony_Aunt · Nov 2, 2015

I am no expert on this topic (but when has it ever stopped me commenting on something?

), but i think:

1) I think they have to keep supporting for a while. One of the good things about ED is that it will (to a certain extent) run on older hardware. If they cut that out, people with older cards might find themselves unable to play. I can't imagine there being too many cards out there though that are not compatible with DX11 and can run ED though... but can't say for sure.

2) Theoretically it should improve, but only seriously if the engine is recoded to take advantage of new DX11 features (except in any areas where DX10 routines have been optimized in DX11). So unless FD could really benefit from some DX11 routines, i wouldn't expect this to be a priority of any kind for FD.

3) + 4) Already answered.

5) Its the big question.

Krezan · Nov 2, 2015

Got a DX12 card, so would like to see as many improvements as possible. The only problem is, loads of people haven't so is it really a priority. This is why Blizzard games are so popular because they use graphic style for low end cards and looks great. Personally I want everything, but then I always did

.

CMDR i Tetsuo · Nov 2, 2015

they can't change the base stats for a game they've already sold, Elite: Horizons is a separate expansion thus may have different requirements. Any DX11 benefits for Horizons will probably not appear in the bog standard game, the fallout if they did would be bigger than offlinegate...

Zak Gordon · Nov 2, 2015

Yeah, you don't want to make the entry level too high, that cuts into the player base willing/able to buy the game.

CMDR MAIN SEQUENCE · Nov 2, 2015

I noticed on the store this morning that season 1 now has a minimum requirement of DirectX 11, whereas previously it stated 10.

CMDR Sheehy · Nov 2, 2015

DirectX 11 Was published over 5 years ago and is included as an update on all Windows 7 and up.

Non-issue.

xyphic · Nov 2, 2015

MAIN SEQUENCE said:
I noticed on the store this morning that season 1 now has a minimum requirement of DirectX 11, whereas previously it stated 10.

The game has always required DirectX 11 to be installed, but GPUs were only required to support hardware features at level 10. I suspect that's still the case (especially given the minimum spec. card) and they've just oversimplified the description.

JetJaguar · Dec 10, 2015

Has anyone playing the beta tried to run it on a DX 10 card? Does it work at all?

Valethar · Dec 10, 2015

I've been running the beta with an EVGA GTX 465 Superclocked card. Bounced down to a couple of planets and was still getting 25+ FPS racing around with the Scarab.

I dropped a couple of the settings from ultra to high/med, but aside from a couple of oddball glitches, it's running fine.

Jumpin' Jack Flash · Dec 10, 2015

nosscar said:
ED so far has been supporting DX10 cards, (however using DirectX11 API) but as many might be aware, Horizons needs DX11 for the shaders, and needs -

A Graphics Card That Fully Supports DirectX11 Or Greater - Shader Model 5.0 Or Greater

for this reason it will not be available on the Mac just yet. (something to do with Macs not having compute-shader tech)

So this opens up some questions.
1. Will the base game continue supporting DX10 cards, or will it change in some way (i am assuming it stays the same for Mac users)
2. How will this effect in game performance. (better or worse)
3. What other things could change in the game, graphics ect
4. Could this cure the present SMAA, and AMD supercriuse bugs we presently have.
5. How many players will need to upgrade there older cards to get DX11 capable.

Your thoughts please.

.
Hi

.
It'll be number 5 on your list for me.
The computer I'm playing Elite Dangerous on at the moment is an Asus AMD Crossfire 3 motherboard, Phenom 2 x 3.6 cpu 8Gb Ram and an AMD Radeon HD 4870 Gpu.
Hopefully I might just get away with one of the 'new' R380 or 380X cards as an upgrade. (about £190-£200)....so that's on my Christmas pressy list!

.
Edit...just a thought though, some of the 'basic' new content in Horizons (other than landing on planets) for example...if passenger missions were introduced at some point in Horizons, might that feature need a DX 11 Gpu capable card, even in the base Season 1 game eventually?
'
Jack

Chip Patton · Dec 10, 2015

nosscar said:
ED so far has been supporting DX10 cards, (however using DirectX11 API) but as many might be aware, Horizons needs DX11 for the shaders, and needs -

A Graphics Card That Fully Supports DirectX11 Or Greater - Shader Model 5.0 Or Greater

for this reason it will not be available on the Mac just yet. (something to do with Macs not having compute-shader tech)

So this opens up some questions.
1. Will the base game continue supporting DX10 cards, or will it change in some way (i am assuming it stays the same for Mac users)
2. How will this effect in game performance. (better or worse)
3. What other things could change in the game, graphics ect
4. Could this cure the present SMAA, and AMD supercriuse bugs we presently have.
5. How many players will need to upgrade there older cards to get DX11 capable.

Your thoughts please.

The one thing I know about DirectX (which isn't much) is that its not that hard to make it backwards compatible with previous versions of DirectX, afterall this is what keeps MS in business (that backwards compatibility). With that said, what is going on here? How come the game requires DX11?

Insomnia · Dec 10, 2015

Dx11 supports better graphical effects such as tessellation, which AFAIK FD uses to procedurally generate terrain. Hopefully it will be used for water planes later on.

Dx10 wasn't really a big upgrade from dx9. And I can see the same thing happening with dx12 tbh; not much is new there either tbh.

FiddenUK · Dec 10, 2015

This could be helpful for anyone unsure of what their card supports: http://solidlystated.com/hardware/list-of-directx-12-and-directx-11-compatible-video-cards/

hunvagy · Dec 10, 2015

Chip Patton said:
The one thing I know about DirectX (which isn't much) is that its not that hard to make it backwards compatible with previous versions of DirectX, afterall this is what keeps MS in business (that backwards compatibility). With that said, what is going on here? How come the game requires DX11?

Which was true until DX9. DX10 is not backwards compatible with DX9. At least DX12 will be somewhat backwards compatible, but I can imagine MS will pull a fast one and do a software cutoff at Win 8.1.

EDIT: Also the DX11 requirement comes from the use of Compute Shaders for planetary generation. https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ff476331(v=vs.85).aspx The first paragraph states that DX 10.X only supports a limited form of this, hence the need for 11.

Janichsan · Dec 10, 2015

nosscar said:
1. Will the base game continue supporting DX10 cards, …

This question has been answered with a "yes". I'd have to dig through some old threads to find the exact quote, but it has been confirmed that the base game will continue to work on DX10 cards, expressly not only for Mac users, but also for Windows players on older systems.