Posts Tagged ‘directx 11’
Battlefield Bad Company 2 PC to support DirectX 11
In a rather surprising move, DICE confirmed (via Twitter) that Battlefield Bad Company 2 for the PC will support DirectX 11, which was introduced with Windows 7. The news was announced by AMD, which is in cooperation with DICE to add DX 11. The game will still use the fist edition of the Frostbite engine, while Frostbite 2 will fully support DX 11, and is the engine used in the upcoming Battlefield 3.
Nvidia’s DX11 graphics card delayed until 2010?
Fudzilla claims it has details that point towards Nvidia launching their next generation graphics chip, codenamed Fermi, in January 2010, as opposed to in December, as originally planned. Granted, Nvidia never officially announced a release date, but did mention December as a viable time.
However, DigiTimes — a far more reputable source than Fudzilla — claims that the date is even further into 2010, as Nvidia CEO stated that the card will likely launch in the first fiscal quarter of 2010, which begins in March. If true, this will mean that AMD’s cards, which are already out, will be given a good 6 month head start as the only DX 11 cards available on the market.
Top 10 upcoming DirectX 11 games
Windows 7 is out, and with it is the latest version with DirectX — DirectX 11. The new graphics API is an evolution from DirectX 10, but it doesn’t only include more features, it’s faster than the previous version (unlike the DX9 to DX10 transition). Among the new features is Tessellation, which increases the amount of visible polygons, and multi-threaded rendering, which takes advantage of multicore CPUs a lot better than previous DX versions.
While only ATI’s 5000 series of graphics cards support DX11, Nvidia will join the club later this year, when new games which support the standard will emerge as well. We’ve picked top 10 games that are confirmed to include DirectX 11 support when released.
10: Battleforge (EA Games, out now)
Battleforge is the only game that’s currently available that supports DirectX 11. While it’s a card-based RTS with out much action to fully shocase the new visual features, the game was patched with DX 11 goodies, which provided smoother gameplay and better visuals. While it’s still not a Crysis-caliber game, it’s officially the first game to support the new API.
9: The Lord of The Rings Online (January 2010)
While LOTR: Online was released a few years ago, the game has received visual overhauls over the years, and it’s no different with DX 11 — the upcoming LOTR: Online patch will include DX 11 features, and will be developed in cooperation with AMD.
8: DIRT 2 (Codemasters, December 2009)
DIRT 2 was released on the Xbox 360 and PS3 a few months ago, but the PC version was delayed until December so Codemasters could implement DirectX 11 features into the game, with an added investment into the game by AMD (makers of the only DX11 available graphics cards on the market). And it appears the wait will be worth it for PC gamers, as DIRT 2 for PC will support tessellation, delivering more fluid crowd, particle and water animations.
7: F1 2010 (March 2010)
Codemasters not only have a rally game with DX11 support, the developer/publisher is also working on a new F1 racing game, which will used an enhanced version of the DIRT 2 engine, and will include even more DX11 features. Look for F1 2010 when the new F1 season starts next March.
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DirectX 10 vs. 11 comparison images
The upcoming STALKER: Call of Pripyat is one of the few games that will support the new DirectX 11 API, and developer GSC Gameworld has already revealed a few screenshots comparing the two. While you can’t see much difference, as it’s still early and the first few games don’t utilize the new software the best way, there’s still noticeable improvements.
In the screenshot above, the left side is DX 10.1 while the right is DX 11. Notice the gas mask and how the air filter is properly round instead of angular. FiringSquad has a lot more screenshots here.
Tags: directx 11
DiRT 2 release date set in stone
First we heard that DiRT2 2 would pay homage to the late-and-great Colin McCrae, then we heard that the PC version would be getting delayed due to DirectX 11 implementation and now we know the official console release date.
Codemasters has let us know the DiRT 2 will be released for the Playstation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, Nintendo DS and PSP on September 18th in the US, Septmber 8th in Europe and September 10th in the UK.
via Joystiq
Stardock recommends switching to Windows 7
The upcoming Windows 7 operating system apparently can’t get enough praise, even from game developers. Stardock CEO Brad Wardell said that one of the great features from Windows 7 was WARP (Windows Advanced Rasterization Platform), which allows offload of DirecX work from the GPU to the CPU, which greatly improves performance on systems with weak graphics cards. WARP is standard with Windows 7 and DirectX 11, which includes further GPGPU features which will help use the graphics card to do things a CPU normally does, like AI.
ADM showcases DirectX 11 GPU
E3 is not the only trade show that’s going on these days. In Taiwan, the Computex 09 show is also well under way, and one of the big events was AMD showcasing world’s first DirectX 11 graphics chip. Windows 7 will bring along DX11 when released later this year, and AMD will have a graphics card ready. One of the key benefits of DX11 is GPGPU and better support for multicore processors. Arch rival Nvidia is also expected to have a DX11 card ready for Windows 7 launch.