View Full Version : Diablo 3 to have DirectX 10.1 support
Maverickman
06-30-08, 10:24 PM
It looks like Blizzard's upcoming Diablo 3 will ship with DirectX 10.1. That's not good for Nvidia as it means the game will likely run better on ATI hardware. Maybe DX10 will be more of a factor than Nvidia admits. I'd hate to see my card go obsolete so soon!:thumbdwn:
http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/06/30/blizzard-snubs-nvidia-diablo
Roliath
06-30-08, 10:29 PM
Originally Posted by WWI08: Diablo 3 design fundamentals panel (Q&A)
Q: Will system requirements be high or will a WoW-capable PC run it? Will you need DirectX 10?
A: It's not settled but Blizzard's goal is to support a broad set of systems. We'll have as low system requirements as we can. We don't plan to use DirectX 10 at the moment.
source (http://www.joystiq.com/2008/06/30/wwi08-diablo-3-design-fundamentals-part-2-qanda/)
Its the inq, take it with a grain of salt.
nekrosoft13
06-30-08, 10:35 PM
seriously inq again. they need to get a life
|MaguS|
06-30-08, 10:36 PM
Blizzard would never add a feature that all systems weren't capable of using. I don't even think they went DX9 till it became the norm.
Maverickman
06-30-08, 11:23 PM
I knew the source, but I thought I'd share this anyway for what it's worth. Maybe AMD may try to get developers to support DX 10.1 as that's the advantage it has over Nvidia. Of course, Nvidia will try to promote PhysX as the next greatest thing.
We will be lucky to see Diablo III before Christmas 09. Most likely Christmas 2010.
I am pretty sure NVidia will have 10.1 support by then.
Starcraft announced summer of 96, it was released summer of 98.
Diablo II announced July, 1998, it was released July 5, 2000
WArcraft III, announced August of 1999. Released July 3, 2002.
World of Warcraft, announced September 2, 2001. Released November 23, 2004.
Well...don't forget D3 has been in development for quiet sometime...its a bit different to other games that blizzard had in development.
And also you can't just drop 10.1 out of d3...blizzard is...notorious for doing crazy yet good things :)
slaWter
07-01-08, 07:49 AM
lol at The Inq...
LordJuanlo
07-01-08, 07:53 AM
It may be good for ATI cards because AA in DX 10.1 is faster for them (as shown on Assassin's Creed), and that wouldn't mean 'worse image quality' for nVidia. If developers can make the game go faster in ATI cards, let them do it
The graphics dont even looks DX10-ish .. i thought its basically a DX9 game.
andy_nv
07-01-08, 08:46 AM
We will be lucky to see Diablo III before Christmas 09. Most likely Christmas 2010.
I am pretty sure NVidia will have 10.1 support by then.
+1
As for Havok physics, what's the deal, AMD mentioned in a press release they are collaborating with Havok (despite Havok being owned by Intel now).
I want to play the bloody game as soon as possible, not debate what hardware manufacturer it favors, which isn't the case with Blizzard.
+1
As for Havok physics, what's the deal, AMD mentioned in a press release they are collaborating with Havok (despite Havok being owned by Intel now).
I want to play the bloody game as soon as possible, not debate what hardware manufacturer it favors, which isn't the case with Blizzard.
According to the above Inq link the GPU feature will work on both ATi and NV cards, altho I dont see any real need to offload to GPU with D3s physics.. its not really Cellfactor.
And what I had described to me is that HavokFX is long dead, what they are doing now is putting in a way to offload certain suitable calculations to GPU if needed (or whatever basis that is ment to work on), transparently and behind the scenes.
So its not like a developer knows about it or not, meaning that they will be writing the same old CPU powered impelementations as always, leaving me wondering why they´re even bothering with it.
Although as a developer you could perhaps run a quick physics test to gauge what sort of performance the rig is spitting out, IF you want to have a optional HW accelerated monsterphysics path in the game, as a sorry few games acctually did with Agiea and the PPU.
Im also sorta sceptical about DX10.1 support here, mainly cause sofar Its only the Inq, the big NV hate machine, claiming it, as they claim the choice of Havok to be a kick in the teeth, while the rest of the gaming world knows havok is still pretty much the standard choice for anyone not writing their own engine, possibly due to all the tools around the physics engine regarding animation, state blending and stuff like that.
The game looks awesome, but sofar it does so due to Blizzards epic skills at lowpoly modelling, distinct artstyle and awesome texturing.
So why bother is a bit beyond me, but if they indeed are, they have their reasons.
A DX10 path makes sense, its not needed in the shader department in any apparant way, but if they take their time and do it right they can save alot in draw calls and whatnot.
Which incidently Im told is the reason why current DX10 implementations often have questionable performance increases (aside to adding heavier rendering loads and more textures), that they dont put in the time to convert the code, and still do all the drawcalls DX9 style. (unless my unprogrammerlike mind failed to grasp what was being said)
And lastly, to tie into previous ramblings, the game looks pretty light on the hardware, so GPU offloading for physics and DX10.1 support to speed up AA performance (unless they use the other new features, the render target stuff and whatnot), dont really seem to me to make or break performance for this game, which is prolly not out for a while.
Blizz tend to make em good looking and fast running.
If they DO support DX10.1, its prolly all for the best, maybe NV will stop assuming their featureset dictates the market.
But then they´ll be doing a DX9 renderer, a DX10 renderer with added DX10.1 tweaks and presumably a OpenGL renderer for the Mac platform.
Unless ofcource they do them all in OpenGL.. should be extentions to cover the DX10 class hardware, In which case I guess you could prolly get alot out of a DX10 card on XP, if that is your preference, highly speculative obviously..
I am pretty sure NVidia will have 10.1 support by then.
I've never liked this argument. Some people just chose NV over ATI for this generation, yet this gen's NV cards will never support DX10.1. Not everyone likes to upgrade ever 6-12 months. And by the time NV cards do support DX 10.1, who's to say that ATI's cards from that same generation aren't better?
Bottom line is, if the question is asked regarding today's GPUs, and the game works better on DX10.1 than 10.0, current NV owners are SOL, just like r400 owners were.
I've never liked this argument. Some people just chose NV over ATI for this generation, yet this gen's NV cards will never support DX10.1. Not everyone likes to upgrade ever 6-12 months. And by the time NV cards do support DX 10.1, who's to say that ATI's cards from that same generation aren't better?
Bottom line is, if the question is asked regarding today's GPUs, and the game works better on DX10.1 than 10.0, current NV owners are SOL, just like r400 owners were.
We are talking 2 to 3 years from now.
We are talking 2 to 3 years from now.
Regardless, people who don't upgrade often and are buying a card now will prefer the HD4000 series over NV's offerings this generation, if they want future proof. Just because future NV cards will support DX 10.1, doesn't mean that existing cards can support it.
There are still people using GeForce 6 and R400 hardware. Who got the short end of the stick there?
Maverickman
07-01-08, 11:19 PM
Well, it looks like The Inq. has backpedaled on this. Every day seems to be a good day at The Inq. to bash Nvidia!!
http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/07/01/diablo-far-done-deal
Badboy_12345
07-02-08, 09:42 AM
It said in the Diablo 3 FAQ that it will have DX 10.1 but then it mystically got removed from there.. Pressure from nvidia?
Regardless, people who don't upgrade often and are buying a card now will prefer the HD4000 series over NV's offerings this generation, if they want future proof. Just because future NV cards will support DX 10.1, doesn't mean that existing cards can support it.
"Futureproof videocard" is mostly an oxymoron.
Since 1998, for me anyway, 2 years is the maximum life of a video card for me. After that it moves on to a new owner who obtains it via eBay.
There are still people using GeForce 6 and R400 hardware. Who got the short end of the stick there?
This one's easy...... Both!
It said in the Diablo 3 FAQ that it will have DX 10.1 but then it mystically got removed from there.. Pressure from nvidia?
It did? I never saw that, still sais they´re using Havok though, as the inq is retracting.
m0t0rcade
07-02-08, 11:26 AM
Uhhhh......who cares? DX 11 will be out by the time D3 is released. Nvidia will be fine.
Well if you look at the 8800 series it was all about DX10 and that was never used, still everybody bought the cards because they were future proof having DX10 support. 2 years down the road we still have to see the Holy Grail of DX10 games...
Anyhow ATI cards having Dx10.1 support is a plus, now if it will be of any use soon that is another question.
fivefeet8
07-02-08, 03:54 PM
If ATi can actually get some good developer support for it's features, then Dx10.1 would make a difference. It does seem like they are trying now unlike their previous attempts. Having that developer support will make all the difference for ATi.
They've got the technology leadership at the moment with Dx10.1 and the 4xxx series which can actually run games as good as their Dx10 only counterparts this time around. I'm also glad they've announced along with more developer support for dx10.1, that more games supporting Dx10.1 will be coming in a few months ahead. At least we'll see a few Dx10.1 enabled games instead of zero.
"Futureproof videocard" is mostly an oxymoron.
Since 1998, for me anyway, 2 years is the maximum life of a video card for me. After that it moves on to a new owner who obtains it via eBay.
You're missing my point. Not everyone has the same tolerance as you. Some upgrade every 6 months, others do so every 3 years. For those in the latter category, you want a card that's going to be superior until that 3 year mark. So, get the one that needs to be upgraded when it's too slow (Radeon), or get the one that needs to be upgraded when it's too slow, or when it's featureset falls behind, whichever comes first (GeForce).
My comparison of the R400 vs. 6800 was based on that. If you take a 6800GT today, it will run any PC game in a playable fashion, except maybe Crysis. Take an R400, and may modenr games won't even load on it due to no SM2.0 path. You'd need a hack like 3D Analyze just to get it running.
You're missing my point. Not everyone has the same tolerance as you. Some upgrade every 6 months, others do so every 3 years. For those in the latter category, you want a card that's going to be superior until that 3 year mark. So, get the one that needs to be upgraded when it's too slow (Radeon), or get the one that needs to be upgraded when it's too slow, or when it's featureset falls behind, whichever comes first (GeForce).
After 2+ years, you're going to need to be turning off features anyway just to get decent framerate if you're still running the same tired video card on new games. It might as well be features the card doesn't even have * shrug *. Case and point, remember the (respectable) ATI Radeon 9500. That card has DX9 support. But unless you're into slideshows, I recommend leaving the DX9 graphics features disabled if that's what you're using.
My comparison of the R400 vs. 6800 was based on that. If you take a 6800GT today, it will run any PC game in a playable fashion, except maybe Crysis. Take an R400, and may modenr games won't even load on it due to no SM2.0 path. You'd need a hack like 3D Analyze just to get it running.
Fortunately, this analogy is horrible. DX 10.1 is 100% backwards compatible to DX 10.0.
hordaktheman
07-03-08, 09:49 AM
Fortunately, this analogy is horrible. DX 10.1 is 100% backwards compatible to DX 10.0.
As I understand it, this would make his analogy correct. 10.1 being backwards compatible doesn't mean that 10.0 is forwards compatible. It would be similar to how DX9.0c was backwards compatible while introducing SM3.0 support, with DX10.1 doing the same while introducing SM4.1 support.
I've never actually gotten a straight answer on this though so take it with a grain of salt. There seems to be a lot of disinformation going on regarding this.
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