Unreal Engine 3 and DirectX 11

[Ned]

UE3 goodness for PC, future consoles and even mobile platforms..

[Dragonhammer]

Nice demo it realy shows why the unrealengine is the most popular and wildly used engine in the games industry.
Its still leaps and bounds above the competition.
Here is the realtime Samaritan demo, i can't wait for the nextgen console.

[ming lee]

Thats a very sexy demo real

[Ned]

WOOHAA!! Very nice, cheers for posting that.
1:54, laser shines through hole in head!

[Father]

It does admittedly look amazing.

I'm no programmer but I wonder how easy it is for them to for example on console use DX9, on PC use DX11 where possible and all of a sudden this extra beauty kicks in with the flick of a switch or does all that extra power require a lot more programming as well, if the latter then I don't think we'll see much of this until the next console generation hits.

I would love to see it do large environments though, by that I mean GTA/Oblivion style worlds, as typically these engines still tend to box you in a certain area, regardless or being inside our outside

They always have that floating distant background effect, you can't go there, but it also always visually looks like you can't, like a big cardboard wall.

[Snott]

hmmm pretty...

[Dragonhammer]

Originally Posted by Father

It does admittedly look amazing.

I'm no programmer but I wonder how easy it is for them to for example on console use DX9, on PC use DX11 where possible and all of a sudden this extra beauty kicks in with the flick of a switch or does all that extra power require a lot more programming as well, if the latter then I don't think we'll see much of this until the next console generation hits.

I would love to see it do large environments though, by that I mean GTA/Oblivion style worlds, as typically these engines still tend to box you in a certain area, regardless or being inside our outside

They always have that floating distant background effect, you can't go there, but it also always visually looks like you can't, like a big cardboard wall.

Consoles don't need and use directx, Xbox is the only oddball that uses it sinds its based on directx.
On the PC there was a growing problem that not all software would run with all hardware combinations.
Microsoft developed the Directx standard to solve that problem, from now on every hardware manufacturer had to make their hardware according the directx rules.

Directx is a blessing and a curse, its a blessing because we as consumers don't have to worry that our game won't run on our hardware combination.
Its a curse because it kills all creativity and makes all games look the same and generic because all developers have the same bag of tricks for the eye candy.
Its a curse for developers sinds they have to wait for a new directx version and its hardware to get graphical improvement.

Developers more often then not sigh from directx, they rather have the freedom to program the processor directly then again a new directx version.
Often developers have a cool idea for graphical effects but they can't use it sinds it doesn't comply with directx.

All the graphical eye candy we see in the Samaritan demo can easy be displayed without directx and even on cards 5 years old.
Yes it will chug along like a slide show for lacking the horsepower but we don't need directx to display it.

Here are some screenshots from PS3 exclusives with no directx, that go beyond directx and woulden't even be possible with directx.

[Father]

Interesting DH, I guess we kinda gotten used to seeing directx as the de facto standard for graphics now, can't see it change somehow either, new dx version = better graphics and then you have the card manufacturers quoting dx version compatibilities as a way to tell us consumers how good things will look.

Interesting about the ps3, playing Drake's Fortune I thought the game looked very good as it had soft edges on water, which only came to be in DX10 but off course they don't use directx at all which now makes sense.

Cheers

[Dragonhammer]

If you want to experience creativity on the PC i can recommend downloading some demo's from.

Scene.org Awards - Nominees

These people don't have to live by the constraints of directx and can let their imagination run wild.
You will be amazed at how sharp the image quality can be and how clear the music can sound.
And you will wonder why the f**k don't my games look so good.

Its sad to see that the PC gaming industry has lost its creativity, here is a video of the killzone 3 end credits as a fine example of good imagination.

[Father]

I'll check it out, you seem to be quite educated on the subject DH, is your expertise the result of a passion for this sort of stuff or you do things professionally?

Cheers