Direct X 11 Graphics Cards

[wongers]

ive just been doing a little reading about the latest in technology for graphics cards, and to be honest im not really sure what to make of it all yet.

I know that ATI have released there DX 11 cards and NVidia are due to release theres soon, if they havent already done so with the NVidia GTX300 series and what not.

but from what ive been NVidia have been kind of playing down Direct X 11 saying to not get too sucked in to it as its not that vital really.

now as im moving away from ATI and pretty much going with NVidia, when i buy a new graphics card, should i wait a while for the new GTX300 or should I just go ahead and buy the GTX295??

is there going to be a massive difference between the two? does anyone know? lol, im still reading in to it and the night is young so ill post back with my findings later

[Smith6612]

I'm actually considering trading in one or even all three of my GTX280s to try out nVidia's new DX11 card. For now, no one really knows how good it is compared to ATi's card as it's not really out yet. But I would definitely wait to see how nVidia's new card performs when gamers put the card to the test, and to also see if ATi comes out with something just as awesome. But it's up to you and whatever you think is best. Keep in mind, to use DX11 though you need Windows 7 (64-bit preferably).

nVidia is pretty much right on their statement on not jumping into DX11 yet even though I feel as though it's time since Windows 7 is already out. Developers haven't really utilized DX10 to it's advantage yet, maybe except for Crysis and other Resource hungry games of the like, so that's probably the reason behind it.

[wongers]

i imagine that DX10 didnt reach its potential because Vista is the biggest excuse of an operating system that ive ever come across, i mean its worse than Windows ME and thats a BAD OS!!

[miguelkp]

I would wait for some DX11 games releasing to decide because all benchmarking and comparations between videocards I've seen were done on DX10 games and so.

By now, ATi is offering better performance/price, with less power consumption and lower temperatures, both on iddle and load states. But Ati's videocards have not (mainly) as 'brute power' as nVidia. All depends on your needs.

[psycrosis]

When a major release of Direct3d comes out its usually a few years until game developers are whole heartily using it since it takes about 2+ years to develop a game and they usually won't start adopting new things right in the middle. Games that are using game engines (such as Unreal) usually have to wait for a release using the next API which can take years since using a new DirecX version would include using all the new features it brings.

[galaxyAbstractor]

The new nvidia GF100 (Formerly GTX 300) to be released in march is supporting DX11

[wongers]

ok so to put it another way, do you think its going to be worth me investing in a GF100 when it comes out or is it a waste of money? im quite tempted by the GTX295 if im honest but not sure whether to just wait a few more months to get the GF100?

[galaxyAbstractor]

I've heard that the price of GF100 should be similar to the GTX295

[wongers]

I've heard that the price of GF100 should be similar to the GTX295

well in that case, i might as well hang on for a little while longer, save up some more pennies and invest in a GF100 when its released ^_^

[monkeymhz]

i imagine that DX10 didnt reach its potential because Vista is the biggest excuse of an operating system that ive ever come across, i mean its worse than Windows ME and thats a BAD OS!!

Id have to disagree with that ^ ive had no problems with vista.

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Anyways, about directx. First I would like to say is ATI and Nvidia are both outstanding companies, Ive been back and forth between the two. In the long run my experience has been better with ATI mind you I know Nvidia is excellent as well. First things to accept are, Nvidia will always be the leader imo. Nvidia always has the fastest GPU, they always have the best driver support, mind you they always have the highest prices. But you get what you pay for, ATI is very good but they seem to be more targeted at gaming. But they are good overall as well, and they really have some benefits in the architecture of the way their chips are designed (mass amounts of lower powered stream processors).

DirectX is a API (Programing Interface), as most of you probably know, PC gaming is being limited by consoles right now. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing since PCs costs are super affordable and a PC build lasts a long time. Mind you most the games are ports or just ports with some extra eye candy added. PC will always be the enthusiast platform for games, and there will always be amazing exclusive games for PC.

We haven't seen the power of DX10 or 11 yet, of course Crysis, Dirt2, etc all claim to use DX10/11 which they do, they are not showing the full capability of it. Like I said before DirectX is a API and for developers to get used to that API and start developing ground breaking stuff with it doesn't happen over night. Its alot of coding and figuring out, its not like you just implement dx11 in your game and graphics look great. Along with DX11 and 10 are new shader models which imo are the most important. Shaders are so useful in games now days. Many people saw DX10 as a fail, but its not DX10 was a huge upgrade, DX9 was very bound on more of a software level. As for DX10 busted out the ability to use your GPU in more ways to process physics, sound, AI and more. Its been now almost 2 generations and we haven't really seen anything exceeding DX9 limits yet. Except maybe Dirt2 in a couple of ways and some other games. But really, you will not see the power of DX10/11 until consoles do the move. I believe the next consoles are targeted 2011/2012 latest.

In terms of you buying a GPU now, GTX295 would be the way to go to run things fastest. However the high end ATI's w/DX11 would get you some new eye candy features on some games and still do a fantastic job. Id say get a decent card like a ATI 5870 or GTX280 or something, maybe a bit cheaper if u just wanna play games not with everything max'ed out. If your planning on doing a new build wait for some of the new technology.

Mind you DX11 card isn't a bad idea right now, some new games coming out like AvP are going to be using DX11 tessellation (were the models incease polygons as they get closer to make them more smooth looking). DX10 also does tessellation but its a bit more advanced and efficent on DX11, but really its all up to coders for the most part. But if you can hold off for the DX11 version of geforces, that would be ideal since their performance will probably be a bit of a leap over the ATI cards.

I have a ATI tech demo for DX10 that shows off a bit of what it has to offer, not so much in a graphical sense, but processing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EL72EmeZ1Vg

You can see how many polygons there are, and when you get close to a frog thing its triangles double or tripple. You also see how many dynamic AI driven characters are all being processed on the GPU (Graphics card) that demo was kinda neat, 90% of the stuff in there was handled specifically by the graphic card. My CPU usage was very low, and the frame-rate was good even when filming with FRAPS.

I'm really dragging on, sorry, to sum this up. Im gonna say the future, is a mix of triangles/traditional rendering methods as well as software rendering for various effects and voxel like implementations. Kinda like a hybrid approach, were you have programmable GPUs on-top of DirectX as a base. And then you go to town with voxels, polygons, shaders, custom coded algorithmic effects.