Okay, I installed LOTRO yesterday and got to play today. The DX10 option is enabled, and I find the graphics very impressive. No idea how it stacks up to the DX9 graphics, nor will I try to compare, since I last saw this game during beta and imagine it's changed quite a bit...as has my graphics card.
I am continually amazed at the number of people who bitch about DX10 and Vista in a gaming context. I understood it all a year ago...when I got Vista in February '07 it ran like hell until I doubled my memory, and many, many games have issues. Now, a year later, I can't even imagine the point of going back to XP. Except for the defrag program...that still sucks.
As for DX10: I always find it interesting that "those in the know" advocate it as a worthy step up in graphics design and options, while those who complain about it and talk abotu how DX9 is superior seem to have no actual ability to describe so in technical terms. Big picture, people, that's what it's all about: in a couple years, everyone still using DX9 and XP are going to look like the same people today who play Runescape and The Realm because they refuse to upgrade their rig....
DX9 can do everything DX10 does but developers don't want you to know that and just restrict the DX9 version on purpose :O Crysis anybody? ROFL! All these screens do is add more shadows :S Oh WOW you can't get these shadows done on DX9 can you lol.......
Actually DX9 can NOT do alot really cool stuff that DX10 has been touted for being able to do. I work as a Graphics Engineer and while I think 10 is in bad shape aka .. should of been released a year or two later than it was..it still does more than 9. DX10 Supports Geometry Shaders & High Resolutioned Lighting that the DX9 Pipeline & DX9 only cards Pipelines are not designed to handle which is why Nvidia and other companies had to make NEW cards instead of just making it a software update.
Honestly don't talk out of your ass unless your an actual programmer.
All DX10 is, is better coding and support for offloading work to the GPU. There isn't a single thing Dx10 can do graphics wise that Dx9 can't.
Case in point - Crysis.
On the topic of Dx10 in this game. It looks like using Dx10 and vista (and thus reducing your performance in the game by 20-40%, if what we've seen in the industry holds true,) you get slightly cooler water and very hard edged real time diffuse shadowing. Sorry but IMHO that'll be hardly worth the performance loss.
I'll wait for AoC, which should perform better under Dx10 simply because it was designed with it in mind, like Crysis. While it is sure to not perform as well as Dx9 and XP, it should hopefully be playable on your average 'gamers' machine.
DX9 CAN NOT DO GEOMETRY SHADERS Only DX10 has the pipeline capabilities to handle it. If you think otherwise please head right over to Nvidia or ATI or even DX10's official sites and read the developer white papers. Geometry shaders are only possible on DX10, its not possible in a game environment to even mimic a Geometry shader efficiently in DX9. The hardware and the API pipelines can not hack it.
The fact you reference crysis sort of makes me laugh...all the people I know here where I work that have high end Vista machines complain like hell about Vista & DX10 fubaring the game and their systems. Unless your absolutely sure every lil peice of your machine is 'Vista Ready' there's no gaurentee it'll work perfectly.
Personally I still fully support XP & DX9. Until Microsoft gets their head out of the sand and makes Vista work right there's no point in me even thinking about upgrading in the first place especially since most games worth their salt support DX9 & 10. Honestly if you have time to sit around and admire how the sun glows in the distance then the MMO your playing must be incredibly boring.
DX9 can do geometry shaders but microsoft just wont enable it for obvious reasons.
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SWG - PrePub9 Jedi mastered all professions - June 26th 2003 > Nov 15th 2005 EVE Online - 24 million SP - May 6th 2003 > Early 2005 PlanetSide - BR20 CR5 - May 23rd 2003 > Sept 2003
Comments
Okay, I installed LOTRO yesterday and got to play today. The DX10 option is enabled, and I find the graphics very impressive. No idea how it stacks up to the DX9 graphics, nor will I try to compare, since I last saw this game during beta and imagine it's changed quite a bit...as has my graphics card.
I am continually amazed at the number of people who bitch about DX10 and Vista in a gaming context. I understood it all a year ago...when I got Vista in February '07 it ran like hell until I doubled my memory, and many, many games have issues. Now, a year later, I can't even imagine the point of going back to XP. Except for the defrag program...that still sucks.
As for DX10: I always find it interesting that "those in the know" advocate it as a worthy step up in graphics design and options, while those who complain about it and talk abotu how DX9 is superior seem to have no actual ability to describe so in technical terms. Big picture, people, that's what it's all about: in a couple years, everyone still using DX9 and XP are going to look like the same people today who play Runescape and The Realm because they refuse to upgrade their rig....
Current MMOs: Rift, GW2, Defiance
Blog: http://realmsofchirak.blogspot.com (old school tabletop gaming and more)
Actually DX9 can NOT do alot really cool stuff that DX10 has been touted for being able to do. I work as a Graphics Engineer and while I think 10 is in bad shape aka .. should of been released a year or two later than it was..it still does more than 9. DX10 Supports Geometry Shaders & High Resolutioned Lighting that the DX9 Pipeline & DX9 only cards Pipelines are not designed to handle which is why Nvidia and other companies had to make NEW cards instead of just making it a software update.
Honestly don't talk out of your ass unless your an actual programmer.
All DX10 is, is better coding and support for offloading work to the GPU. There isn't a single thing Dx10 can do graphics wise that Dx9 can't.
Case in point - Crysis.
On the topic of Dx10 in this game. It looks like using Dx10 and vista (and thus reducing your performance in the game by 20-40%, if what we've seen in the industry holds true,) you get slightly cooler water and very hard edged real time diffuse shadowing. Sorry but IMHO that'll be hardly worth the performance loss.
I'll wait for AoC, which should perform better under Dx10 simply because it was designed with it in mind, like Crysis. While it is sure to not perform as well as Dx9 and XP, it should hopefully be playable on your average 'gamers' machine.
DX9 CAN NOT DO GEOMETRY SHADERS Only DX10 has the pipeline capabilities to handle it. If you think otherwise please head right over to Nvidia or ATI or even DX10's official sites and read the developer white papers. Geometry shaders are only possible on DX10, its not possible in a game environment to even mimic a Geometry shader efficiently in DX9. The hardware and the API pipelines can not hack it.
The fact you reference crysis sort of makes me laugh...all the people I know here where I work that have high end Vista machines complain like hell about Vista & DX10 fubaring the game and their systems. Unless your absolutely sure every lil peice of your machine is 'Vista Ready' there's no gaurentee it'll work perfectly.
Personally I still fully support XP & DX9. Until Microsoft gets their head out of the sand and makes Vista work right there's no point in me even thinking about upgrading in the first place especially since most games worth their salt support DX9 & 10. Honestly if you have time to sit around and admire how the sun glows in the distance then the MMO your playing must be incredibly boring.
DX9 can do geometry shaders but microsoft just wont enable it for obvious reasons.
-----------------------------
SWG - PrePub9 Jedi mastered all professions - June 26th 2003 > Nov 15th 2005
EVE Online - 24 million SP - May 6th 2003 > Early 2005
PlanetSide - BR20 CR5 - May 23rd 2003 > Sept 2003