The DirectX Performance Overhead

[ctrain]

I'm not so sure the situation is quite as bad as they make it out to be.

Draw calls / state changes were heavy in DX9, yup, but considerably cheaper in OGL and since DX10. The numbers they cite for consoles is far from an impossibility on PC... not that it's intelligent to just completely ignore the possibility of batching render states and shit to improve performance.

I would think if your engine is intelligently designed you will run into other problems long before API overhead ever becomes a problem. If ATI / NV ever get their driver teams in gear then this stuff will only become cheaper as well. The threaded draw call submission is not functional in DX11, there's no driver support yet from either parties.

 

[RejZoR]

oh and has AMD/ATI ever succeeded in bringing any graphics API/interface/paradigm to market successfully ? I can only think of the failures

It's because they don't try hard enough. They always (and i mean ALWAYS) get some bright idea, advertise it a lot and then it's just gone. They don't bother with it like someone gave them the forgettable pill...

Last great example is HW physics. they were talking so much about it in the Radeon x1000 series era already. It's HD6000 series now and we still don't have anything at all. Same goes for ATI Streams. A promising thing but we haven't seen anything and we still don't. There was Folding@home using like 1/5th of the GPU power (ending up being slower than 50% loaded CPU) for stupid reasons unknown and the list really ends there. Oh and there was that stupid encoder that was supposedly running on GPU but was still using pretty much only CPU. What kind of lame joke was that!? Plus i never got it to convert anything right. It either thrashed aspect ratio, video quality was rubbish or it was causing smudged squares all over the video.

At least they managed to get MLAA working which is a wonder by itself...

 

[Mussels]

directX and other API's hold us back, of course. thats common logic. coding direct to the hardware is the best way for performance.


its also the worst way for compatibility, and a great way for hackers or even just poor coding to ruin your day.

If they went bare metal access on PC's today, it'd be like the old DOS days - each game would need to be coded for each graphics card. you'd end up with profiles for common GPU's (EG, radeon 5K) and pick them from a menu.


waiting a few gens for it to all be done via GPGPU instead, is where the fun will be.

 

[btarunr]

DirectX and its "incremental" updates is a way to keep the GPU industry ticking. The GPU industry needs you to buy a new graphics card every 2 or so years, with the promise of keeping up with the latest games with stunning visuals.

"10 times better visuals" ends up as being a very subjective thing. You have Infinity Ward making the most out of DirectX 9 to make their Modern Warfare series games as photo-realistic as possible, while you have Unigine with its DirectX 11 compliant Heaven 2.5 benchmark, which still ends up giving cartoonish visuals that can barely match Disney CGI movies from early 2000's, aside from the rocks and stones. Aside from the water, the visuals in DirectX 10.1 Just Cause 2 are very DirectX 8.1 esque.

Again no game studio can "do away" with the API (DirectX), else it ends up re-inventing the wheel. There's OpenGL 4.1, and we'll get to see a OpenGL game from a big developer (id software) after a verrry looong time with Rage. It will be interesting to see how far along has OpenGL come. It's very important for everyone who cares about PC gaming that Rage be:

• Resource Heavy, and reward people appropriately for having faster hardware, lest it just ends up being called poorly coded
• A market success
• Give great visuals overall
• Become a good marketing tool for idTech5 engine

If OpenGL is "back" into mainstream gaming industry, game visuals will see the same exponential advancements which we saw in the 1995~2005 period.

 

[Over_Lord]

i liked what crytek did with crysis and cryengine 2 in 2007(for 2007, that was wayyy too good)

and after using specific mods and manually configured cfgs to bring out the most of cryengine 2, i was pretty impressed with a 2007 engine..

 

[HalfAHertz]

DirectX and its "incremental" updates is a way to keep the GPU industry ticking. The GPU industry needs you to buy a new graphics card every 2 or so years, with the promise of keeping up with the latest games with stunning visuals.

"10 times better visuals" ends up as being a very subjective thing. You have Infinity Ward making the most out of DirectX 9 to make their Modern Warfare series games as photo-realistic as possible, while you have Unigine with its DirectX 11 compliant Heaven 2.5 benchmark, which still ends up giving cartoonish visuals that can barely match Disney CGI movies from early 2000's, aside from the rocks and stones. Aside from the water, the visuals in DirectX 10.1 Just Cause 2 are very DirectX 8.1 esque.

Again no game studio can "do away" with the API (DirectX), else it ends up re-inventing the wheel. There's OpenGL 4.1, and we'll get to see a OpenGL game from a big developer (id software) after a verrry looong time with Rage. It will be interesting to see how far along has OpenGL come. It's very important for everyone who cares about PC gaming that Rage be:

• Resource Heavy, and reward people appropriately for having faster hardware, lest it just ends up being called poorly coded
• A market success
• Give great visuals overall
• Become a good marketing tool for idTech5 engine

If OpenGL is "back" into mainstream gaming industry, game visuals will see the same exponential advancements which we saw in the 1995~2005 period.

Well according to Khronos, OGL came to standard parity with v4.0 and 4.1 should in fact build upon that and surpass Dx11. However from what I've gathered everyone is staying away from OGL because after v3.2 (Dx9.0c) it has become a jungle of hasty done add-ons and cumbersome libraries.

 

[btarunr]

However from what I've gathered everyone is staying away from OGL because after v3.2 (Dx9.0c) it has become a jungle of hasty done add-ons and cumbersome libraries.

People don't stay away from OpenGL, instead its modularity works to the benefit of small time developers. One stroll through Geeks3D and you'll see just how voluminous OpenGL-based content is.

On the other hand, big-ticket production houses chose DirectX-based engines because that would cut down some duplication of effort in coding for consoles such as Xbox360.

 

[alexsubri]

it all just comes down to coding and budgets. Imagine if consoles had to change their graphics cards every other year to keep up in new titles? What would that lead for PC gamers

 

[Mr McC]

it all just comes down to coding and budgets. Imagine if consoles had to change their graphics cards every other year to keep up in new titles? What would that lead for PC gamers

In that hypothetical situation, console gamers would, to all intents and purposes, be pc gamers.

I think the AMD guy is simply stating that what defines us also limits us: useful to learn. What is controversial is the proposed solution and the compatibility chaos that would ensue. But why stop with the API? We need cranial chips and direct cerebral programming to become the game, there's no holding back there.

I just hope that they use DirectX 11 a bit more and a bit better than 10.1, before attempting to convince us that we need to move on to 12.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

its just propaganda .. amd is looking for a "directx 12" that they can use to promote their new products.

probably bang on there dude +1

i dont see it as so surpriseing though, AMD release a APU, accelerated cpu/gpu in one, then in the same month asks for essentially, the power to, in windows run Whatever it wants On whatever it wants gpu/cpu when it wants unrestricted (not very well disguised either) and without limits.

windows 8 with already pruported arm support.

nvidia with its arm powered APU on the way.

AMDs APU's here now, some guy wants to run more/faster code on a GPU.

shocking idea i mean just imagine an ipad3/ps4/xbox720/macbookpro////// with an APU doin 500 Gflops for low volts/watts actually using the pure compute grunt of gpu's all the time and even on os.... thats what i see and not a game mentioned or game api mentioned till now though the benefits are clear

 

[KashunatoR]

there is no rumour about dx12 yet

 

[W1zzard]

We need cranial chips and direct cerebral programming to become the game, there's no holding back there.

invent it and you'll have more money than god

 

[Mr McC]

invent it and you'll have more money than god

Things already seem to be moving towards man/machine amalgamation:

http://www.kevinwarwick.com/

It only stands to reason that the entertainment industry will find a number of applications for these technological advances and whilst I was being ironic, I can forsee a future wherein updating your graphics card involves a surgical operation.

 

[mastrdrver]

I agree with Wiz, it's just marketing BS. They are trying to talk up a new wave of sales. Perhaps its a DX12 or perhaps its just consoles.

THe problem that AMD and nvidia have is that only a small percentage of games really need much GPU power at all and the majority of games will soon be easily available via the cloud. If the average joe gamer can play 80% of his games using an integrated intel unit and a subscripton to a live service, where will the console sales go? Phones?

The GPU manufacturers need get used to the idea that it might only be hard core PC based DX buyers left in the market in a few years time, a thought I'm sure they dread. In the meantime, why not make up a story about DX11 being crap to dicourage game developers from leaving the herd.

The reason the cloud won't work currently: lag. Nothing like trying to knife someone in Black Ops just to have a 2 second input lag (according to PCPer).

Though you're right in the general sense in that the quality of gameplay and repeatability of it is what sells games. Just look at the plethora of Facebook games. The games nickel and dime you and people all over just fork it over because its just a dollar (or less) here and there. The game programmer has a better pay system then any of the big guys and their DLC.

With that said though, I think quite a bit of that market will sit up and pay attention when they have a choice to get a $70 add-in card as part of the cpu they are at the store buying. Intel is laying a fat rotten egg with their iGPU effort (or lack of) and just begging AMD to bury their face in it with Llano. They just need to get Llano out asap because the longer they take the more time Intel marketing has to paint the picture blue.

invent it and you'll have more money than god

I don't know. I hear he has a lot of cattle on a whole bunch of hills (or something like that). What are cattle running these days anyway?

 

[RejZoR]

DirectX and its "incremental" updates is a way to keep the GPU industry ticking. The GPU industry needs you to buy a new graphics card every 2 or so years, with the promise of keeping up with the latest games with stunning visuals.

"10 times better visuals" ends up as being a very subjective thing. You have Infinity Ward making the most out of DirectX 9 to make their Modern Warfare series games as photo-realistic as possible, while you have Unigine with its DirectX 11 compliant Heaven 2.5 benchmark, which still ends up giving cartoonish visuals that can barely match Disney CGI movies from early 2000's, aside from the rocks and stones. Aside from the water, the visuals in DirectX 10.1 Just Cause 2 are very DirectX 8.1 esque.

Again no game studio can "do away" with the API (DirectX), else it ends up re-inventing the wheel. There's OpenGL 4.1, and we'll get to see a OpenGL game from a big developer (id software) after a verrry looong time with Rage. It will be interesting to see how far along has OpenGL come. It's very important for everyone who cares about PC gaming that Rage be:

• Resource Heavy, and reward people appropriately for having faster hardware, lest it just ends up being called poorly coded
• A market success
• Give great visuals overall
• Become a good marketing tool for idTech5 engine

If OpenGL is "back" into mainstream gaming industry, game visuals will see the same exponential advancements which we saw in the 1995~2005 period.

You can make it incrimental but for as long as PC games are direct ports bound to console inferior hardware, things won't change even if Microsoft makes 100 incrimental improvements to DX throughout the year and all hardware vendors take advantage of them.
Just look what's going on now. We are at DX11 which is by all means a great milestone in terms of image detail, performance and being friendly to developers. But 3/4 of the games are still a DX9 derivates. And i can safely say it's just because of the consoles. Where it makes me wonder why since all consoles have DX10 class hardware...

What's also bad is the fact that they don't even try enough. Look at Gran Turismo 4. Sure enough PS2 is working at very low resolution but then again the quality of graphics pushed from the PS2 is just amazing. But on the PC, all developers just think silently: "User will buy new gfx card and more RAM anyway to enjoy better framerate". They should stop relying on that and optimize games properly pushing everything tot he limits and still get good framerate from average gfx card. There werer few games close tot hat but nothing compared to consoles. And fair enough, it's easier to do this on consoles since they are all exactly the same hardware but still, some more QA wouldn't hurt PC developers...

 

[Over_Lord]

Thats why I am sooooo gaga over this thing called

"UNLIMITED DETAIL TECHNOLOGY"

google for it guys for those who dont know

 

[Nailezs]

Thats why I am sooooo gaga over this thing called

"UNLIMITED DETAIL TECHNOLOGY"

google for it guys for those who dont know

wasnt this determined to be a hoax in the applicable thread?

 

[qubit]

wasnt this determined to be a hoax in the applicable thread?

Yup, it was. And I was one of it's loudest critics, explaining the scam from every angle and setting straight the people misinformed and those in denial.

Here's that thread: Unlimited Detail Technology

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

hey dont take all the credit there qubit i did point out alot of points and info ppl missed and didnt understand lol.

more importantly it dosent matter things are what they are and non of us can change it, and all of this is just bollocks i want my own god damn holodeck so i can do whatever the fuck i want end of debate, lol untill direct X can do that its fail untill Open GL can do that its fail, or UDT i dont care, lol give me the power to render a virtual reality and truly interact with it lol

 

[qubit]

hey dont take all the credit there qubit i did point out alot of points and info ppl missed and didnt understand lol.

more importantly it dosent matter things are what they are and non of us can change it, and all of this is just bollocks i want my own god damn holodeck so i can do whatever the fuck i want end of debate, lol untill direct X can do that its fail untill Open GL can do that its fail, or UDT i dont care, lol give me the power to render a virtual reality and truly interact with it lol

Indeed, I'm not trying to, crazy! That's why I said one of its loudest critics. You did a pretty good job yourself.

I just can't help feeling smug how I went about it, really telling them in no uncertain terms and the sheer awesomeness of my explanations, that's all.

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

lol eitherway, screw all APIs give me virtual reality mofos

 

[qubit]

Ah damn, I forgot to reply to your DX bit (I managed to post before I was finished, somehow :shadedshu).

Look, you might want a holodeck, but I want mine in 4 dimensions!

Finally, if you wanna talk about this stuff, best take it to that Unlimited Detail thread, rather than derail this one. I've still got my sub open on it, so I'll see your post.

 

[yogurt_21]

imo there are far better things to be pointing fingers at than directx when it comes to what's holding us back. even if directx did support every little thing we could imaging, we'd still be stuck with crappy designs and old looking games.

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

true enough yogurt because we still have to deal with the lowest common denominator aka ppl with shit machines and consoles lol

 

[Mussels]

imo there are far better things to be pointing fingers at than directx when it comes to what's holding us back. even if directx did support every little thing we could imaging, we'd still be stuck with crappy designs and old looking games.

and as i keep pointing out, shit compatibility. they'd have to code each game for each card, and heaven forbid what drivers could do to them then... or even variations between generations/manufacturers.