It wouldn't be the first time a hardware feature went unused though as a result of not really being fast enough. In fact I think that's more usually the norm with any new DX feature.
DXR games and demos; Where's the beef? *spawn*
- Thread starter Shifty Geezer
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Ike Turner
Veteran
Yup. But what is unheard of (and a first, since..well ever) is that nearly two months after the commercial release of a new DX feature, not a single game or even a tech-demo is publicly available to the end users who paid for those cards.
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D
Deleted member 2197
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It probably is the norm these days. No one benefits from *broken* hardware/software features released to developers and customers that will never work or be used.
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DavidGraham
Veteran
DXR is not yet available to 90% of the install base anyway, so it's a moot point.
Let's see, DX10 hardware 8.11.2006, Windows DX10 on 20.11.2006, First public demo february 2007, Games mid 2007. DX11 hardware 23.09.2009, Windows DX11 22.10.2009, first game updated on windows release. DX Release 30.07.2015, first public demo/game (ashes beta, not sure this was public, might also be just reviewer) 17.08.2015.
Now DXR, release date hardware 20.09.2018, Windows DXR?
Well i can't see anything special at this moment comparing it to previous releases and nothing unheard of. Maybe it's 2 instead of 1 months with DX11,12, but we still don't have the public official release from windows. I wouldn't be surprised if Nv wanted to publish the available nda demos with the 2070 release, but with no windows support it makes no sense. Prerelease windows and the few users which already updated don't count really, as it would only produce a shitstorm by users who can't update.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
Hmm, your dates are a bit off.
The first Dx11 game was Battleforge that got updated to Dx11 on 09/23/09. I remember because I had gotten the 5870 at launch and was eagerly awaiting Dx11. Battleforge also being a game I was playing a LOT back then.
http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33952998
http://www.pcgameshardware.de/Battleforge-Spiel-18722/News/Automatic-Update-695776/
Etc. Not everyone may have had access to Dx11 yet, but the game was patched for Dx11 on the same day as Dx11
IIRC the main Dx11 feature was an improved version of AO, but there were some other things implemented as well.
My memory is less precise with Dx10.
Regards,
SB
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Ike Turner
Veteran
In the case of DX10 there was literally nothing to show. All the reviews where done on DX9 and Nvidia didn't market the GeForce 8800 with any DX10 demos/videos/hands-on prior to its launch. It was known from the get go that DX10 support was coming later and wasn't ostensibly used to promote and market the product.
Actually true, that Battleforge was updated in september, but Windows was not officially released. Some users like students had access through universities. Official general DX11 availability came on 22th October with Win 7 release, 29th October on Vista. I'm not even sure the AO was improved, i think it was only faster. No additional effects were added. No idea how long it took to first public Tesselation demos.
DavidGraham
Veteran
NVIDIA heavily promoted geometry shaders with the Cascade demo, right during launch. Then they did the same with human head demo later.
And let's not forget, the greatest graphical showcase of all time, Crysis, which promised DX10, and was heavily promoted by NVIDIA before, during and after the launch of the 8800GTX . NVIDIA also promoted several other TWIMTBP titles that will use DX10.
https://bit-tech.net/reviews/tech/graphics/directx10_future_of_pc_gaming/6/
Just like it's known here that DXR and RTX games are coming later.
Ike Turner
Veteran
I guess that my wording wasn't the best when I said "the commercial release of a new DX feature" as I should have said "a new GPU feature" instead given that RTRT is also supported in Vulkan. New GPU features were most of the time showcased using OpenGL because the corresponding DX version wasn't officially deployed yet like the ATI 9700 Pro launch demos which were all OpenGL based (card released in August 2002 while DX9 launched in December 2002).
Nvidia had 3 tech demos showcasing their unified shading architecture 3 weeks after the launch of the G80 arch: Froggy, Box of Smoke & Adrianne. Human Head was released alongside the 8800 Ultra in May 2017. They could have done the same thing with the RTX cards an released Vulkan tech demos at least.
DavidGraham
Veteran
Yeah, I remember those now. I was especially impressed with Adrianne.
They could, but I think Vulkan extensions for RTX are not yet stable. They were released in an experimental state. They only seemingly brought them to a stable state a few days ago.
The 7900GTX was 500$ at launch, 8800Ultra was 850$.
Ike Turner
Veteran
Given how well the Pascal GPUs were still selling (and performing) NV should have only released the Quadro line of RTX GPUs this year and left the GeForce products for Q1 2019. But even then there would still be the issue of RT Cores not being used at all even on the Quadros because AFAIK not a single CC app supports them yet.
I don't see why everyone is surprised that there aren't any games supporting RTX/DXR yet. We're talking about a feature that requires fairly substantial changes to game engines to use, and until a couple months ago, there was no hardware that could run it (I'm not counting Volta here - $3000 and no hardware acceleration made it uncertain if it would even reach consumer GPUs at all, and even if it did, would performance be good enough?). Developers no doubt wish they could just snap their fingers and have it all working, but let's be realistic.
DavidGraham
Veteran
I guess we should all remember that we are talking about a major shift in rendering with the hardware ray tracing, it was quite unexpected too for most apps and game developers. Most other DX, OpenGL or GPU features were not as fundamental, they were very incremental and also have been predictable to most developers.
Completely agree, this thread is quite a bit the carriage before the horse.
We can go back and talk to a huge list of technologies introduced never touched in 'years' of time. DX11 and Compute shaders were specced and in early release back in 2007 ish? And we didn't really see things come to fruition until 2013+ when consoles moved to DX11. And no one doubts the power of compute shaders here.
The difference between past shifts in technology and this release is that the new releases at the DX9/10/11 eras were significant increases in performance for existing titles. So I think that both the significant potential of RT in gaming combined with the lack of any real increase in existing rendering has meant a more critical eye on the RTX considering the price increase. Consumers are basically buying into the promise of RT rather than seeing a result of their investment immediately so the lack of games or even tech demos at all is more significant this time around.
Ike Turner
Veteran
This man gets it! 
;-)
but it was pointless to buy a DX11 based card hoping to get today's games back in 2010.
See anything during the 7570 eras.
Ike Turner
Veteran
But those DX11 cards didn't cost over $1000 in addition to being a relatively poor performance upgrade compared to the cards they were replacing in their respectif category.
