Starcraft II GPU performance/IQ

It's probably not that strange considering the history of DX10 and DX11. Since it's Blizzard's habit to have their games run on as many as computers possible, it's not good for them to code for DX10 which was Vista only (and Windows 7's successfulness was uncertain). Of course, they could go for a dual render path plan (supporting both DX9 and DX10), but if the only major benefit for supporting DX10 (which is not supported on Windows XP, the most popular Windows version at that time) is the option to enable FSAA, then I can understand completely why they decided against it.

Now with Windows 7's prevalence, of course it'd be wise to consider adding a DX10 or DX11 rendering path. I hope they do.

 

http://twitter.com/CatalystMaker/status/19739897631

 

That is very welcomed. Ideally, one would like to see in-game AA but sometimes there are powerful exceptions and a need to be pro-active -- this is one of those times.

 

So they went from making an official statement that they weren't going to bother to having a hotfix currently being tested, that's some quick back peddling. It's very welcome though.

 

They are adding DX10/11 support to wow with Cataclysm, I'm sure we'll have similar with future episodes of SC2, possibly even sooner.

 

I think you need to read it again. They never implied that. They did imply a delay in making the AA available. It just wasn't clear when it would be available. Hey Malo, it won't be long now before we find out .

 

Yes they did, the quote was the following

The intention was to work with Blizzard to get AA included in the game and not a driver hack. So unless they have suddenly made a way to increase performance of the driver hack in 2 days then they have back peddled on the whole forced AA issue.

 

Haha so I was spot on earlier at translating their PR.

 

It'd be interesting to see whether they have similar "seam" problem I'm seeing on NVIDIA's hardware...
The seam problem looks like caused by composition. The engine renders objects on a render target and then composite it on the background. In some cases it cases a visible seam around the object.

 

Yay! Just in time (hopefully) for the weekend.

 

Does triple buffering work with SC2?

 

Actually no it doesn't. What it shows that at the time of release they opted to not provide control panel AA. Unless Dave or someone else from AMD clarifies that it was. But until then, you omitted this portion of the article

Take note that they say "before we release it..." Not "before Blizzard release it..." That to me clearly implies a hotfix. Which is why I think what you thought was implied is not accurate. And apparent as to why a hotfix is on the way as it doesn't look like something they just started on. I'm not really interested in defending AMD but the interpretation of the article that you are trying to infer I have to disagree with.

 

That was the problem back in 2007. I think we're well past that now. It's definitely surprising that, by 2010, Blizzard couldn't be bothered to build a DX10+ game. It seems to me that the game engine was likely feature-complete a long, long time ago. Maybe years ago. I certainly don't buy that DX10+ don't offer enough advantages aside from MSAA to be worthwhile!

But yeah as another person said, losing MSAA probably doesn't matter that much in the grand scheme of things. It's not going to stop sales for those who want the game, that's for sure. It's still much prettier than StarCraft 1 upscaled on a modern LCD!!!

 

Multi-threaded rendering, custom AA support, reduced draw calls needed, use of geometry shaders etc etc. Lazyness/ignorance or just being cheap main reason to keep using DX9, an API that is from last-gen.

 

There are still people playing SC1 in 256 colors.

so

It would acceptable for Blizzard to release SC2 with only 256 colors.

I know you don't think this is a sound argument, not even "in a sense", so I can't quite figure what your post is supposed to mean

Blizzard's intentions probably were not to give the enthusiast crowd the finger, nor were they (at least initially) being intentionally lazy. More likely they saw how things were going with Vista and didn't expect 7 to have such high uptake, and haven't had time to implement a modern renderer yet. At least I hope so. But until they do that I have $60 to spend on something else.

PS like Nebula said, MSAA support is not the only reason to go past DX9.

 

Do you think Blizzard just started making Starcraft 2 last year, or two years ago?
As I said, Blizzard don't like making games requiring very fast (or latest) computers. That makes DX9 an absolute necessary. And you should know that maintaining two rendering paths in an engine developed half way is very expensive. They can either delay the game futher, or release it as is.

Heck, the fact that World of Warcraft only supports DX9 doesn't seem to bother anyone.

 

Simple. Blizzard designed Starcraft 2 for those who wants to play a better Starcarft. Not simply a better looking Starcraft.

You just said what I said in my previous post, so apparently you understand the problem. However, your last sentence suggests that you value graphics more than gameplay. Apparently Blizzard doesn't think their main customers do.

 

I can has both?

 

Does anyone else have really long alt+tab times with SC2? Tabbing out is pretty much instant, but tabbing back in can take up to 20-30 seconds. Trying to figure out if it's a game or driver issue, anyone with a Nvidia card having the same problem?

 

Sure, but you may have to wait (much) longer. I'd rather have it now than wait for a "DX11 enabled" Starcraft 2.

I don't understand since when a game uses only DX9 is a serious problem. To me, Starcraft 2 has nice graphics, performs well on even low end video cards, runs on Windows XP, isn't that more important than whether DX10 or DX11 is used? As a gamer I don't really care what's under the hood, I only care about whether it works well or not.