The First D3D10-only Game: Stormrise

[Jawed]

Interview with Lead Designer, Artem Kulakov:

http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,...-only-game-Interview-with-Lead-Designer/News/

DX10 has offered a lot of advantages over DX9. First of all, DirectX 10 allowed us to simplify the rendering engine. It matches capabilities of next generation consoles better than DX9, which is important for us considering that Stormrise is a multi-platform title. We had fewer driver-specific compatibility issues with Stormrise compare to our previous games released with DX9.

It's interesting to see that some D3D10.1 features may have been dropped. In this interview he says:

We integrated DX10.1 features to give extra performance benefits for players that have compatible hardware:

• DX10.1 adds a new instruction called Gather, which can gather 4 texture samples at once, at a much lower cost than issuing 4 separate Sample instructions. Consequently we are able to optimize our shadow map technique, and even shoot for higher quality.
• The Gather instruction will also allow us to optimize our Screen Space Ambient Occlusion (SSAO) algorithm - again producing a higher image quality.

Whereas in the older interview (linked from this new interview) he said:

We are currently working with AMDs engineers to implement the following DX10.1 features:

• DX10.1 allows you to read back from a Multi-Sampled Anti-Aliased (MSAA) depth buffer, which means it is no longer necessary to render depth out separately. This means that the current Multiple Render Target (MRT) setup can be bypassed for DX10.1 capable HW, and therefore yielding a performance gain.
• DX10.1 introduced fixed sample patterns for MSAA modes, and also allows the Pixel Shader (PS) to output the MSAA Coverage Mask. This enables us to gain full MSAA Alpha Tested geometry, leading to higher visual quality.
• DX10.1 adds a new instruction called Gather, which can gather 4 texture samples at once, at a much lower cost than issuing 4 separate Sample instructions. Consequently we are able to optimize our shadow map technique, and even shoot for higher quality.
• The Gather instruction will also allow us to optimize our Screen Space Ambient Occlusion (SSAO) algorithm - again producing a higher image quality.

I can't tell from that whether the MSAA-specific D3D10.1 capabilities have been dropped from the engine, or whether they have added these capabilities to the NVidia, D3D10, version of the renderer, so 10.1 no longer has any advantage.

Jawed

 

[homerdog]

I can't tell from that whether the MSAA-specific D3D10.1 capabilities have been dropped from the engine, or whether they have added these capabilities to the NVidia, D3D10, version of the renderer, so 10.1 no longer has any advantage.

Why would this not be the case, since NV DX10 hardware is capable of reading MSAAed depth buffers as per Far Cry 2. He does make it clear in the other interview:

The game will still support DX10.0 HW, so consumers are not excluded from enjoying our game. Our objective is to create a game which is engaging, fun and visually stunning. We don't think in terms of "excluding” anyone. Instead we simply want to make sure that people get the very best game-play experience possible. For that reason we are pleased to work with AMD and any other hardware companies to ensure that gamers always get the best experience we can create.

Is it (reading from MSAAed depth buffer) a super secret technique that NVIDIA only gives 'special' devs get access to? If so, why would Sega remove this feature on account of NV hardware not supporting it; they're obviously not losing sleep over taking advantage of DX10.1 features that are exclusive to ATI (and S3 ) hardware. Just thinking out loud here...

Though I'm a bit miffed my GTX260 won't support the pretty shadows and high quality SSAO, I'm glad to see they're not holding back on account of NVIDIA's stubbornness. Wonder how much of a backlash there'll be for no DX9/XP support... hmm guess it depends on how good the game is.

 

[Jawed]

Is it (reading from MSAAed depth buffer) a super secret technique that NVIDIA only gives 'special' devs get access to?

It requires an NDA to get to these special features:

http://developer.nvidia.com/object/nvapi.html

If so, why would Sega remove this feature on account of NV hardware not supporting it; they're obviously not losing sleep over taking advantage of DX10.1 features that are exclusive to ATI (and S3 ) hardware. Just thinking out loud here...

I wasn't trying to suggest that advanced MSAA-type techniques have been removed from the game - merely that by using NVAPI these techniques are no longer exclusive to the D3D10.1 version of the game.

Though I'm a bit miffed my GTX260 won't support the pretty shadows and high quality SSAO, I'm glad to see they're not holding back on account of NVIDIA's stubbornness. Wonder how much of a backlash there'll be for no DX9/XP support... hmm guess it depends on how good the game is.

Also depends on when it comes out. If it launched in 2011 it wouldn't cause much upset, I imagine

Jawed

 

[homerdog]

It requires an NDA to get to these special features:

http://developer.nvidia.com/object/nvapi.html

Ooo so it is super secret.

I wasn't trying to suggest that advanced MSAA-type techniques have been removed from the game - merely that by using NVAPI these techniques are no longer exclusive to the D3D10.1 version of the game.

I thought you were suggesting they had *either* removed the feature from the engine or used NVAPI to include it in the base DX10 version. Thus my comment was considering the former possibility - that they had removed it - and why that is unlikely.

Also depends on when it comes out. If it launched in 2011 it wouldn't cause much upset, I imagine

True, though I have to wonder at this point how many gamers that would be interested in this game are still on pre-DX10 hardware... I know I know Vista is teh suck (not my opinion) but 7 should be out presumably before this game is released.

 

[Davros]

It requires an NDA to get to these special features:

http://developer.nvidia.com/object/nvapi.html

Its a secret from who exactly, the competion allready has dx10.1 hardware so it would be of no interest to them

 

[Farid]

Looking at the pictures that illustrate that article. The same pictures that were provided by Sega and thus hand picked to show the game engine at its best. I can safetly say that the DX10-only choice made by Creative Assembly is purely anedoctical...

It exist only to simplify the rendering code of the Windows version, as stated by the lead. The game is definitely not pushing any technological (or artistical) envelopes.

 

[Humus]

Its a secret from who exactly

Microsoft (D3D runtime / WHQL conformance tests).

 

[I.S.T.]

Looking at the pictures that illustrate that article. The same pictures that were provided by Sega and thus hand picked to show the game engine at its best. I can safetly say that the DX10-only choice made by Creative Assembly is purely anedoctical...

It exist only to simplify the rendering code of the Windows version, as stated by the lead. The game is definitely not pushing any technological (or artistical) envelopes.

Wasn't that the largest advertised feature of DX10 anyway?