Does Nvidia's lack of DX11.1 and DX11.2 matter?

[Fox5]

So the obvious answer is "no" right now, but will it matter in a year or two? Typically cards that come out on the verge of a new DX lose value / ability to play games way quicker than cards that support the new DX standard.

Any top of the line card right before DX10 cards came out was a bad idea.
Now the fastest DX10 cards are having trouble even playing some games due to a lack of DX11.
So will the same happen with DX11.1 and DX11.2? Will AMD's GCN based cards out last nvidia's Kepler cards?

It seems like there's more of an ability to pick and choose features from 11.1 and 11.2 without supporting the whole thing, so does nvidia support all the critical features? They of course say they do, but are current nvidia cards going to have performance issues, weird incompatibilities, or missing in game features in 1-3 years time because of the lack of 11.1 and 11.2 features?

 

[Spjut]

For as long as Windows 7 has the biggest userbase and only support DX11.0, I'm doubtful that any new DirectX will matter

With the PS4 and Xbox One supporting the same features available in DX11.2 as well though, perhaps there's a good chance of it gaining support on the PC as well. I really hope that will be the case.


Based on the few benchmarks I've seen for modern games, the HD 4000 series does seem to have aged better than the Geforce 200 series.
The Geforce 200 series is unable to use MSAA in a couple of DX10/DX11 games, presumably due to the lack of DX10.1

 

[ShintaiDK]

AMD doesnt support DX 11.2 fully either for that matter. So its a bit of a pointless poll.

Also in reference to the poll, you might want to add that AMD doesnt support DX Command List for example. So multithreading performance in their driver is something to be wished for.

But it is a mess due to so many optional support items. So all vendors can pick and choose what they see fit. And its moving DX away from the standard ground it is.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Even though I am skeptical of the mantle hype, I would be çoncerned more about lack of that feature than the latest Dx I think. Hopefully we will soon have some hard data out, so i miight wait to see how that shakes out if I were considering an nVidia card right now.

 

[Spjut]

AMD doesnt support DX 11.2 fully either for that matter. So its a bit of a pointless poll.

Also in reference to the poll, you might want to add that AMD doesnt support DX Command List for example. So multithreading performance in their driver is something to be wished for.

But it is a mess due to so many optional support items. So all vendors can pick and choose what they see fit. And its moving DX away from the standard ground it is.

The command lists seem to be a hit or miss feature though. Dice has said it's of no use for them, and Far Cry 3 had it removed in the first patch.

The only game where it was shown to improve performance somewhat was in Civilization V. Assassins Creed 3 apparently uses it as well, though there are no comparisons with it on and off.

 

[janii]

Dont think so. Most will stay on w7 and its dx.
Unless they bring some real stuff out. But I lost all faith in MS long time ago

 

[blastingcap]

For as long as Windows 7 has the biggest userbase and only support DX11.0, I'm doubtful that any new DirectX will matter

With the PS4 and Xbox One supporting the same features available in DX11.2 as well though, perhaps there's a good chance of it gaining support on the PC as well. I really hope that will be the case.


Based on the few benchmarks I've seen for modern games, the HD 4000 series does seem to have aged better than the Geforce 200 series.
The Geforce 200 series is unable to use MSAA in a couple of DX10/DX11 games, presumably due to the lack of DX10.1

This. DX9 persisted for HOW long? Same thing for DX11 because people are satisfied with Win7 and for cross-platform development it makes the most sense to stick with DX11 as well, given the hardware in the new consoles.

 

[Fox5]

Even though I am skeptical of the mantle hype, I would be çoncerned more about lack of that feature than the latest Dx I think. Hopefully we will soon have some hard data out, so i miight wait to see how that shakes out if I were considering an nVidia card right now.

Mantle is easily countered by physx and whatever other exclusive technologies nvidia are offering. As of today, physx and nvidia's exclusive AA modes are more worthwhile than Mantle.

However, long term DX support seems to matter more than proprietary features.

Also in reference to the poll, you might want to add that AMD doesnt support DX Command List for example. So multithreading performance in their driver is something to be wished for.

Is AMD adding this? Other than Battlefield 4 (which on a high end core i7, still puts amd on par with nvidia), are there any benchmarks showing the benefits of this?

This. DX9 persisted for HOW long? Same thing for DX11 because people are satisfied with Win7 and for cross-platform development it makes the most sense to stick with DX11 as well, given the hardware in the new consoles.

DX10 launched in 2006. By 2008, DX9 hardware was nearly worthless, even though most games still used DX9, the pre-unified shader architectures couldn't cope with the requirements of newer games.

DX11 launched in 2011 and DX10 were showing inadequacies almost immediately, and now in 2013 are really diminished in value, even the top end ones.

Also, Xbox One supports DX11.2, and PS4 has equivalent hardware, so if anything there's a worry that the new consoles will fast track DX11.2 support.

 

[BrightCandle]

Right now it doesn't really matter, because there isn't really any IQ differences so far. At some point there might be a good reason to be concerned but a lot of the support for DX11.2 is pure software anyway, its mainly about the drivers getting there not the hardware. I don't know if it will matter but because we can't tell today its not worth considering in a purchase today.

 

[blastingcap]

Mantle is easily countered by physx and whatever other exclusive technologies nvidia are offering. As of today, physx and nvidia's exclusive AA modes are more worthwhile than Mantle.

However, long term DX support seems to matter more than proprietary features.



Is AMD adding this? Other than Battlefield 4 (which on a high end core i7, still puts amd on par with nvidia), are there any benchmarks showing the benefits of this?



DX10 launched in 2006. By 2008, DX9 hardware was nearly worthless, even though most games still used DX9, the pre-unified shader architectures couldn't cope with the requirements of newer games.

DX11 launched in 2011 and DX10 were showing inadequacies almost immediately, and now in 2013 are really diminished in value, even the top end ones.

Also, Xbox One supports DX11.2, and PS4 has equivalent hardware, so if anything there's a worry that the new consoles will fast track DX11.2 support.

People are saying it's not a big deal if a card does not have beyond DX11, and your arguments only SUPPORT that argument. Basically you are arguing hardware obsolescence made the initial DX9 and DX11 cards unsuitable for use with games written YEARS later. Yes, the R9 290 will be obsolete someday. Same with TITAN/780 Ti. So what? This doesn't counter what people are saying in this thread at all and if anything it just reinforces the idea that it doesn't matter if a video card only supports up to DX11.

Then you start talking about consoles at 11.2 fast track etc. but 1) consoles do not use DX, and 2) gaming is a business. It's not free to spend resources on features only a fraction of users can utilize. The VAST majority of gaming PCs are DX11 or lower, and a significant fraction of machines are DX10 or lower. Programmers aren't going to go past DX11 for a long time unless they can do it pretty cheaply (like Mantle, apparently). Heck some are STILL sticking with DX9 for backwards-compatibility. Gaming is a business.

This thread is about DX not Mantle or whatever, and I know you didn't start the derail into Mantle-land, but... the scant NV-hardware-accelerated PhysX titles don't even begin to make up for Mantle which should work with a LOT more games. For instance, EA's main graphics engine will use Mantle. On the other hand Mantle performance boost may be pretty low for some genres. Others like RTS may benefit more from Mantle. But we should probably stop with the Mantle talk unless you want it to go in that direction.

 

[Spjut]

Mantle is easily countered by physx and whatever other exclusive technologies nvidia are offering. As of today, physx and nvidia's exclusive AA modes are more worthwhile than Mantle.

DX10 launched in 2006. By 2008, DX9 hardware was nearly worthless, even though most games still used DX9, the pre-unified shader architectures couldn't cope with the requirements of newer games.

DX11 launched in 2011 and DX10 were showing inadequacies almost immediately, and now in 2013 are really diminished in value, even the top end ones.

Also, Xbox One supports DX11.2, and PS4 has equivalent hardware, so if anything there's a worry that the new consoles will fast track DX11.2 support.

We'll have to wait and see regarding Mantle. The neat thing Mantle could do is enable low-end APUs/GPUs to play modern games, whereas PhysX has a tendency to require high-end hardware in order for the game to be playable

Yes, DX9 hardware became worthless pretty fast, but the thing is, games still stuck to using DX9. We've had plenty of games that only use DX9, even PC exclusives, despite actually requiring DX10 cards. The most likely reason is because of the domination of Windows XP.

I wouldn't say DX10 cards aged that badly, the 8800GT is still enough for playing Battlefield 4. I doubt that for example the HD 5770 performs much better than the HD 4870 at the same settings.

I've also seen plenty of devs say the 360's API was closer to DX10 than DX9.

 

[sontin]

Fermi and Kepler cards support 11.1 and 11.2 through the optional features introduced with DX11.1.
Only UAV is not usable under DX without NVAPI.

 

[redzo]

It's just a marketing gimmick. By the time dx11.2 will matter, current gen gpus(your're card) will be obsolete. Don't forget that the gtx480 it's adx11 gpu and also very very crappy. The hell with dx 11.2, dx12 will probably spoil everything. All that matters is dx 9/10/11/future 12. All current gen gpus are dx11. That's all that matters. Under no circumstance, don't base your decision on dx11.x. Look for other stuff: price/performance, efficiency...

 

[Gikaseixas]

Other than marketing i don't see that big of a deal.

Edit: Ooops redzo beat me to it.

 

[Bateluer]

For the time being, I don't see it making any difference. Manufacturers/developers may play up DX11.1/11.2 with advertising budgets, and expect Microsoft to heavily hype .1 and .2 to get users to purchase Windows 8.x. But users hate W8.x, with most not bothering to purchase it. So long as W7 remains the most installed Windows release, developers will target DX11.

If we're lucky, with SteamOS/box, we'll see increased support and usage of OpenGL over DirectX.

 

[el etro]

AMD doesnt support DX 11.2 fully either for that matter. So its a bit of a pointless poll...

Sourceless.


On topic: DX11.2 is really irrelevant by now.

 

[Anarchist420]

Fermi and Kepler cards support 11.1 and 11.2 through the optional features introduced with DX11.1. Only UAV is not usable under DX without NVAPI.

+1.

If we're lucky, with SteamOS/box, we'll see increased support and usage of OpenGL over DirectX.

+1.

 

[Red Hawk]

I think it will matter, because of the PS4 and the Xbox One. Game developers will be using 11.2 level features, and will have no reason not to port them over to PC versions of games. DirectX 11 vs 11.1/11.2 is a different situation than DirectX 9 vs DirectX 10/11, because consoles only supported DirectX 9 level features and couldn't support Direct 10 or 11.

Mantle is easily countered by physx and whatever other exclusive technologies nvidia are offering. As of today, physx and nvidia's exclusive AA modes are more worthwhile than Mantle.

How does PhysX counter Mantle? They do different things. PhysX adds graphical effects in exchange for different degrees tanking performance. Mantle (supposedly) greatly increases performance on the same hardware over DirectX 11. Might as well say Nvidia's better tessellation performance is "easily countered" by AMD's TrueAudio feature. The closest thing Nvidia has to a direct response to Mantle is the new OpenGL extensions they said they were working on a couple months back. Only time will tell if either Mantle or the OpenGL extensions really deliver on performance improvements.

 

[Will Robinson]

If AMD didn't support 11.1 and 11.2 it would matter.
So I vote: Yes :thumbsup:

 

[Keysplayr]

It matters when it matters. I've seen nothing to indicate it does, currently and as someone has mentioned, it's mostly accomplished via software. Both companies do not completely support it anyway.

 

[Haider]

AMD doesnt support DX 11.2 fully either for that matter. So its a bit of a pointless poll.

Also in reference to the poll, you might want to add that AMD doesnt support DX Command List for example. So multithreading performance in their driver is something to be wished for.

But it is a mess due to so many optional support items. So all vendors can pick and choose what they see fit. And its moving DX away from the standard ground it is.

They support the mandatory features but not the optional features hence the word optional...

 

[lavaheadache]

It's just a marketing gimmick. By the time dx11.2 will matter, current gen gpus(your're card) will be obsolete. Don't forget that the gtx480 it's adx11 gpu and also very very crappy. The hell with dx 11.2, dx12 will probably spoil everything. All that matters is dx 9/10/11/future 12. All current gen gpus are dx11. That's all that matters. Under no circumstance, don't base your decision on dx11.x. Look for other stuff: price/performance, efficiency...

How come the gtx 480 got dragged into this? Why is it crappy? Other than it's heat/noise reputation.

 

[Genx87]

The increments mean very little. I cant remember any title that showed having xx.1 as being a major benefit. By the time it matters DX12 will have been released incorporating the incremental featureset and nobody will care.

 

[DigDog]

everything dx10 or more serves to make things worse, not better. godrays, distortion, motion blur, bloom, and more ridiculous stuff. some of us like to actually play a game, rather than just watching it.

 

[lavaheadache]

everything dx10 or more serves to make things worse, not better. godrays, distortion, motion blur, bloom, and more ridiculous stuff. some of us like to actually play a game, rather than just watching it.

What? lol, I assume you are still gaming on a 1024x768 monitor then. What a silly statement to make that I had to follow it up with an equally silly one.