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Is Directx11 worth the performance cost?

F

futurefields

Diamond Member
I think every game Ive tried that has option for DX9 or 11 runs about twice as slow in DX11. Just for a different type of motion blur or a little bit of tessellation. But 95% of the game looks exactly the same as DX9, just runs a lot slower.

What do you guys think, is it really worth it? I just dont know.
 
No you are right, it's definitely not worth it. It's so hard to notice the difference, and performance does tank. (metro games are good examole) I feel like video game graphics have stagnated for a while now, and Un optimized games are rampant. Deus Ex HR looks great for the graphical power it requires.

The latest Planet side 2 optimization proves that if the players insist, the debs truly can optimize a game. Seeing the OMFG update, it makes me happy to see that if pushed, devs can clean up their game.
 
DX11 games are faster than DX9 games...if offering the same visual quality. I believe it's about a 20% boost.

The thing is, DX11 allows for new visual improvements, and when a game offers DX9 and DX11 as options, they make the DX11 version better looking, which also costs performance. If you can't get enough performance with these visual improvements, then it is not worth it, but if you can, it is.

As we advance in visual quality, more and more GPU power is needed and it seems that the more we advance, the less impressive those advancements are.

This is PC gaming, so ultimately we make the choices on what we prefer, the dev's do their best to give us a good variety of options.
 
bystander36 said:
DX11 games are faster than DX9 games...if offering the same visual quality. I believe it's about a 20% boost.

The thing is, DX11 allows for new visual improvements, and when a game offers DX9 and DX11 as options, they make the DX11 version better looking, which also costs performance. If you can't get enough performance with these visual improvements, then it is not worth it, but if you can, it is.

As we advance in visual quality, more and more GPU power is needed and it seems that the more we advance, the less impressive those advancements are.

This is PC gaming, so ultimately we make the choices on what we prefer, the dev's do their best to give us a good variety of options.
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Yup but not 20% i think more than that.Visual Quality are so much improved but u can hardly know the difference if u low res and also depends on ur graphic settings.
 
futurefields said:
I think every game Ive tried that has option for DX9 or 11 runs about twice as slow in DX11. Just for a different type of motion blur or a little bit of tessellation. But 95% of the game looks exactly the same as DX9, just runs a lot slower.

What do you guys think, is it really worth it? I just dont know.
Click to expand...

When DX11 first came out, developers typically made a hodgepodge attempt at tacking on DX11 visual effects to their games while ignoring the "meat" of what elevated DX11 above DX9.

This resulted in lackluster performance.

However, once we started getting native DX11 games like BF3, Crysis 3, Civilization V and now BF4 and Assassin's Creed IV, we are beginning to see the true advantage that DX11 offers over DX9, in both performance and visual fidelity.

A true DX11 game will use directcompute and dx11 multithreading, which can increase performance big time over DX9, while allowing for much more graphical eye candy.
 
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bystander36 said:
DX11 games are faster than DX9 games...if offering the same visual quality. I believe it's about a 20% boost.
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If you do a straight port I think 20% is about right..

But if you use DX11 multithreading and DirectCompute, then performance will be much greater than 20%.. I'm talking about easily 50% and greater..

Civilization V saw massive increases in performance when NVidia enabled the driver command list feature in their drivers, and the game also uses DirectCompute for texture decompression.
 
When a new DirectX is released, the first cards supporting it tends to be really slow at using some features, so I'd take improved performance over improved graphics any day
 
Spjut said:
When a new DirectX is released, the first cards supporting it tends to be really slow at using some features, so I'd take improved performance over improved graphics any day
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I'll take a balance of visual improvements and performance. If performance only mattered, we'd be getting 10,000 FPS right now looking at Doom 1 graphics.
 
It depends on the game. Some games are horridly optimized and offer a meager visual improvement for a hefty performance cost (ie Dragon Age 2). But more recent games have used DirectX 11 in a more optimized manner. That should become the norm with the Xbox One and PS4 now using DirectX 11-class features.

Adampa1006 said:
No you are right, it's definitely not worth it. It's so hard to notice the difference, and performance does tank. (metro games are good examole) I feel like video game graphics have stagnated for a while now, and Un optimized games are rampant. Deus Ex HR looks great for the graphical power it requires.
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Metro 2033 may have been an unoptimized mess, but the developer 4A Games made a concerted effort at optimizing Metro Last Light, with the result being a game that both looks better and runs better than 2033.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013...video_card_performance_iq_review#.Uq0Ge-mA3IU

Deus Ex HR is a DirectX 11 game btw.

The latest Planet side 2 optimization proves that if the players insist, the debs truly can optimize a game. Seeing the OMFG update, it makes me happy to see that if pushed, devs can clean up their game.
Click to expand...

PlanetSide 2's optimizations have to do more with multithreading, IIRC. It's a side benefit of the developer having to recode the game for PS4, which has 8 CPU cores but which run at a slow 1.6 GHz.
 
Red Hawk said:
It depends on the game. Some games are horridly optimized and offer a meager visual improvement for a hefty performance cost (ie Dragon Age 2). But more recent games have used DirectX 11 in a more optimized manner. That should become the norm with the Xbox One and PS4 now using DirectX 11-class features.
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That's funny, because Dragon Age 2 is one I definitely use DX11. The DX9 path has a huge loss in visuals. They prevent you from using more than medium textures, and lack a lot of the shadowing, and moving clouds and such, which add a lot to the atmosphere.

That said, I have the GPU power to maintain 70+ FPS with DA2. What is best really comes down to the amount of power you have. If you can get 70+ FPS and have the better graphics, you do so. If you are struggling, you turn down settings.
 
bystander36 said:
That's funny, because Dragon Age 2 is one I definitely use DX11. The DX9 path has a huge loss in visuals. They prevent you from using more than medium textures, and lack a lot of the shadowing, and moving clouds and such, which add a lot to the atmosphere.

That said, I have the GPU power to maintain 70+ FPS with DA2. What is best really comes down to the amount of power you have. If you can get 70+ FPS and have the better graphics, you do so. If you are struggling, you turn down settings.
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Ok, it's not like the DX 11 rendering path for DA2 is unnoticeable. There are some quite noticeable lighting and shadowing improvements. But it still seems horridly optimized. Sometimes the frame rate will drop through the floor during cutscenes for no noticeable reason other than maybe a nondescript fire is being shown on screen. (the medium textures limit is kind of BS, though. DirectX 11 has nothing to do with the detail of textures. And you don't even have to use DirectX 11 to use the hi res textures, you just need a DirectX 10 capable graphics card).
 
I dunno about you guys, but Diablo 3 was a whole new game for me once I ran it on a DX 11 card.

So yes, DX 11 is definitely worth the cost in my opinion.
 
nwo said:
I dunno about you guys, but Diablo 3 was a whole new game for me once I ran it on a DX 11 card.

So yes, DX 11 is definitely worth the cost in my opinion.
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afaik diablo 3 is pure DX9C.


trouble with most "DX11" games is that in reality they are console ports (DX9C level hardware) with inefficient DX11 stuff added later.

with the new consoles (DX11 level hardware) this is going to change, no more DX9 games for the most part, and better use of DX11 features.
 
It depends on the game and your hardware. For some games DX11 offers worthwhile features over DX9 paths, such as visibly better lighting, or the existence of MSAA.
 
SPBHM said:
afaik diablo 3 is pure DX9C.


trouble with most "DX11" games is that in reality they are console ports (DX9C level hardware) with inefficient DX11 stuff added later.

with the new consoles (DX11 level hardware) this is going to change, no more DX9 games for the most part, and better use of DX11 features.
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Hmm yeah, you're right. Diablo 3 isn't DX 11. But either way comparing the picture quality of my laptop with a 5670m or a desktop HD 4870 to my fresh 7870s is a huge difference in picture quality.
 
Red Hawk said:
It depends on the game. Some games are horridly optimized and offer a meager visual improvement for a hefty performance cost (ie Dragon Age 2). But more recent games have used DirectX 11 in a more optimized manner. That should become the norm with the Xbox One and PS4 now using DirectX 11-class features.



Metro 2033 may have been an unoptimized mess, but the developer 4A Games made a concerted effort at optimizing Metro Last Light, with the result being a game that both looks better and runs better than 2033.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013...video_card_performance_iq_review#.Uq0Ge-mA3IU

Deus Ex HR is a DirectX 11 game btw.






PlanetSide 2's optimizations have to do more with multithreading, IIRC. It's a side benefit of the developer having to recode the game for PS4, which has 8 CPU cores but which run at a slow 1.6 GHz.
Click to expand...


I agree with you on Metro. I have a hd7770, and dx11 killed performance in 2033, and I don't think I could even tell a visual difference between the two. Last Light runs OK in dx 11 mode, but I still don't really have the horsepower to turn on the eye candy. To be honest, I don't think it looks that outstanding on high, but I maxed everything and it looked great, but was of course unplayable on my system.
 
Regarding PlanetSide 2, I heard the "optimizations" are that they are simply cutting things down to work on PS4.

Can anybody confirm that the graphics have been downgraded a bit?
 
dx11 sucks because you cant force SGSSAA when using it. dx9 sucks because the z-buffer is only partial precision rather than full fixed point precision
 
Games built from the ground up on DX11 look really, really good. Assassin's Creed 4, Crysis 3, Battlefield 4. They look awesome with the settings up
 
Anarchist420 said:
dx11 sucks because you cant force SGSSAA when using it. dx9 sucks because the z-buffer is only partial precision rather than full fixed point precision
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I think the point is DX11 brings so many improvements that performance is an issue for a lot of people. SGSSAA is the last thing you want when there are performance issues. SGSSAA is good for older games which are easily maxed out to at least smooth all the jaggies, but not so good on high IQ games that are demanding.
 
I'm so glad that now games are being developed with DX11 from the get go, we're getting the awesome visuals I was expecting from DX10.
 
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