Real Life DirectX 10 Performance

AnandTech has a look at the performance PC gamers can expect see under Windows Vista with DirectX 10. Unfortunately, it isn't pretty. Despite the power of the new 10-compliant graphics cards, the choices made in developing this technology have resulted in a significant gap between what is possible and what is actually obtainable from commercial PC hardware. What's worse, the article starts off by pointing out that much of the shiny effects exclusive to DX10 games would have been possible with DX9, had Microsoft been inclined to develop in that direction. From the article: "[Current] cards are just not powerful enough to enable widespread use of any features that reach beyond the capability of DirectX 9. Even our high-end hardware struggled to keep up in some cases, and the highest resolution we tested was 2.3 megapixels. Pushing the resolution up to 4 MP (with 30" display resolutions of 2560x1600) brings all of our cards to their knees. In short, we really need to see faster hardware before developers can start doing more impressive things with DirectX 10."

Comments

Poor PC gamers...

[Kevin143]

I feel so sorry that they can't run the latest games at 2560x1600.

That means ...

[rrhal]

... that people who bought DX10 cards so that in the future they will be able to play DX10 games when they come out have basically been sold a "Pig in a Poke". As its currently constituted DX-10 pretty much only serves as a device to obsolete Windows XP in favor of Windows Vista.

Re:That means ...

[ozphx]

Exactly.

DX10 doesnt have "performance". DX10 is an API. You can benchmark API quality by a great many things, but performance is fairly irrelevant when that performance is tied so much to the undelying hardware.

DX10 is a good API if in a couple of years time, the shader models match the industry direction and there isnt a whole bunch of GL_EXT_OBS_ASS_HATTERY_BUF_GAY_PRIMITIVE extensions to make things work. This is likely considering the industry partnership arrangements MS have.

Anandtech can enjoy their cry that their hardware wasnt good enough to make the most of DX10. This is really a good thing for the API, it means that DX10 has some lifetime. A scarier headline would have been "Current Gen Cards Can Max Out What DX10 Is Capable Of". That would be the death of an API...

Re:That means ...

[Alsee]

DX10 doesnt have "performance". DX10 is an API.

DX10 is an API with a built-in performance penalty. The way it is designed has all sorts of restrictions and limitations on how things are done. Why? In order to make it "DRM enhanced". Whether you are using DRM content or not, the video system is required to operate under DRM rules. It prohibits things like direct memory access, just in case you happen to have DRM video somewhere and you tried to do a video capture. It also imposes a variety overhead costs, like validating memory accesses to prevent you from reading or writing anyplace that could impact DRM security. It cripples functions or continuously re-validates function calls to ensure that they cannot be called in any manner that might be a threat to the DRM system.

You can benchmark API quality by a great many things, but performance is fairly irrelevant when that performance is tied so much to the undelying hardware.

Normally correct, but in this case the API deliberately hamstrings the hardware.

DX10 is a good API if in a couple of years time

Yes, faster hardware will speed things up. However that faster speed will still be slower than it would have been without DX10.

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Never upgrade too early

[complete loony]

If the HL2 / Doom3 generation of games taught us anything. Don't believe the hype. Don't upgrade your computer for a game you don't have yet. By the time there's something interesting that requires you to upgrade, it will cost less to do so, and probably perform better.

Re:Never upgrade too early

[rhyder128k]

Don't knock it. There's always someone who's willing to be the early adopter to no advantage. That guy, and others like him, make things affordable for the rest of us. The early adopter is usually happy with the situation and so should we be.

2560x1600 is real life?

[JF]

Some interesting points in the article, but I'm unsure at how running tests that are hyper bandwidth-bottlenecked is any indication of the performance of DX10 features.

"OMG I can't push 30498230894384023984 pixels/sec through my DX10 card, DX10 sucks."

Re:Shadowrun

[jdwilso2]

Shadowrun is not DX10. It's just restricted to only run on Vista.

DX10 performance will take time

[NateE]

The games that Anand benchmarked with were not written from the ground up for DirectX 10. Company of Heroes was DX9 until the developers were nice enough to release a patch. Some developers have said that good DX10 performance requires writing from the ground up for DX10. Since DX10 is so different from DX9, I don't find this difficult to believe.

As soon as NVidia releases certified drivers for doing SLI in Vista. The problem with driving 30" LCDs will disappear.

People are forgetting how many years it takes to create a new AAA game title and the fact that game developers still have very little reason to be attracted to Vista. What with it's small installed base and hardware requirements for consumers.

Re:Shadowrun

[IHSW]

No developer outside of Microsoft in their right mind would make a Vista-only game right now. It would be like releasing some PlayStation 3 games. Fixed.

Hardware virtualization

[brucmack]

Personally, the most interesting feature of DX10 is the hardware virtualization, so programs can share the card. Should make it possible to play a game on one monitor while playing a movie on another, for example. Presumably these cards wouldn't have a problem with this...

Kinda, but . .

[vecctor]

that people who bought DX10 cards so that in the future they will be able to play DX10 games when they come out have basically been sold a "Pig in a Poke". You are correct IF that is the only reason they bought them.

But the fact is, anyone who bought an 8800 of any variety (the "dx10 cards") bought the fastest DX9 card on the market for use with any game they wanted at the time of purchase. It spanked the next card down, and didn't carry any more of a price premium than any other high end card in the history of discrete graphics (indeed, it carried less of a premium if you looked at price/performance). It was a fast card "right then" regardless of DX10. They didn't sacrifice anything, the DX10 compatibility was just value-added bonus.