DX11 Tested Against DX9 With Dirt 2 Demo

MojoKid writes "The PC demo for Codemasters' upcoming DirectX 11 racing title, Dirt 2, has just hit the web and is available for download. Dirt 2 is a highly-anticipated racing sim that also happens to feature leading-edge graphic effects. In addition to a DirectX 9 code path, Dirt 2 also utilizes a number of DirectX 11 features, like hardware-tessellated dynamic water, an animated crowd and dynamic cloth effects, in addition to DirectCompute 11-accelerated high-definition ambient occlusion (HADO), full floating-point high dynamic range (HDR) lighting, and full-screen resolution post processing. Performance-wise, DX11 didn't take its toll as much as you'd expect this early on in its adoption cycle." Bit-tech also took a look at the graphical differences, arriving at this conclusion: "You'd need a seriously keen eye and brown paper envelope full of cash from one of the creators of Dirt 2 to notice any real difference between textures in the two versions of DirectX."

Comments

OpenGL

[some_guy_88]

Not even sure if I knew there was a DirectX 11.. Does anyone know how OpenGL compares to direct3d 11?

Re:OpenGL

[noname444]

Cards are lazily called "DX11" or "DX10", but the features are not DirectX-specific. The term shader model, or pixel shader version can be used to describe GPU hardware generations correctly and/or in an API neutral fashion.

Since these are hardware features they are available to any API that implements them, and OpenGL usually is implemented by the graphics driver, which is written by (or under contract of) the graphics card manufacturers, they usually expose any new hardware features to an OpenGL-application through extensions.

It's a shame that the Khronos Group isn't faster when it comes to including the extensions in the standard and upping the version number of OpenGL. I'd love to see an OpenGL release schedule synced with the shader models.

DX8 -> PS1.0 / PS1.1
DX11 -> PS5.0

For more information see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel_shader#Hardware

Power efficiency

[afidel]

Would be interesting to know if either the DX9 or DX11 codepath had a significantly higher power requirement on DX11 capable hardware.

HotHardware Test

[DeadPixels]

From the HotHardware test:

The DirectX 11 performance numbers were recorded with the game set to its "Ultra" quality mode, while the DirectX 9 numbers were recorded with the game set to its "High" quality mode. ... As you can see, performance dropped off significantly in DirectX 11 mode.

Now, is it just me, or does that seem a little biased or inaccurate? Of course you're going to see lower performance when you set the graphics higher. Wouldn't it make much more sense (and be a fairer comparison) to compare the FPS with both cards set on either High or Ultra, instead of each on a different level?

Re:What progress!

[abigsmurf]

Go watch the Heaven tech demo/benchmark which makes heavy use of hardware tesselation and say that Microsoft wasted their time. Hardware tesselation is going to be the next big thing (it's been around for a while but this is the first time there's really been a universal standard for it).
A massive increase in the number of polygons you can use in models for minimal cost (or even a performance bonus) is a "horrifying waste of resources"?