Crysis 3 DX 11 only but consoles are not DX 11

Why would Crytek make Crysis 3 Direct X 11 only on PC? Consoles don't have video cards that can run DX 11 so they get away with it. Why can't PC? I think Crytek is being cheap by not developing at least a DX 10 and 9 so you can run the game on older video cards. They did it with Crysis 2 why not 3. This will limit how many people will be able to play the game.

Your thoughts?

That's a good question TC, i may have been able to play it at decent settings if it supported DX9 or DX10 but at DX11 with tesselation i don't think it'd be very playable for me with all the eye candy turned on.

Most likely it will have no tesselation and even if it has you can ( like most games that support tessalation ) probably turn it off and i'm quite sure a gtx460 should play the game at mostly high settings ( though depends on the resolution ) adamosmaki

Xbox 360 in 1080p.Stinger78

Optimizing a game for both DX9, DX10/10.1 and and 11  is a lot more work (they're lazy).

Because it's far more efficient to optimise it JUST for Dx11 and make sure everyone gets a similar looking and playing game. Optimising for all those platforms and then Dx9,10 and 11 on PC is far too much hassle and not worth it. 

Smart move if you ask me. The visuals have improved tremendously already from the decision

I wonder how this will affect the pc sales because I know I won't be buying it and my xbox died of the red rings so that out as well.

I'm waiting for the next gen of consoles before I purchases a new one.

Crysis 2 was a pathetic console port that's why it supported DX9 ONLY at Launch,
Crysis 3 is developed for PC from ground up, CryTek thought DX11 would suit it better i don't know why,
Also seeing that most gamers now have DX11 Cards i don't think it would affect the sales,
Also, It won't be too long till other games start doing this too. 

No. You're wrong.

Forcing them to split their optimization between 2 different DX verisons is basically telling them to develop on two different engines. 

They aren't being lazy, their PC team is just finally abandoning old libraries (DX10 is from 2007) and moving onto better APIs.

The console versions of the CryEngine 3 have their own team. Both the PS3 and 360 version have their own team members so that they can do the various optimizations on their respective consoles at the same time. 

Crysis 2 was deployed on an unfinished CryEngine 3. They didn't even have a DX11 renderer running properly in the engine when the game was released, they were forced to use more outdated DX versions just to meet launch. With Crysis 3, they've built the whole game around DX11. Every level, every model, everything is built around the DX11 pipeline from the ground up. This means it is more optimized and will run better with far more detail than if they would keep DX10 libraries enabled.

That's why the low and medium settings for Crysis 3 look as good as they do yet run well. 

It's not that they are lazy (it's pure ignorance to think a developer is lazy for not supporting 10+ and 6+ year old tech), it's that they have decided to focus on the new tech so they can push into the current generation of graphics, not get bogged down trying to support 3+ year old hardware that holds the game back.

Remember, DX11 features run deep. However if you decide to not build with DX11, you have to build your art and your levels with that in mind and thus miss out on the real advantage of DX11. People scoff at DX11 because they've never actually seen a DX11 native game. Usually DX11 games just take some DX11 features and lay them over the top of DX10, so they aren't really noticeable at all. 

Consoles are only limited by hardware resources, not by a API overhead like the PC which allows developers to add DX11 rendering techniques if needed. I don't believe multi-player uses tessellation and if it does then it's applied very lightly. I think it's great considering DX11 natively will improve visuals and performance. LazyKris_89

Tessellations don't need to be applied in mass for them to have advantages. A 3000 poly tessellated model has a lot more advantages. They don't have to worry about multiple LoDs for the model (saves memory) and the tessellations have better performance than regular polygons.

I'll bet you that they are using tessellations even on low settings. 

They have also come up with a lot of new techniques that are being applied in Crysis 3.

[QUOTE="LazyKris_89"]Consoles are only limited by hardware resources, not by a API overhead like the PC which allows developers to add DX11 rendering techniques if needed. I don't believe multi-player uses tessellation and if it does then it's applied very lightly. I think it's great considering DX11 natively will improve visuals and performance. Wasdie

[QUOTE="Wasdie"]

[QUOTE="LazyKris_89"]Consoles are only limited by hardware resources, not by a API overhead like the PC which allows developers to add DX11 rendering techniques if needed. I don't believe multi-player uses tessellation and if it does then it's applied very lightly. I think it's great considering DX11 natively will improve visuals and performance. faizan_faizan

This is because they have deferred some of the rendering to the faster tessellation units. It's a much better way to approach stuff. You won't see LoD (level of detail) models popping in and out. It saves on video RAM and overall processing. It's just better.

In the future, every game will be using tessellations at their base. Even the PS4/Next Xbox will have tessellation units. 

Tessellation units are cheap and can handle millions of triangles without problem. They are meant to offload geometric rendering from the pipleline and free up the other resources of the card to do other things. 

Why would Crytek make Crysis 3 Direct X 11 only on PC? Consoles don't have video cards that can run DX 11 so they get away with it. Why can't PC? I think Crytek is being cheap by not developing at least a DX 10 and 9 so you can run the game on older video cards. They did it with Crysis 2 why not 3. This will limit how many people will be able to play the game.

 

Your thoughts?

Realmjumper

   Did you saw the beta version of the games in consoles? Doesn't even look as a DX 8 game, some people think that looks and perform worse that C2. In the other hand, the PC beta is...beastly. Way ahead from Crysis 2 -even being only a mp beta-.

Why would Crytek make Crysis 3 Direct X 11 only on PC? Consoles don't have video cards that can run DX 11 so they get away with it. Why can't PC? I think Crytek is being cheap by not developing at least a DX 10 and 9 so you can run the game on older video cards. They did it with Crysis 2 why not 3. This will limit how many people will be able to play the game.

 

Your thoughts?

Realmjumper

[QUOTE="Realmjumper"]

Why would Crytek make Crysis 3 Direct X 11 only on PC? Consoles don't have video cards that can run DX 11 so they get away with it. Why can't PC? I think Crytek is being cheap by not developing at least a DX 10 and 9 so you can run the game on older video cards. They did it with Crysis 2 why not 3. This will limit how many people will be able to play the game.

 

Your thoughts?

Ondoval

   Did you saw the beta version of the games in consoles? Doesn't even look as a DX 8 game, some people think that looks and perform worse that C2. In the other hand, the PC beta is...beastly. Way ahead from Crysis 2 -even being only a mp beta-.

[QUOTE="faizan_faizan"][QUOTE="Wasdie"]I'll bet you that they are using tessellations even on low settings.Wasdie

This is because they have deferred some of the rendering to the faster tessellation units. It's a much better way to approach stuff. You won't see LoD (level of detail) models popping in and out. It saves on video RAM and overall processing. It's just better.

In the future, every game will be using tessellations at their base. Even the PS4/Next Xbox will have tessellation units. 

Tessellation units are cheap and can handle millions of triangles without problem. They are meant to offload geometric rendering from the pipleline and free up the other resources of the card to do other things. 

[QUOTE="faizan_faizan"][QUOTE="Wasdie"]I'll bet you that they are using tessellations even on low settings.Wasdie

This is because they have deferred some of the rendering to the faster tessellation units. It's a much better way to approach stuff. You won't see LoD (level of detail) models popping in and out. It saves on video RAM and overall processing. It's just better.

In the future, every game will be using tessellations at their base. Even the PS4/Next Xbox will have tessellation units. 

Tessellation units are cheap and can handle millions of triangles without problem. They are meant to offload geometric rendering from the pipleline and free up the other resources of the card to do other things. 

To push PC gamers to get better graphics cards so they won't have to bother doing so later in the future. Good Guy Crytek wants you to have a decent PC for Crysis 3 AND future games :).

Nice, Also how is Pixel Accurate Displacement Mapping different from tessellation? I remember first Crysis had something called POM (Parallax Occlusion Mapping) Which worked the same as Tessellation BUT was a huge resource hog, DX11 Cards however give much better performance with Tessellation compared to PADM or POM.faizan_faizan

Pixel displacement mapping is something new by Crytek, I don't know much about it.

Parallex Occlusion Mapping is something that has been used far before Crysis. It's basically a way that applies a height map to a flat texture, making it seem like it has variations in its geometries. This is actually cheaper than rendering those simulated geometries, but is still expensive. It was a good stop-gap before we had tessellations. With PoM shading and lighting are applied to the height map to give flat surfaces depth. If you look at the edges of an object with PoM you'll notice that the texture ends up conforming to a flat surface. Looking down a wall in STALKER reveals that the surface is actually flat despite looking 3D when looking directly at it. 

Tessellations are actual geometries placed over a flatter base mesh made up of less polygons. The tessellations are applied to a height map, just like PoM, is, but they are actual geometries that protrude outwards from the face, not just sink into them and have lighting and shading applied. If you look at a brick wall that is tessellated you'll see the edges don't conform to a flat line, but they are actually 3D objects in the world. This gives more accurate lighting and shading as well is less expensive than PoM or doing it by a mesh.  You then set a strength that the height map is applied to the tessellations. The stronger that variable, the more tessellations are rendered. It's dynamic. The closer you move into an object, you can dynamically render more quality. No more having to snap to a static model with more or less polys and detail. This saves on video memory, is more fluid, and doesn't have any jarring transitions. 

DX9 and DX10 games would still have to have a detailed base mesh or use PoM if they want that kind of detail, so tessellations could not be applied to models as the base. Thus the benefits of tessellations do not come out when you have to accommodate for a non-DX11 renderer. Even OpenGL can do tessellations now so there is really no excuse to not go full DX11. 

When you see people complain that tessellations are just used for making high-resolution textures or adding unnecessary detail, that's because unless you build your model purely with tessellations, the majority of the benefits of tessellations cannot actually be used. The whole idea of tessellations is cheaply rendering a lot of geometry. Offloading the expensive geometry rendering from the hardware and allowing that to do cheaper post-processing, lighting, and shading. 

Crytek going full DX11 for Crysis 3 is fantastic. We need more games to do that. 

[QUOTE="Wasdie"]

[QUOTE="faizan_faizan"] Seconded, I actually tried it, And it's not just ground or texture or bump mapping-esque tessellation, It has water tessellation and foliage tessellation too even on the lowest settings.

faizan_faizan

This is because they have deferred some of the rendering to the faster tessellation units. It's a much better way to approach stuff. You won't see LoD (level of detail) models popping in and out. It saves on video RAM and overall processing. It's just better.

In the future, every game will be using tessellations at their base. Even the PS4/Next Xbox will have tessellation units. 

Tessellation units are cheap and can handle millions of triangles without problem. They are meant to offload geometric rendering from the pipleline and free up the other resources of the card to do other things. 

Consoles don't use a directx API. they have entirely different systems, so they're not limited by the DX architecture. That's why, by getting better aquainted with the hardware, developers have managed to make the consoles use certain techniques that weren't possible with PC GPUs until DX11. They're still not very powerful, by today's standards, but they're not limited by Directx.

Consoles don't use a directx API. they have entirely different systems, so they're not limited by the DX architecture. That's why, by getting better aquainted with the hardware, developers have managed to make the consoles use certain techniques that weren't possible with PC GPUs until DX11. They're still not very powerful, by today's standards, but they're not limited by Directx.

the_bi99man

----EDIT------

From the Xbox360:

"Unlike earlier graphics engines, the shaders are dynamically allocated, meaning that there are no distinct vertex or pixel shader enginesthe hardware automatically adjusts to the load on a ne-grained basis. The hardware is fully compatible with D3D 9.0 and High-Level Shader Language (HLSL) 3.0, 9,10 with extensions."

It is a DX9 card that can pull some things a DX9 PC card can't... but a DX10 card can.

I'll throw in my opinion that it's just another M$ marketing gimmick to get people to upgrade their OS.Swiftstrike5

It's not. DX10 and DX11 were fundamental upgrades of the rendering pipeline that allowed a lot more features to be added and more efficient rendering to take place. 

Not read all the post but i think this is good as soon more and more devs will make an effort for dx11. May be this is the start to phase out dx9 and dx10. I dont like EA at all due to other reasons but this is a good move imo.

[QUOTE="Swiftstrike5"]I'll throw in my opinion that it's just another M$ marketing gimmick to get people to upgrade their OS.Wasdie

It's not. DX10 and DX11 were fundamental upgrades of the rendering pipeline that allowed a lot more features to be added and more efficient rendering to take place. 

[QUOTE="Wasdie"]

[QUOTE="Swiftstrike5"]I'll throw in my opinion that it's just another M$ marketing gimmick to get people to upgrade their OS.Swiftstrike5

It's not. DX10 and DX11 were fundamental upgrades of the rendering pipeline that allowed a lot more features to be added and more efficient rendering to take place. 

Also wrong. Supporting DX9 means you cannot use a lot of DX10/11 features which make games look better without decreasing performance.

As I posted before, DX11 allows for a lot of things that fundamentally change how you would develop your game from start to finish. By simply supporting DX10 means you cannot use the majority of those features.

Supporting old libararies holds things back. There comes a point where supporting 3+ year old hardware is only hurting your game.

[QUOTE="Swiftstrike5"][QUOTE="Wasdie"]

It's not. DX10 and DX11 were fundamental upgrades of the rendering pipeline that allowed a lot more features to be added and more efficient rendering to take place. 

Wasdie

Also wrong. Supporting DX9 means you cannot use a lot of DX10/11 features which make games look better without decreasing performance.

As I posted before, DX11 allows for a lot of things that fundamentally change how you would develop your game from start to finish. By simply supporting DX10 means you cannot use the majority of those features.

Supporting old libararies holds things back. There comes a point where supporting 3+ year old hardware is only hurting your game.

[QUOTE="Wasdie"]

[QUOTE="Swiftstrike5"] Wasn't really talking about DX11 requiring an upgrade, but 'encouraging' developers to require DX10/DX11 so that people who want to play the game have to upgrade; they've done it before. Swiftstrike5

Also wrong. Supporting DX9 means you cannot use a lot of DX10/11 features which make games look better without decreasing performance.

As I posted before, DX11 allows for a lot of things that fundamentally change how you would develop your game from start to finish. By simply supporting DX10 means you cannot use the majority of those features.

Supporting old libararies holds things back. There comes a point where supporting 3+ year old hardware is only hurting your game.

Wasdie has actually done a very good job explaining this, several times, in this thread alone. I highly doubt Microsoft had any influence on the decision. They wouldn't have any reason to care. Crytek is going DX11 native, because it will make the game look and run better. It's not a matter of "a bit of optimization". Going full, native DX11, and dropping all support for DX10 and DX9, allows them to completely change the way the engine is built, from the ground up. Developing the game to support DX9 and 10, as well, would have NOTHING but negative effects. The game would look worse, even for people using DX11, because DX11 features CAN'T be fully utilized, while DX9 and/or 10 are still supported. The game would also run worse, for everyone, using any DX version. It would also triple their production costs, as they would basically have to build 3 versions of the engine. As for the loss of potential sales from people who don't have DX11 cards, yet... That's just not a big deal. Very few people who would actually consider themselves PC gamers are still using such old hardware. DX11 has been standard for years, and most anyone who was actually thinking their system would be able to handle Crysis 3, is using a DX11 card. Most of them have probably been through a couple DX11 cards, having upgraded at least once, again, after upgrading to DX11. DX9 is ancient. Developers abandoning it is a great thing. If you're still not willing to upgrade to a DX11 video card, you're not really a dedicated PC gamer. And that's clearly the market Crytek wants for the PC version of Crysis 3. 

For the record, I am one of those people who considers myself a PC gamer and hasn't upgraded to DX11 yet. I'm still on a laptop from 2009, with a DX10 card. But, even if Crysis 3 supported DX10, I certainly wouldn't be expecting to run it at any playable state. Crysis 2 at bare minimum settings and 720p is totally maxing out my little video card, with unstable framerates, going from 15-40. For that reason, I was never thinking about playing Crysis 3 before building a new desktop, even before it was revealed it would be DX11 only. Knowing that it is native DX11, I'm even more excited about playing it when I finally do get around to saving the money, and building a new system.

Also wrong. Supporting DX9 means you cannot use a lot of DX10/11 features which make games look better without decreasing performance.

As I posted before, DX11 allows for a lot of things that fundamentally change how you would develop your game from start to finish. By simply supporting DX10 means you cannot use the majority of those features.

Supporting old libararies holds things back. There comes a point where supporting 3+ year old hardware is only hurting your game.

Wasdie

They can both optimize it more and make it look better on pc if they drop lower dx versions.

Case study: see just cause 2.

[QUOTE="Wasdie"]

Also wrong. Supporting DX9 means you cannot use a lot of DX10/11 features which make games look better without decreasing performance.

As I posted before, DX11 allows for a lot of things that fundamentally change how you would develop your game from start to finish. By simply supporting DX10 means you cannot use the majority of those features.

Supporting old libararies holds things back. There comes a point where supporting 3+ year old hardware is only hurting your game.

cain006

Yes, but there just wasn't enough hardware out there that supported DX10 to make it worth it for any dev.

DX11 is even better than DX10. DX10 had some important stuff, but DX11 capitalizes on it much better.

With dx11 consoles on the way I see dx11 only games becoming the norm quite soon. I would be surprised if any next gen multiplats support dx10 or 9.

[QUOTE="Stinger78"]Xbox 360 in 1080p.dramaybaz

[QUOTE="dramaybaz"][QUOTE="Stinger78"]Xbox 360 in 1080p.Stinger78

Seems like they're shooting themselves in the foot. A lot of people still run Dx10 cards. I have an early generation Dx11 card. I cant see Crysis 3 running very good on it if Im forced to use Dx11.bonafidetk

[QUOTE="bonafidetk"]Seems like they're shooting themselves in the foot. A lot of people still run Dx10 cards. I have an early generation Dx11 card. I cant see Crysis 3 running very good on it if Im forced to use Dx11.ferret-gamer

[QUOTE="bonafidetk"]Seems like they're shooting themselves in the foot. A lot of people still run Dx10 cards. I have an early generation Dx11 card. I cant see Crysis 3 running very good on it if Im forced to use Dx11.ferret-gamer

Exactly. If your card is DX11-capable, a pure DX11 game will run better than if it was a DX9/10 game, with some DX11 features. And they're doing it because it will make the game look and run better for everyone. Except for the select few of us who still don't have DX11 cards. But there's very few people who would actually call themselves PC gamers, who don't have a DX11 GPU yet, and/or refuse to upgrade. 

Can't really call a dev lazy if you have no clue how to make a game yourself and better, which would apply to most gamers

IIRC you can still play DX11 games with a DX10 card, but you dont get to use all the features. Iantheone

No you can not.

[QUOTE="Iantheone"]IIRC you can still play DX11 games with a DX10 card, but you dont get to use all the features. Wasdie

No you can not.