I'd say that after 2? 3? years of DX11 being relesed, we're quite on the future right now. We all know what is stalling it...

I understand that you don't have the money for a new card (I've been in economical issues before myself), but as many people have said, there's no need (it'd be even suicidal) to make a game DX11-exclusive. It always can be DX10-DX11. Even DX9-10-11.





Yaaaah! The Red Faction! For the liberation of Mars! Oh wait...

And... done.

Fair enough, that's something I wasn't aware of. I just presumed that it would be the same sort of thing as the change from DX8 to 9.



True, but enough of them are at this point in time that they're something a company like Bethesda would want to consider as far as market share is concerned.



And again, Steam's statistics are slanted towards the hard core gamer, and only represent a portion of the total market. While their numbers certainly give an indication of the current trends, they don't tell the whole story of what's actually going on right now.



I'm sorry, but there's a hell of a lot more than 90 million people world wide who play computer games. Even 10% would probably be an overly optimistic estimate.

So what exactly do you propose? that when ever a new DX card comes out they should release a new console?
There will always be those insane gaming rigs with nitrogen cooled video cards and a terabit of RAM and all these other features. Guess how many games will use them? None.
This is a fact, you might as well just keep your PC rig just slightly better than that of an xbox.
Plain and simple.

When the next consoles come out and they're DX11, people will be whining that those games aren't using DX 13.
It never ends.

Steam stocks an awful lot of games, and the 'casual' titles often sell very well indeed. It very likely is a decent representation of the market.

What we'd suggest is that the PC versions keep pace with PCs rather than lagging behind to match the consoles.

There has been 2 generations of DX (with a 3rd generation that should have already been out), and 6 generations of graphics cards since the 360' one. I think it's time, don't you?



Au contraire. All of them. More FPS is always good. Human sigth isn't totally confortable with less than 240 fps, so you can imagine.

And this just doesn't go for graphics and such. It goes for so much more as well.

For instance, in a lot of new open world games or semi-open world games, a thread is often solely used for the purpose of taking care of background resources, therefore eliminating the use of loading screens. If Skyrim did this for the PC version, we'd have open cities definitely and probably also no cell seperation between interiors and exteriors.

It's a bit sad of the consoles holding things back, and it shouldn't really be that way. The game should focus and aim on being as good as it can be for all platforms, rather than choosing some mediocre style and set for the lowest standard.

Again, you are wrong. Gaming PCs are a HUGE market, and there are nearly as many Win 7 64-bit PC gaming machines (with DX 10 video cards) as there are X360s, for instance.



I studied statistics at Uni. All I can say is that a sample of millions of users, on the most profitable selling platform for PC gaming, is highly representative. It's a modest estimate as there are no doubt, all sorts of PCs that are not represented, that statistics like NPD cover. It's a HUGE market, with LOTs of capable gaming rigs, most of which are NOT running windows XP. (This is a FACT.)

50% of world wide computers run XP because they have no reason to upgrade their PC when all it does is check email. PC gamers upgraded LONG ago. Your argument is hinged on using ALL PC owners as the population from which to understand the PC gaming market. This is clearly wrong. You have to look at the gaming market, from sources like valve and NPD, not to wikipedia (which was showing ALL PCs). 80% of PC owners aren't gamers! Ok, I made that last statistic up, but my point is that MOST PCs are NOT used for gaming. Developers need be concerned with the segment that are. According to the most reliable data on the subject, most gaming PCs have Win 7 64-bit + DX 10 video card with 1GB Vram.

That's freaking HUGE. It's the same size as any of the consoles seperately, even taking into account pirates who won't purchase games! :hubbahubba:

As far as DX11 being the norm of computer capability at this point in time, no we aren't. Even people who have Vista or Windows don't necessarily have DX11 video cards. Those Steam number even show that more than 50% of their account users only have DX10 cards at the moment.



Computers can't even render that kind of framerate. Even if your video card is capable of it, it can't render anything more than what your monitor's refresh rate is. With most modern LCD monitors locked at 60hz, you can't even render anymore than 60 FPS on them.

Exactly! They all upgraded to DX 10 hoping that developers would use it. NONE DID! Thus, they are waiting to uprade to 11 until games come out for it. However, 12-15% of Valve's user have DX 11 cards already. You can't expect people to upgrade if they will never see any of the features of their hardware used. This is the PC gamer argument. We WILL upgrade though. PC gamers are enthusiasts(mostly). And again, Win 7 64bit is half their install base. I can only repeat facts so many times before it just seems like you are purposely not paying attention.

You have to admit, you were wrong. We provided all of the evidence. You provided an invalid opinion. It's ok, move on. I'm wrong all the time, lol. :celebration:

This is unlikely. There is already a high demand to improve cross-platform development to be less en-cumbersome on high-end features. It's very likely that the next generation of development software will reduce the difficulty of scaling between platforms close to null. Your next xbox will likely be a windows based PC that isn't upgradable, and is still inferior to the market spec-wise. Performance wise it will be on par with or slightly better then high-end gaming pcs for about 6 months at max.

if they have the time and money to take advantage of DX11, why not just use it to improve the game on all platforms rather than cater to a one platform of their market? I don't get where you guys are coming from :S and I play on PC...

EDIT: Crossed a line.

Read my posts please before you comment. You're taking me completely out of context.



And where did I say that it wasn't? I just said it didn't tell the whole story. See below.



Funny, exactly the point I was trying to make. And those numbers that I provided from the Wiki would indicate that there are more people still using XP on machines they also play games on than the Steam figures would indicate.



Even those people still buy and play the odd game now and then. Since a company like Bethesda can't be sure which ones will or won't buy their games, they have to consider all of them as potential customers.

Skyrim isn't peggle - the number of people with skyrim-capable hardware still on XP is a significantly lower amount than just general XP usage.

In any case, that doesn't bloody matter, having DX11-capable games does not lock out DX9 support, which works fine in XP. This is an entirely moot point.

Sorry, but I upgraded to a DX10 card simply because it was more powerful than my old one. I think you'd find that is the case with most people who have one.



Well clearly you haven't presented as much evidence as you may think you have, based on your above comment. Assumptions are not hard proof.

Well this is true. I wasn't aware that DX11 was backwards compatible. If this is truly the case, then many of the points I tried to make are null and void.

Belanos,
I think your whole idea with "let's cover a wide range of PCs" comes from the psychological standpoint of just being covered and not taking into account the impossibility of those PCs to actually run Skyrim. You want them coverd anyway.
Lets also not forget that until TES V will be launched, another percent of gamers will upgrade to DX10/11 capable hardware and software, not only for this game, but for others also.

PS: Just Cause 2 is a DX10 only title with NO XP support, BF 3 will have NO XP support either and what do you know, it has an autumn date this year too. The industry is moving forward.

As it's the natural flow of things, if not I'd still be stuck with Windows 95, and the MS-DOS version of Quake.

Or my MS-DOS version of Warcaft 2 that doesn't have Battle.net support!

Or my old Matrox G200, which suffered even to run Quake 2 at 800x600...instead of a Nvidia Kepler (Geforce GTX 6xx) and the Ivy Bridge, which technically will be out late this year, and THEY'LL SURELY MAKE ME DELAY GETTING SKYRIM!!!! Argghh (auto-facepunch).

Yes, I know it's a bit off-topic, but I really had to blow off steam on somebody ^^

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/06/the-new-commodore-64-updated-with-its-old-exterior/ :biggrin:

Bottom line: PC ownership != potential audience.

People already playing AAA titles on PC? Very representative of who will buy Skyrim on PC.

Which one would you build your game towards?

What I want is irrelevant. I'm only trying to point out why a company like Bethesda, who's trying to maximize their profits, would want to cover as many bases as possible at this point in time. Older systems still represent a fairly substantial share of the market. For myself I don't care, I have a dual boot system with both XP and Vista plus a DX10 card, so I'm pretty much covered already. If I ever get around to finishing my income tax, I might even have enough money left over for a DX11 card. I have my heart set on a GeForce 460.

Time to close this.