.. been happening for the last 10 years...

I like eye candy as much as the next guy, but, it doesn't make or break the game for me. Story progression and gameplay are much more important. Take for example Assassin's Creed. The game not only looked beautiful, but it had great settings, and it was based on a period of time I am very interested in and more specifically the Templars. But, after playing it for a couple hours, and the excitement over looks and theme had worn off, the story started getting a little jumbled and the gameplay got highly repetitive, so much, that it probably took me a year to finish, as I'll put it down for extended periods of time.

So, for me, looks may wow me for a bit, but gameplay and story progression is where it is at.

If all "deferred rendering" does is speeding things up, then I say don't use it. I'd rather have a game running at 40 fps WITH anti-aliasing than 140 fps WITHOUT anti-aliasing. I'm serious, I hate jaggies.

On the subject of "console kiddies" robbing the "glorious PC master-race" of their DX11 features; be patient. It took several years before games started using dx8 and dx9 features. I mean, look at these techdemos from 2002 and 2004:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfRmvNjeR9A
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7di9XuWgBw

These demos are 8 years old, and they still look better than most games out today.

Keep in mind that the displacement map following tessellation requires extra work for the art department. I doubt many games will really take advantage of this until it's useful for consoles (read: not this generation of consoles).

It svcks but the silver lining to the gray cloud of an old generation of consoles is that developers need to really put a lot of effort into making their games efficient.

Todd has already stated that there will be no extra DX11 functions, just possibly the framework.

Uh, no, I'm talking "Viable to have many lights in a scene" vs "Not viable". Performance with deferred rendering drops linearly as you add more lights, without it scales exponentially.
Also, the thing about tech demos is that they showcase the absolute edge of what is possible with that technology. You'll notice that both demos have very simple scenes around what they're showcasing, as well as being rendered on the absolute cutting edge of their time hardware. We can do that stuff in realtime now, 7 years later, in a complex scene.

Interesting. So if every developer in the future is going to use deferred rendering, what is the future of hardware AA?

And yes, those demos are the edge of what was possible on the hardware of that time. But isn't the same thing true of today's tesselation demos? That nvidia demo of the tesselated water-surface; it probably only works because there is nothing else in the scene. And the new Unreal 'Samaritan' demo ran on three SLI'd GTX 580's!

I'd assume actual resolutions will eventually get so high that AA will become unnecessary. Pixel density is always going up. This iPod I'm typing on has a resolution greater than many monitors back in the day, but only 1/15 the size physically.

Well, I believe DX11 allows true hardware AA on deferred rendering, but if not it certainly lets you get much closer. There's always software AA, of which there are many different ways to do it (and none of them are anywhere near as good as hardware AA, but they do the job), too.

And yes, today's tech demos are exactly the same. They showcase the upper limit of what can be done on modern hardware, not what we can expect to see in games. Well, some of them do, there's always been the other kind of tech demo - the one that does things that are possible really, really fast, but the ones that get talked about most are the former, simply because of how impressive they are.

Yeah, I agree that the Steam survey isn't perfect. There are other questions I wish they'd ask (and other ways I wish they'd report the results), and I'm also sure that their user population includes a decent number of people who just do the "casual"/indie games on weak systems. But it's hard to find any other major surveys or polls on the topic. :sadvaultboy:



Well, if they're planning to use this new engine for more games (good bet), then spending the time to fit in DX11 now means they don't have to in the future. Also, we can see if modders can make it do anything. Plus, as mentioned, new efficiencies.



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Personally, I like the way the current console gen has held down the minimum requirements for cross-platform PC games. It's meant that I've actually been able to play some of the games in the last couple years.

(It's getting harder, though.... many of the upcoming games this year that look interesting have much higher PC reqs..... Dungeon Siege 3, for instance. Sigh.)

Yeah, I really wish they'd release an anonymised copy of the data so we could do our own anolysis.

I better say it sooner then later, then:

I wouldn't mind paying for a Tessellation DLC.

kudos

It'd be nice if it was something that could easily modded into the models, because if it's as good as the NVIDIA demos suggest it would certainly be worth the mod time.

I really don't think there will be a Tesselation DLC or patch. But even if it were possible, I doubt it would be all that spectacular. For example:

Dragon Age 2 tesselation is only applied to the distant mountains on the horizon. Big deal.
Aliens vs. Predator tesselation is only applied to the (ridiculously fast moving) Aliens. Big deal.
Dirt 2 tesselation is only applied to the water and people in the audience. You won't notice it because you are racing. Big deal.
STALKER: CoP and Metro 2033: tesselation is only applied to smooth out the curves on a few NPC's. Big deal.

So, if you're expecting a http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQQpCd_vvGU type enhancement, you're probably gonna be dissappointed.

If tessellation was applied to rocks and stone-walls/floors and such, then oh oh we would get some awesome results!

Global illumination and direct lighting is also really nice. I think direct lighting is most important, if it means what I think it means (get rid off the really bad bloom lighting that has followed from Oblivion to FO3 and F:NV).

It would be really nice if this was done for Skyrim. Skyrim is going to be a huge game and a lot of people will want to play it, I assume. I could absolutely definitely live with a bit of NVIDIA commercial for something like this. Good graphics make the world more immersive and believable. It therefore strengthens the atmosphere and is very important, since it's how we view things. Let's not also forget that a game with good graphics usually sell more. It's what first catch the eye that makes you interested and attract more people, otherwise unfamiliar to TES, to start playing it. Pretty much like Pete Hines said, I think.

I hope there is Dx11 support. It's been out for a while so there's no reason why they can't use it (Crysis 2 I'm looking at you). I would even be happy with a patch down the road to add these features in but they would need to deliver on that promise (again, Crysis 2, I'm looking at you).

I don't have Dx11 hardware but I'm going to build a new computer around September-October for this and BF3.

Just don't use Dx9 like some other lame games used recently.

Uhm... thought I could inform you that Skyrim has DX11. But apparently, it doesn't use any of its features, according to Todd. Todd said he wanted all platforms to look "similar". I wonder why he want literally force things to look similar, when it's well-known that PCs can handle a lot more and make things look a lot better. Why would he sacrifice the enjoyment of awesome graphics on the PC for the moral of forcing all platforms to look "similar", when they in reality aren't similar at all. I don't get this.

If that's all it was used for in Skyrim, it'd do worlds to make this http://www.elderscrolls.com/skyrim/media/screenshots/forest-hunt/ cloths look decent.

Probably because they make more money with the console versions and they don't want to alienate those customers.

Think, smart one.

How would they alienate console fans by simply taking advantage of DX11 hardware? It wouldn't hurt Console AT ALL!

I honestly do not think console fans are this bitter/jelous. It would not hurt sales at all, infact I think it would help sales.

Ugh, I'm so glad DICE has moved past this ridiculous fear.

Then why did Pete Hines literally state that graphics usually means more money is being made, since it's good for marketing. If people see an awesome-looking game that they don't know about, they're bound to want to find out more about it. Showing off awesome PC graphics would most likely make TES get more attention by people that aren't familiar with TES otherwise.

You don't have to be rude or arrogant.

It would hurt consoles.. like anything, if someone gives you more of what you want, you go with him/her. If indeed graphics are a big selling point, and computers steadily give you better graphics, consumers would shift their gaming preference to computers, and console sales will drop. That's just how markets work.

I think it has more to do with them just not wanting to spend the time or money to work on features that will be exclusive to a single platform.

Thank you SystemShock and Mitheledh for helping to explain to these [insert rude or arrogant remark].

And the bad thing about that is...?
It makes me wonder if Bethesda got this deal with Microsoft / Sony that they are to focus more on Xbox 360 / PS3 than on PC... Why would it else matter to them if a bit more people are playing on PC and not on console? It would be the same amount of people AT LEAST.

Also, we can't really tell if better graphics on the PC would draw more console-players to play PC instead of on console, since graphics may not be what they're after. They might play console because they like the feeling, the controls, or don't have enough money for PC or whatever reasons they might have.