Guild Wars 2

DirectX 11 support?

One thing that Anet always like to claim is that Guild Wars isnt just a game, it’s a canvas filled with hand painted artworks etc.

I like the screenshot I’ve added, but how much better would it look if the game supports DX11 whcih you give way better textures?!

If Anet want the game to be more visually stunning, surely DX11 should be a priority right?

Too much work.
15drunkcharrs

Never. Rewriting a rendering engine from ugly D3D9 to D3D11 is too much work.

Instead the pixel shaders GW2 currently uses could use way more work. They do not produce high enough quality while demanding too much resources.

Using a different API does not create more quality content. Yes, there is stuff that GW2 can make use of but it is actualy neglectible.

Texture quality has nothing to do with it the API level. It is about the shaders who process a texture. And GW2 has a lot of low res textures in a lot of places or sub par textures in general.

Why looks D3D11 stuff often better? Because it was a rewritten engine that took advantage of stuff they could not really do back then because of performance. No one invested anymore in D3D9 because it is so ugly to code in. In fact the only reason D3D10 and later D3D11 started to exist is because of pressure from the gaming industry to create a better API. And it took even since Vista for the big studios to finally produce real D3D11 engines now.

This just not means to change the API but really re-do your rendering paths. If GW2 would be upgrade to D3D11 only you would not see a single difference visually.

In fact D3D11 allows you to use different kind of shaders that can bring an advantage to the visual appeal. But they still need to be written.

All in all what GW2 in the visual department lacks is an overhaul on shaders. That would be a huge quality and performance boost. But you don’t sell new copies with it. So no investment is going to happen here.

Expect this with GW3…

I read an article somewhere (or maybe an early F.A.Q before the game released) with an interview with a developer saying they chose DX9 so the game would be more accessible to a wide range of computer setups, but they also said DX11 could be a feature they add later. While this could now be a feature they’ve already discarded, it may still sneak its way in, who knows?

I tried to find where I read it but I cannot find it, sorry

Yeah I know they said it’d come soon, but here we are a year later so no news at all. :/

I just want the game to look prettier but know it’ll probably never happen

Don’t give up so easily, you never know. Besides, it’s not ugly right now.

texmod+that shader mod might do a good job if used with the neccessary expertise. They dont edit game files and texmod was ok with anet in GW1. Just need some lowlife dude to do all the textures tho xD

Milumeo Rinku.7583:

I read an article somewhere (or maybe an early F.A.Q before the game released) with an interview with a developer saying they chose DX9 so the game would be more accessible to a wide range of computer setups, but they also said DX11 could be a feature they add later. While this could now be a feature they’ve already discarded, it may still sneak its way in, who knows?

I tried to find where I read it but I cannot find it, sorry

These are just excuses. A lot of other games just have an optoin to either use DX9 or DX11. I see the problem in the engine being actually very old. It is a heavily modified GW1 engine which supported DX9. There are numerous other issues with this engine like moving platforms (as seen in Arah Story Mode).

Nonetheless the game looks pretty kitten good I must admit. There are still a lot of performance issues with fps dropping even on strong PCs though. They still have a lot to do…

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