Guild Wars 2

can we please get directx 11 or 12 support in the next expansion?
this was talked about a few years back, but still haven’t seen any talk about it lately. i do think this is a feature that would help allot with frame rates for the people that actualy have good computers but cant push further than 70 fps even tho their system is capable of it. (70 fps is measured in optimal circumstances and settings on high i7-6700k gtx 1080)

Going to DX 11/12 won’t have a substantial impact on frame rates.

We won’t. Developers have commented on this previously: it’s a lot of work, it won’t have the performance benefits promoters of the idea believe it will have, and it will distract from other changes.

Even if none of that was true, it’s far too late for the “next expansion”; there’s not enough lead time — its major coding projects are already decided, in progress, and possibly in QA.

You’d be better off asking for them to innovate the way the game uses threads, not Direct X #++

It is allot of work, but it wasn’t optimal when they made the game, and most certainly not currently. As it is, i get rather unstable frame rates, 80 on the high end, 20 or maybee in the single digits in worst cases, i think this is unacceptable. If the game isnt able to run on those settings stable, then why bother putting in extra time and efford to implement them in the first place?

Ishtar.4375:

It is allot of work, but it wasn’t optimal when they made the game, and most certainly not currently.

It has nothing to do with directx however. So, going to a new version is not going to improve anything. In fact, it’s so massive change, that it might actually make things worse (as massive engine rewrites are bound to introduce new problems).

If you reduce the number of player models, performance increases pretty significantly. I can run the game on max setting with an average 40 FPS at world bosses with the model limit at medium.

Ayrilana.1396:

If you reduce the number of player models, performance increases pretty significantly. I can run the game on max setting with an average 40 FPS at world bosses with the model limit at medium.

This is because, while GW2 uses three or four cores well, there is a single thread that manages model animation and location, and that turns out to be the place that you hit a wall with first when you have eliminated every other slowdown in the game.

Also notable, changing that is one of the single hardest problems in programming, it has the highest possible risk of introducing bugs, and the nature of the problem means is extremely difficult to test for problems.

Finally, that thread is not limited by any graphics layer locking, meaning that even if you bump to a newer version of DirectX for fun, it wouldn’t change anything meaningful.

All that said … I wish that anet would do this, in the sense of literally just compile the exact same code with DirectX 11. It would make no performance difference at all, but it would get the kittens asking for it because of magical thinking to shush, and that’s getting to be a more and more pleasant idea every week.

WARIORSCHARGEING.2637:

this will only hurt the game even more and make new players not to want to buy this game and play it !! being stuck with old tech DX9 which will only make them go back to the older games that have upgraded to DX11 . as well as to any new shooter or other mmo with DX12 thus leaving this game to die in the dust with all the other outdated games.

I don’t think people base purchases of a game on whether it uses DX ##. There’s quite a large number of people that don’t even know what DX actually does.

Ayrilana.1396:

There’s quite a large number of people that don’t even know what DX actually does.

Including those asking for 11 / 12? :P

Rauderi.8706:

Ayrilana.1396:

There’s quite a large number of people that don’t even know what DX actually does.

Including those asking for 11 / 12? :P

Including those people. Anyone who thinks that upgrading DX will improve the performance of GW2 doesn’t understand what DX does.

Anything that is ‘’too much work’’ wont be done or added, there will be excuses and some people will try so hard to defend it coming with comments from under a rock

Believe me if adding Direct 11/12 was ‘’fast and easy’’ which wont take ‘’a lot of work and time’’ that woudlve been added so long ago

Supporting dx11/12 is one thing, getting it to actually be optimized to work with dx11/12 is another thing.

Regardless, I believe many would agree that the main point isn’t about dx11/12, it is about the performance.

of course, it wouldn’t be enough to just upgrade to a newer version of directx. there would need to be a way for the game to actually utilize the gpu more, its a shame that i didn’t really notice a big improvement by upgrading my gpu. the game has such a potential to look awesome, would just be nice to be able to reach that potential.

SkyShroud.2865:

Supporting dx11/12 is one thing, getting it to actually be optimized to work with dx11/12 is another thing.

Regardless, I believe many would agree that the main point isn’t about dx11/12, it is about the performance.

There is nothing significant that alters the performance character of a DX9 vs DX11 game; DX12 includes a radically different programming model that can allow better performance when multiple cores are working on building the scene … but that’s a radically different way to work on graphics than anything more than a couple years old.

SlippyCheeze.5483:

SkyShroud.2865:

Supporting dx11/12 is one thing, getting it to actually be optimized to work with dx11/12 is another thing.

Regardless, I believe many would agree that the main point isn’t about dx11/12, it is about the performance.

There is nothing significant that alters the performance character of a DX9 vs DX11 game; DX12 includes a radically different programming model that can allow better performance when multiple cores are working on building the scene … but that’s a radically different way to work on graphics than anything more than a couple years old.

You are missing the point in a big way.

It isn’t about dx 9 or 11 or 12, don’t be too fixated on that.
The root of the issue that lead to demanding dx11 or 12 is performance issue. People simply wants more performance regardless if is dx9 or 11 or 12. Sure, people can and will demand for dx 11 and 12 but that isn’t the point, get it?

SkyShroud.2865:

SlippyCheeze.5483:

SkyShroud.2865:

Supporting dx11/12 is one thing, getting it to actually be optimized to work with dx11/12 is another thing.

Regardless, I believe many would agree that the main point isn’t about dx11/12, it is about the performance.

There is nothing significant that alters the performance character of a DX9 vs DX11 game; DX12 includes a radically different programming model that can allow better performance when multiple cores are working on building the scene … but that’s a radically different way to work on graphics than anything more than a couple years old.

You are missing the point in a big way.

It isn’t about dx 9 or 11 or 12, don’t be too fixated on that.
The root of the issue that lead to demanding dx11 or 12 is performance issue. People simply wants more performance regardless if is dx9 or 11 or 12. Sure, people can and will demand for dx 11 and 12 but that isn’t the point, get it?

Except that is what they’re always asking for: an update to DX.

if they go directx12 they can go opengl or vulkan. It is basically a total re-write.

But why bother with directX versions, when the game is actually cpu bound?

They are better off supporting Xbox/PS4/Switch/Linux first than supporting DirectX11+.

Both require significant engine work, workflow changes, and asset remaster. Supporting other platforms would introduce new market, while adding DX11 support would only benefit existing user, so is just throwing away money.

You could potentially have your engine support DX11+ without taking advantage of the new fangles in DX11+ (new shaders, multiadapter, etc), but in that case there’s no point at all.

DX11/12? Why? DX12 would’t be available for many players since it’s available only on Win10 and DX11 would not give significant performance boost. Only new API that is worth adding is Vulkan, that would really help in situations (especially for slower computers) where there’s a lot of draw calls – like WvW for example.

theSacred.1942:

DX11/12? Why? DX12 would’t be available for many players since it’s available only on Win10 and DX11 would not give significant performance boost. Only new API that is worth adding is Vulkan, that would really help in situations (especially for slower computers) where there’s a lot of draw calls – like WvW for example.

Vulkan and DirectX 12 would have the same effect and would help with that … if, and only if, multiple concurrent threads are working on building the graphics stuff to submit. eg: also engine rewrite territory to take advantage of either of them.

SlippyCheeze.5483:

theSacred.1942:

DX11/12? Why? DX12 would’t be available for many players since it’s available only on Win10 and DX11 would not give significant performance boost. Only new API that is worth adding is Vulkan, that would really help in situations (especially for slower computers) where there’s a lot of draw calls – like WvW for example.

Vulkan and DirectX 12 would have the same effect and would help with that … if, and only if, multiple concurrent threads are working on building the graphics stuff to submit. eg: also engine rewrite territory to take advantage of either of them.

The difference between dx12 and vulkan pointed out by theSacred was that while dx12 is available only on Windows 10 (and thus is not widespread enough to warrant putting effort in engine rewrite), Vulcan is available also on older systems and thus offers better “gain to effort” ratio.

Astralporing.1957:

SlippyCheeze.5483:

theSacred.1942:

DX11/12? Why? DX12 would’t be available for many players since it’s available only on Win10 and DX11 would not give significant performance boost. Only new API that is worth adding is Vulkan, that would really help in situations (especially for slower computers) where there’s a lot of draw calls – like WvW for example.

Vulkan and DirectX 12 would have the same effect and would help with that … if, and only if, multiple concurrent threads are working on building the graphics stuff to submit. eg: also engine rewrite territory to take advantage of either of them.

The difference between dx12 and vulkan pointed out by theSacred was that while dx12 is available only on Windows 10 (and thus is not widespread enough to warrant putting effort in engine rewrite), Vulcan is available also on older systems and thus offers better “gain to effort” ratio.

That assumes of course ANet wants to expand their engine to other platforms than Windows and Mac, whenever a native Mac engine is done.

Behellagh.1468:

Astralporing.1957:

SlippyCheeze.5483:

theSacred.1942:

DX11/12? Why? DX12 would’t be available for many players since it’s available only on Win10 and DX11 would not give significant performance boost. Only new API that is worth adding is Vulkan, that would really help in situations (especially for slower computers) where there’s a lot of draw calls – like WvW for example.

Vulkan and DirectX 12 would have the same effect and would help with that … if, and only if, multiple concurrent threads are working on building the graphics stuff to submit. eg: also engine rewrite territory to take advantage of either of them.

The difference between dx12 and vulkan pointed out by theSacred was that while dx12 is available only on Windows 10 (and thus is not widespread enough to warrant putting effort in engine rewrite), Vulcan is available also on older systems and thus offers better “gain to effort” ratio.

That assumes of course ANet wants to expand their engine to other platforms than Windows and Mac, whenever a native Mac engine is done.

Not even that. I’m just pretty sure that the majority of current gw2 players are not playing on Win10. You don’t do massive engine rewrites if most of your players won’t even see the results.

Oh God no, I wasn’t talking Dx12, just Dx11. Dx12 has yet to show the promised massive increases in performance that was hyped. Most of the time there’s a loss compared to Dx11. That might just be immature hardware and drivers to support the API as well as devs not yet having a good handle on how to use Dx12 features. It’s possible even the most modern game engines need to be redesigned to get the most out of Dx12.

Vulkan on the other hand seems to have a noticeable performance improvement over OpenGL, at least on AMD (they always supported OpenGL better than nVidia).

But until GW2’s game engine is designed to support multiple render threads, Dx11 simply doesn’t buy anything other than a buzzword checkbox.

Ishtar.4375:

of course, it wouldn’t be enough to just upgrade to a newer version of directx. there would need to be a way for the game to actually utilize the gpu more

I think that’s about the simplest way to put it. Moving to DX12 alone would have a negligible impact on performance, but could lead to other changes with the engine that do help. Being able to offset the CPU bound nature of current DX9 engine by allowing the currently underutilized GPU to handle more of the work. The issue is the amount of work involved and the high chance of introducing new problems with such a massive rewrite.

mrstealth.6701:

Ishtar.4375:

of course, it wouldn’t be enough to just upgrade to a newer version of directx. there would need to be a way for the game to actually utilize the gpu more

I think that’s about the simplest way to put it. Moving to DX12 alone would have a negligible impact on performance, but could lead to other changes with the engine that do help. Being able to offset the CPU bound nature of current DX9 engine by allowing the currently underutilized GPU to handle more of the work. The issue is the amount of work involved and the high chance of introducing new problems with such a massive rewrite.

You misunderstand: GW2 is CPU-bound because it has a single CPU thread that does work required to calculate and position objects in the 3D world. This is not something that can be offloaded to the GPU (easily).

It is also something that, if fixed, would allow higher GPU utilization with DirectX 9, as the DX layer is not what is causing the performance limitation here.

SlippyCheeze.5483:

mrstealth.6701:

Ishtar.4375:

of course, it wouldn’t be enough to just upgrade to a newer version of directx. there would need to be a way for the game to actually utilize the gpu more

I think that’s about the simplest way to put it. Moving to DX12 alone would have a negligible impact on performance, but could lead to other changes with the engine that do help. Being able to offset the CPU bound nature of current DX9 engine by allowing the currently underutilized GPU to handle more of the work. The issue is the amount of work involved and the high chance of introducing new problems with such a massive rewrite.

You misunderstand: GW2 is CPU-bound because it has a single CPU thread that does work required to calculate and position objects in the 3D world. This is not something that can be offloaded to the GPU (easily).

It is also something that, if fixed, would allow higher GPU utilization with DirectX 9, as the DX layer is not what is causing the performance limitation here.

I understand the problem, and I’m well aware that it’s not something easy to break into multiple threads for the CPU or offloading to the GPU. That’s the reason why I said moving to DX could lead to changes that might improve performance later, instead of giving any noticeable immediate boost.

While fixing the issue with the main thread would improve performance in DX9, DX12 does have advantages in efficiency and ability to lessen the CPU’s workload. It could also be more of a benefit to older CPUs that are already being taxed by GW2, in both short and long term.

Easy or not, the performance problems aren’t going to go away anytime soon unless Anet does something to fix them. It doesn’t seem likely that we’ll see enough single thread performance increases to solve this, with focus shifting to more CPU cores.

There are no changes in DirectX 12 that fundamentally change the efficiency of the intermediate layer between the game engine and the hardware.

There are changes that eliminate some choke-points that heavily threaded game engines encountered when trying to build scenes from multiple threads.

Everything you suggest about changing threads is entirely true if the GW2 engine remains on DX9, moves to DX11, to DX12, to Vulkan, to Metal, or whatever. None of it revolves around offloading work to the GPU.

It should be in Vulcan so it can have cross platform support and leave Terrible and Sick Windows operating systems.

It would also whoop the rears of Wow and all the other non Linux MMOs. GW2 is the only thing keeping me on Sad and Slow Windows.

If Anet can’t do anything about the engine, they can do something about the other stuff like adding an option to disable effects, optimizing the models, reduce draw calls, hand optimize code, etc.. But most importantly they should stop creating maps that they know will have FPS issues.

I’ve posted before a problem I had with Verdant Brink, turns out it was the constant FPS drops that causes my headache (which I though was something else).

Not all players experience the same FPS issues and most of the issues can be resolved by not having settings at a level that their system cannot maintain.

SlippyCheeze.5483:

There are no changes in DirectX 12 that fundamentally change the efficiency of the intermediate layer between the game engine and the hardware.

DX12 (along with other newer APIs) does have less driver overhead, which means slightly less work for the CPU. This alone is not a reason to swap to DX12, though. It’s not going to give any significant (or any at all) improvements in many cases, but it is there and might have a minor impact in older CPUs.

You are right that making changes to the problematic overused thread would increase performance no matter what graphics API is used. At least in CPUs powerful enough that the game isn’t already pushing them to their limits anyway. Offloading work to the GPU could be of benefit in those cases, if it had some power to spare.

If Anet were to make such huge changes to the engine, it might also be the time to do a full overhaul and change API as well. I don’t really expect to see this happen, but it’s not unheard of. There are at least a couple other MMOs have that seen shifts to new APIs or even total rebuilds of their engine.