Guild Wars 2

Ok so I want some of your thoughts on this.
Will it go beyond DX9?
Would it survive by remaining DX9?
Windows 10 coming out in 2 day is Direct 12 encluded.
How high should the next X Pack go without looking kitten?

Hybarf Tics.2048:

1 – Will it go beyond DX9?
2 – Would it survive by remaining DX9?
3 – Windows 10 coming out in 2 day is Direct 12 encluded.
4 – How high should the next X Pack go without looking kitten?

1 – That is up to Anet to decide. If they find that spending resources there will benefit them more than take away, they are more likely to do it. Otherwise, the game still looks brilliant graphical wise, and so an update to DirectX may not be necessary.

2 – Yes.

3 – Included in Windows 10? Or for GW2? If the latter, no.

4 – I don’t know about you, but the upcoming maps look pretty dang impressive and beautiful, without any upgrade to higher DirectX. I’ve played a couple of other MMO’s that don’t look nearly as sharp as GW2, even with higher DirectX enabled.

I was hoping it would it at least have a hint of DX11 support, but considering how old of a dinosaur the game engine is, that may be pushing it a bit. Then again the tech team have done some things that pushes the limits so why not.

I wonder if the game engine has been upgraded in some way already.
They did say they laid the foundation so that other ewxpansions will be easier to make
or some such.

There are more people currently with compatible DirectX 9 graphics cards than there are with DirectX 10, 11 and very few with 12 compatible graphics cards. So yes, it isn’t going anywhere.

Asking if it would survive is like asking if people still play World of Warcraft.

The amount of programming behind changing or implementing this change to the engine would be as big if not even bigger than the expansion or the game itself. I don’t foresee this happening.

And I am not sure I understand your last question. Do you even understand how DirectX works? It doesn’t directly effect graphics. It changes API performance and how smoothly the graphics are produced. Which in turn will make things look better and have more 3rd Dimension. It also effects the 2 dimensional draw on your screen and the audio a game produces to your speaker. Essentially it makes things happen a lot faster and perform smoother. So in turn, potentially things like invisible enemies in WvW don’t happen.

-Van

Microsoft rolls out more Windows 10 updates as July 29 launch looms
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2952172/software-games/directx-12-faq-all-about-windows-10s-supercharged-graphics-tech.html
DirectX 12 will appear on Windows 10 computers and tablets, Windows 10 Mobile phones, and even the Xbox One in due time. If your device runs Windows 10, it runs DirectX 12, basically.
It was offred for free so of course I took it so i’m going from 7 to 10 and they say my PC can take it .

You do know that you have up to a year if not longer to accept the upgrade? I would highly recommend you ensure you will like the Windows 10 environment before you make the switch. Everything I have seen thus far looks like a trimmed down Windows 8 and outside of a Tablet, that op sys is trash.

Don’t just hop on the upgrade wagon because it comes with a higher DX version. It won’t matter with any current games that are out now anyway.

-Van

Vancien.1980:

You do know that you have up to a year if not longer to accept the upgrade? I would highly recommend you ensure you will like the Windows 10 environment before you make the switch. Everything I have seen thus far looks like a trimmed down Windows 8 and outside of a Tablet, that op sys is trash.

Don’t just hop on the upgrade wagon because it comes with a higher DX version. It won’t matter with any current games that are out now anyway.

-Van

Thanks for the head’s up, I saw a video and right off the bat I noticed that my desktop is nicer on windows 7 even 8 isn’t as nice as my 7.
I think 7 can also support DX 12 can it?
Found it the official answer is no and I have 1 year to make up my mind about windows 10 for free.

Hybarf Tics.2048:

Would it survive by remaining DX9?

Someone needs to explain this to me.
As far as I can see all newer cards are DX9 backwards compatible, so from a purely pragmatic perspective you’d still be able to play it.

Hybarf Tics.2048:

Windows 10 coming out in 2 day is Direct 12 encluded.

But still run DX9

Hybarf Tics.2048:

How high should the next X Pack go without looking kitten?

I don’t think Direct X works like that. Looking like kitten is more than simply which API you use to make it, it’s a matter of models, polygon count, aesthetics, and what rendering technology is being applied.
Simply making it DX12 won’t make the graphics any better. A graphic overhaul would make it better, and sure DX12 would have never technology that could make it look prettier but that’s only a single aspect of the whole and not in and of itself the solution.

Hybarf Tics.2048:

I wonder if the game engine has been upgraded in some way already.
They did say they laid the foundation so that other ewxpansions will be easier to make
or some such.

This is more in terms of scalable mechanics. Masteries for example is a system that can easily be expanded upon (by adding more masteries). Guild Halls can be expanded upon (by adding more decoration and more guild halls).
I don’t think they were referring to graphics.

Dont hold your breath for it.

DX11 was promised to be supported within the first year of release. Here we are 3 years later and this game is still on DX9!

We’ve always complained about it since launch, there are players with high end gaming rigs who had tonnes of issues at launch, and the problem was and still is DX9; it’s too old.

DX11 will not only make textures better, but most importantly it is more efficient, improving performance. Who doesnt want that?! The devs apparently.

Vancien.1980:

There are more people currently with compatible DirectX 9 graphics cards than there are with DirectX 10, 11 and very few with 12 compatible graphics cards. So yes, it isn’t going anywhere.

Asking if it would survive is like asking if people still play World of Warcraft.

The amount of programming behind changing or implementing this change to the engine would be as big if not even bigger than the expansion or the game itself. I don’t foresee this happening.

And I am not sure I understand your last question. Do you even understand how DirectX works? It doesn’t directly effect graphics. It changes API performance and how smoothly the graphics are produced. Which in turn will make things look better and have more 3rd Dimension. It also effects the 2 dimensional draw on your screen and the audio a game produces to your speaker. Essentially it makes things happen a lot faster and perform smoother. So in turn, potentially things like invisible enemies in WvW don’t happen.

-Van

Don’t over-exaggerate. WoW has done it, Final Fantasy XIV has done it. WoW runS dx10 since Cataclysm which was released 5 years ago. You can choose between dx9 and dx10, so people who really have an ancient graphics card can still play it.

We speak here about an ancient dx. When dx9 was released there were no iPhones. Nobody had a smartphone, yeah it’s kittening 2005. Just to show you how ancient this renderer is.

If you are talking about making a game engine a particular version of directx simply for broad customer base compatibility, you are asking ‘what is the absolute oldest graphics cards out there we are prepared to see our game used on?’

In the case of radeon cards, which I lean towards, the old HD 4000 series, released in 2008, which are slow hairdryers by comparison to today’s cards, supported up to directx 10.1

It’s time to move on from directx 9. The percentage of customers playing gw2 on radeon 4000 era cards are likely to be quite small and are not enjoying the most this game has to offer anyway.

The latest version of directx has so many advancements, both in the appearance area and under the hood, that the benefits to using it outweigh any argument regarding the adoption by the user base based on old card compatibility.

Buy Some Apples.6390:

Dont hold your breath for it.

DX11 was promised to be supported within the first year of release. Here we are 3 years later and this game is still on DX9!

No it wasn’t.
They have never in any way or form promised anything at all about including anything other than DirectX9 in the game.

What they did say was that they would LOOK INTO DirectX (10 I believe it was) after release. Not that they would include support for it.
Which is rather different from them promising to support it within the first year.

CureForLiving.5360:

Hybarf Tics.2048:

Windows 10 coming out in 2 day is Direct 12 encluded.

But still run DX9

Is it confirmed? Windows 8 doesn’t run dx9 natively (you need to install it manually), and it was not clear last time i checked whether that install option would still work in final version of win10. MS was already planning to obsolete it before.

it won’t happen, they would have to make or use a whole new engine, and everything would have to be done anew, maybe if we’d get a guildwars 3 but that will never happen either :p

so no, we wont EVER get dx 10/11/12/13/14/15/over9000…

I think the problem is people still confuse graphics and visual effects as being the source of aesthetics.

Both WoW and GW2 actually have rather weak graphics from a technical stand point, but are able to compensate with outstanding art direction to make the most use out of it. WoW works on cartoonish and exaggerated designs that draw attention away from the visual effects. GW2 does it through ornate model designs, very visually pleasing color pallets, and a deceptively good use of static lighting.

But when you see the particle and spell effects in action, they’re very flashly, over bright, and highly obstructive to try and give them more impact then they actually have. In smaller doses they don’t look bad…. but ask anyone about the effects enmass, particularly at world bosses, and you get a completely different sense of how good those effects look.

Hybarf Tics.2048:

Vancien.1980:

You do know that you have up to a year if not longer to accept the upgrade? I would highly recommend you ensure you will like the Windows 10 environment before you make the switch. Everything I have seen thus far looks like a trimmed down Windows 8 and outside of a Tablet, that op sys is trash.

Don’t just hop on the upgrade wagon because it comes with a higher DX version. It won’t matter with any current games that are out now anyway.

-Van

Thanks for the head’s up, I saw a video and right off the bat I noticed that my desktop is nicer on windows 7 even 8 isn’t as nice as my 7.
I think 7 can also support DX 12 can it?
Found it the official answer is no and I have 1 year to make up my mind about windows 10 for free.

I think DX12 is a windows 10 only thing, like DX 10 was not done for XP. Its one of the hooks to get people to upgrade.

http://www.pcgamer.com/directx-12-will-not-be-supported-by-windows-7/

According to this a guy from AMD seems to think it’s not coming to win7. But it also says that the guy has no insider knowledge on what Microsoft are going to do.

It would make more sense if they bottle necked DX12 to only being a Windows 10 so they could bolster upgrades. But then again, they are offering Windows 10 upgrades for free and I have not quite figured out the catch to that either. Are updates going to be locked behind paywalls?

Oh That’s not a pleasant thought.

Still, it isn’t like DX12 will be a necessity for most of what is on the gaming market right now so it’s really not something I am at all worried about.

Vancien.1980:

It would make more sense if they bottle necked DX12 to only being a Windows 10 so they could bolster upgrades. But then again, they are offering Windows 10 upgrades for free and I have not quite figured out the catch to that either. Are updates going to be locked behind paywalls?

Oh That’s not a pleasant thought.

Still, it isn’t like DX12 will be a necessity for most of what is on the gaming market right now so it’s really not something I am at all worried about.

Forced adoption is good for M$, because it paves the way for them charge for other things…. especially being a highly targeted development platform with App style integration. This move is to clean slate the user base so they can start doing Apple style updates and controls on the systems. If you look carefully, home versions of Win10 have mandatory updates which the user can’t opt out of (for the time being), allowing them to push whatever software framework they want onto the platform.

If you don’t want that, you’ll have to upgrade to the Pro version (which a lot gamers are already mulling about) for both more control and extra features.

After about a year, the Xbox initiative will begin to bridge the platforms….. and the real purpose of the move will become clear to everyone. tinfoil hat

There was a big discussion on reddit some time ago, where a dev responded. (don’t have link)

Basically, what he said was that new directx implementation wouldn’t help GW2 and the performance much. The game is based on a 10 year old engine. For the performance to be improved and newer directx to be effective, they would have to redo the engine in order to support 64bit and better performance in general.

When I see how busy they are with HoT content, I don’t see this coming with it. I wouldn’t get my hopes up. :/

If you are talking about HoT, chances are extremely low. Improving DX or core usage would have been a major sellpoint and feature yet they said nothing about it.

If you are talking BEYOND HoT… i hope so. If not, even more ppl will just move on.

The main bottleneck of GW2 performance is the so called “Main Thread”. DirectX 12 will provide many performance boosts, however it won’t help the “Main Thread” at all, as DX12 optimizations will only affect the “Render Thread” which is NOT the bottleneck in Guild Wars 2 Performance.

Since each core can only run one thread at a time, it’s obvious why one of the CPU cores appears to be doing much of the work while others sit idle. That CPU core is taking care of the Main Thread which does most of the important work (and is the bottleneck). Using DX12, the Render Thread will become faster and better use the multiple cores of your CPU, however, that won’t make the game itself run any faster because the real problem is that the Main Thread is doing too much work and DX12 won’t help with that. Meaning even with DX12 one of your cores will STILL be doing way too much and no amount of DirectX/API work can change that.

What needs to be done is off-load some of the work from the Main Thread on other threads as possible. Which is usually on the range of non-trivial to very hard

Having a 64-bit client might help with some crash issues (at Tequatl for example) because a 64-bit client has a much higher memory limit and allow the game to avoid crashes due to memory fragmentation.

Source:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3ajnso/bad_optimalization_in_gw2/csdnn3n

Interesting stuff maddoctor

So everyone understands what I’m saying, here is what DX12 is going to do:

http://blogs.msdn.com/cfs-filesystemfile.ashx/__key/communityserver-blogs-components-weblogfiles/00-00-01-20-72/2806.cpucompare.png

The “Bottleneck” in Guild Wars 2 is the Green part, that’s what is not being used in an efficient way. Even if the rest of it is better split among cores with DX12, if the green part is still slow, the game will be slow.

Think of it like most of the “Green” part is on Thread 0 and bits of it are on the other threads. Although we might see some gains with DirectX 12 it won’t be as high as people believe and maybe not even worth the effort.

The main issue is that GW2 was based off of the GW1 engine, which in itself was quite good for it’s time.
CPU manufacturers have gone from upping the frequency in GHZ to parallel processing. ie. 4 core, 8 core etc.
GW2 is heavily dependent on a single core(thread) which does; as others have mentioned, most of the work.
Most PC enthusiasts will overclock their CPU’s in order to get a higher clock frequency which in turn can help that GW2 main thread.
Myself and others have surmised that it would take a 4 core CPU running at 6ghz or higher to allow the main thread to function to where most people would want it to be. This is an assumption of course.
With parallel processing being the way of CPU manufacturers rather than raw clockspeed this limits what GW2 can achieve because of the engine structure.

Judging from the earlier comments by many who’ve given us the technical explanations and other things we’ve read, it seems to me it’s realistic that the answer is going to be “No.”

It’s a real pity that HoT for consistency purposes is probably going to support only DX9.

DX9 is a relic at this point.
My purchase of HoT is nearly completely dependent on DX11 compatibility at this point after the forced purchase of GW2 with HoT.
It is more resource efficient, it renders better, and has downlevel support, allowing you to target 9, and 10 using the same API.
Anything else is just lazy developing.

Jack.1469:

Judging from the earlier comments by many who’ve given us the technical explanations and other things we’ve read, it seems to me it’s realistic that the answer is going to be “No.”

It’s a real pity that HoT for consistency purposes is probably going to support only DX9.

The technical “explanations” in here are misleading at best. I’d say most of them have no clue what DX is, and what changes from 9-11/12.

First off, DirectX is a renderer. What does that mean? In a simplified explanation, its what is used to actually display the game. Contrary to what a majority of people think, the renderer is NOT the game’s code. Instead, it is tasked with utilizing the resources available to make what the code dictates appear on the screen.

Now, here is where we get into DirectX. Because hardware changes over the years, we’ve gotten new DirectX versions to better utilize the hardware available. DirectX 9 was single core based. It scales horribly past 2 cores, but this was okay because back then most CPUs were dual core. DirectX 11 is better suited for multicore CPUs, and its sweetspot is about 4 cores. DirectX 11 is very solid, and is considered the standard for gaming. Its rather efficient, but it does have the same issue where after a certain point it stops scaling with CPU cores.

Nowadays CPUs are going into the 8 core range. AMD has been in this territory for a while, and intel is stepping in as well with their 8 core CPUs using DDR4. While DX 11 is awesome, it still falls off sharply with those higher core CPUs. This wouldn’t be an issue if graphics cards weren’t insanely powerful. At this point 1080p gaming is easier than ever, and the high end cards are a complete waste unless you are going for 2k+ gaming, as at that point your games are CPU bound.

Now, back to Guild Wars. First off, no, it isn’t impossible to add DX11 without rewriting the entire game. To go against what another use said in this channel, they actually added in DX11, not 10. It was a pretty significant performance boost, and allowed an aging game to have much needed graphical improvements. There are other games as well that upgrade their renderer, as its silly not to.

Someone posted a graph that shows DirectX CPU distribution. Yes, the distribution is better. The way that chart would look with the DX9 that we are stuck with is worse however. It would be shoved on that first thread(which it is), and CPU performance would suffer horribly as the game would need to fight with DirectX in order to get any instructions in.

Its bad. Period. Guild Wars 2 is a beautiful game, but it runs horribly. An upgrade is absolutely possible, and really theres no reason not too. It lets your game scale. We’ve had DirectX9 for 10 years.

What they need to do is just add DirectX 11. DirectX12 isn’t support by every card, and its going to take a while for everyone to adopt windows 10 anyways. Its not a huge jump from DirectX 11 to 12 anyhow. I’ve heard of a few programmers knocking it out in a few months on their own.

I don’t mean to come off as condescending, but please don’t spread misinformation or come up with excuses for this. Its silly that we have to deal with crummy performance on such a beautiful game.

Personally, i would love to see an improved renderer in this game above of what we have now. Don’t get me wrong, i applaud any graphics improvement, esp for those with high-end cards like myself, but i wouldn’t want it at the cost of content development.

That being said, they’d better come up with something, i’ve been looking at other games that are currently in development or will be released in the (very) near future, and compared to those games, GW2 is antiquated.

Some of those games have graphics that just blow you away. I understand that a lot of gamers don’t have the possibility or finances immediately available to ‘upgrade’ their rigs, but come on, when you see what game developers are dissing out now….

Just look at some of the newest game titles on youtube, those games are not only of superior quality in the graphics department, but have hours and hours of content as well.

I think it’s kinda telling when i need something like SweetFx to improve the way a game looks and feels when you have all the goodies already built into a new renderer.
I’m running this game on a triple screen setup, but honestly, my card doesn’t even break into a sweat with everything maxed.

Zalladi.4652:

Hybarf Tics.2048:

1 – Will it go beyond DX9?
2 – Would it survive by remaining DX9?
3 – Windows 10 coming out in 2 day is Direct 12 encluded.
4 – How high should the next X Pack go without looking kitten?

1 – That is up to Anet to decide. If they find that spending resources there will benefit them more than take away, they are more likely to do it. Otherwise, the game still looks brilliant graphical wise, and so an update to DirectX may not be necessary.

2 – Yes.

3 – Included in Windows 10? Or for GW2? If the latter, no.

4 – I don’t know about you, but the upcoming maps look pretty dang impressive and beautiful, without any upgrade to higher DirectX. I’ve played a couple of other MMO’s that don’t look nearly as sharp as GW2, even with higher DirectX enabled.

No one cares about looks. It’s about performance. Going from DX9 to DX11 in WoW boosted the performance of that game. If ANet’s developers are competent enough, then performance should increase if they properly upgrade their engine/client to DX11 (I think DX12 is expecting too much, and generally few people have GPUs that support it).

However, I don’t think this will happen as it’s likely to break the OS X client.

Tren.5120:

(I think DX12 is expecting too much, and generally few people have GPUs that support it).

However, I don’t think this will happen as it’s likely to break the OS X client.

Virtually everyone has cards that support it. DX 12 is compatible all the way back to 400 series Gforces and that came out in 2010.

Stop making such a huge deal out of the whole DirectX thing.
Yes a newer DirectX for gw2 would be nice but it’s not like the game is a completely unplayable lag fest or looks horrid right now.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Stop making such a huge deal out of the whole DirectX thing.
Yes a newer DirectX for gw2 would be nice but it’s not like the game is a completely unplayable lag fest or looks horrid right now.

Yes, obviously if it isn’t black, it must be white. [/sarcasm]

Its not black or white but it is Cost vs. Return and the people that care very much about continuing to have jobs/get paid and who have actual data have made their appraisal of that consideration VERY CLEAR.

When its worth it, they’ll do it. As long as it’s not, they won’t. And no amount of blind presumption about the hardware of their entire playerbase made by an individual player is going to mean diddly squat in that calculation.