Guild Wars 2

I’ve read many posts complaining about having high spec on their pc but the game still lags on crowded areas and events. The only reason for this as far as I have understood is the development of gw2 which was and still is based on dx9. I remember when I first encountered that lag and decided to change my first line character to a back line one. I did this without understanding why I am experiencing this strange lag and quickly thought that my pc is junk.

Now my question : Is it possible in theory to upgrade the game mechanics from dx9 to dx11? I understood that dx11 will offer less lags and much more fps for the mid spec pcs.

Thanks

This would require a major rewrite of the rendering and view engine and I don’t think that ArenaNet is undergoing such a feat easily.

This is also the same reason why World of Warcraft, albeit having DX11 support since Cataclysm, is still unoptimized. They only changed the graphics API, but not the underlying single-threaded code preparing the rendering steps (which is from Warcraft 3!)

So it seems like mission impossible. I think it would change the game, many players that I used to play with left the game because their pc couldn’t manage the high cpu gw2 requires. I hope there will be a solution for this because most of the casual gw2 players have low-mid spec pcs.

In my opinion, adding a “view distance” slider would help. I don’t know if the game engine supports that though; but WoW had that feature.

DX11 improves the overhead & latency over DX9. DX12 will even improve more and I wish Anet can do something about it. DX12 will affect the CPU bound games effectively not DX11.

For DX12, you don’t really need to wait for DX12 hardwares. Just get HD7000+ and GTX400+ series up, you will be supported. It will be just D3D DX API software updates.

Besides the obvious capital expenditures necessary, which, from a business point of view are not feasible for a no-subscription fee game (unless there is an expansion upcoming players will pay for), support for Win XP is also an issue here.

Dx10-11-12 is not supported on XP, so in updating they would have to be careful to not make the engine dx11 exclusive, as it will simply not run on XP then.

Waikd.4632:

Besides the obvious capital expenditures necessary, which, from a business point of view are not feasible for a no-subscription fee game (unless there is an expansion upcoming players will pay for), support for Win XP is also an issue here.

Dx10-11-12 is not supported on XP, so in updating they would have to be careful to not make the engine dx11 exclusive, as it will simply not run on XP then.

Wouldn’t it be a problem in the future? If they want to keep the game still attractive and getting attention around the world in the next couple of years, anet has no other option than upgrading the engine to dx11 or dx12.
The game looks amazing imo ( a little bit cartoon) and when I think what dx11 could add to this game I just can’t understand why nothing is happening.

This would require a complete overhaul of the graphics engine….doubtful.

Waikd.4632:

Dx10-11-12 is not supported on XP

Absolutely no problem anymore since most ppl ceased using WinXP due to stop of support since April 8th. The only infeasibility is the high workload for virtually nothing because gw2 is non-subscriber, non-addon-based.

Setting aside the issue that XP was alive and well when the engine was first developed or that Dx11 compatable hardware is now in the majority of gaming machines. The cost to reengineer the game’s rendering pipeline to maximize the usefulness of Dx11 and multithreading is likely outside the realm of possibility with income of only 80-100 million a year.

WoW had billions of dollars of income over multiple years which allowed them to do both the Dx11 and 64-bit redesign. GW2 haven’t yet broke the billion dollar mark yet, if ever.

If they ever wanted to do a PS4 and/or Xbox One release then a DX11 update would be needed. And it does seem like consoles where a possible option in the past. Even something they spent some time and money testing out. Now that both PS4 and Xbox One both support (natively) DX11 then it would be a benefit to develop out that tech for both of them and the PC.

And the game does play great with a PS4 or Xbox One controller. I dare say almost more fun to play with a controller then a keyboard / mouse setup.

And a duel or even one console release would bring in some good cash flow for the game.

So a Dx11 option should not entirely be pushed off the table. There are upsides to making the port. Least of them being the Mesh Instancing that could be a big fps increase in large battles with lots of players.

Actually the PS4 doesn’t. And on the XBone it’s a variant of Dx11.