DirectX 11

[Pulsar_t]

I've been playing a number of the few PC games that support DX11, maxing out everything, but I'm hardly impressed. These gradual increments in rendering technology are hardly groundbreaking. I certainly hope the SDK's for next-gen consoles aren't restricted to this tech!

[MrPopo]

I've been playing a number of the few PC games that support DX11, maxing out everything, but I'm hardly impressed. These gradual increments in rendering technology are hardly groundbreaking. I certainly hope the SDK's for next-gen consoles aren't restricted to this tech!

You do realize at this point the limiting factor isn't the APIs, but the time of the artists, right? New APIs can give us better lighting effects, but most of your graphical fidelity comes from getting a really nice looking model and textures.

[Pulsar_t]

of course, but budgets are a limiting factor as well. i guess im visually fatigued

[isiolia]

of course, but budgets are a limiting factor as well. i guess im visually fatigued

Especially when current consoles can't make use of the extra work. When developers are putting the time in for the next-gen consoles, we'll see the jump in fidelity on the PC too.

[Pulsar_t]

I read that SDK's have already been shipped to devs, could be wrong though. The most advanced game out there, Battlefield 3, looks good maxed out but visual fidelity is being improved incrementally at best. Perhaps it has peaked the same way AI and sound design did.

[RyaNtheSlayA]

I read that SDK's have already been shipped to devs, could be wrong though. The most advanced game out there, Battlefield 3, looks good maxed out but visual fidelity is being improved incrementally at best. Perhaps it has peaked the same way AI and sound design did.

Wrong wrong wrong. These haven't peaked, it's just not practical to push much further than what we have. It's extremely expensive to produce amazing graphics, AI, and sound. All could no doubt be improved quite a bit.

[MrPopo]

I read that SDK's have already been shipped to devs, could be wrong though. The most advanced game out there, Battlefield 3, looks good maxed out but visual fidelity is being improved incrementally at best. Perhaps it has peaked the same way AI and sound design did.

Wrong wrong wrong. These haven't peaked, it's just not practical to push much further than what we have. It's extremely expensive to produce amazing graphics, AI, and sound. All could no doubt be improved quite a bit.

Precisely. It's diminishing returns. Let's say we had a scale that went from 1-100, where 100 is impossible to differentiate from real life (as if your TV/monitor was just a window). And let's call 1 colored squares moving on a black background (and you can't put them together to make shapes). So moving from 1-15 (early Atari) is pretty easy to do, from a resource standpoint. However, moving from 90 (now) to 91 is ridiculously expensive, and it's not a large gain.

Plus, you also have to worry about the uncanny valley. It's more noticeable with your actors, but having things look close but not quite real ends up being worse than it being slightly less real looking in terms of the human reaction.

[neilencio]

One thing I noticed from DX11 games is that the characters look like they are coated in oil.

[RyaNtheSlayA]

One thing I noticed from DX11 games is that the characters look like they are coated in oil.

That's up to the artists, not the APIs.

[neilencio]

cool

I was under the misconception that realistic oil coating was a feature of DX11, and the artists abused the feature after learning how to do it.