Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Blizzard adds DX11 to WoW

nlr

nlr

macrumors 6502
Original poster
May 27, 2010
457
1
London
wow_dx111.jpg


Blizzard has included an updated DirectX path in the latest beta of its upcoming World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, bringing DX11 to WoW.

What are you thoughts on this and what other improvements would you like to see? and how bad will this effect the mac?


I would like to see WoW getting next-generation graphics on the whole game and not just small effects in the new Cataclysm area.

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1356z6Xhxg
 
nlr said:
Blizzard has included an updated DirectX path in the latest beta of its upcoming World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, bringing DX11 to WoW.
Click to expand...

It is not confirmed that DX11 will be implemented in Cataclysm.
 
Personally I don't think it's that big of a deal and don't think it will adversely effect Mac users at all. My question would be how much can WoW's modest graphics benefit from DX11? It would be interesting to see some side by side screen shots for WoW if they are going to take advantage of DX11.
 
That screenshot is Dx11? Looks nothing more than Dx9.
The video doesn't look so great either. The effect on the water is nice but the collision with backgrounds is terrible, it's just static. I seriously hope they improve that because it just looks out of place.
 
You're supposed to be able to shoot a fireball and see the reflection travel across the water or something like that.

Anyway's I don't think screen shots really do these graphics justice. It has to be in motion and you have to be moving to really see the full effect. Like the sun being occluded and shining rays around an object like through a lens or something. And then there's the small detailed shadowing.

I wonder if they like make the shadow match the sun position or something like that. Then you have to take that into consideration when trying to gank someone from behind. LOL

How will it "adversly affect" the Mac? Well, if they don't put any of this stuff into the Mac, it won't really effect it at all. Only that pyschologically you may feel you're missing something that other players are experiencing. But I would guess that they would so something in OpenGL that's similar at least. Though at this point it appears DX gets the priority with many games. I guess since it's really built with games in mind, it makes it easier for devs to implement it as well. Not to mention the market forces.
 
From what I've heard, the same effects are running in DX9 and DX10, but the DX11 path is just faster.

Probably means this will show up on the Mac too, but that's a total guess.
 
goMac said:
From what I've heard, the same effects are running in DX9 and DX10, but the DX11 path is just faster.

Probably means this will show up on the Mac too, but that's a total guess.
Click to expand...

Are you saying that they CAN run on DX9? Because the same effects AREN'T running in the game now. Anyway's I don't buy that oh yah, DX11 will make everything more efficient marketing lingo. While it may be true that it will make some previous effects a bit more efficient, just the fact that they add NEW DX11 effects will tax your video card more...hence why there's now 512-bit Dual GPU, blah blah blah now that you can empty your piggybank for.
 
rasmasyean said:
Are you saying that they CAN run on DX9? Because the same effects AREN'T running in the game now. Anyway's I don't buy that oh yah, DX11 will make everything more efficient marketing lingo. While it may be true that it will make some previous effects a bit more efficient, just the fact that they add NEW DX11 effects will tax your video card more...hence why there's now 512-bit Dual GPU, blah blah blah now that you can empty your piggybank for.
Click to expand...

I don't play WoW anymore so I have no idea what works and what doesn't. DX11 doesn't actually add any new graphical features, it just adds some stuff to do things faster, which fits exactly with what I heard.

DX11 adds hardware accelerated tessellation. Tessellation can be done in DX9, OpenGL, whatever, but as the name implies, DX11 can hardware accelerate the process.
 
WoW is one of those games that, in my opinion, does not look in screen shots or videos. It only looks good when you are seeing live code run in front of you. WoW proves that graphics don't matter. As long as you have and outstanding art style and amazing animations then a game looks good. I have long joke that Blizzard needs to stop making games and just be the model animators for everyone else. They understand what really makes a game good.
 
redking31591 said:
WoW is one of those games that, in my opinion, does not look in screen shots or videos. It only looks good when you are seeing live code run in front of you. WoW proves that graphics don't matter. As long as you have and outstanding art style and amazing animations then a game looks good. I have long joke that Blizzard needs to stop making games and just be the model animators for everyone else. They understand what really makes a game good.
Click to expand...

Agreed. I remember when I first looked at screen shots of WoW, I was not so sure I was going to like it, that cartoony look. But as soon as it launched, my fears were alleviated.
 
goMac said:
I don't play WoW anymore so I have no idea what works and what doesn't. DX11 doesn't actually add any new graphical features, it just adds some stuff to do things faster, which fits exactly with what I heard.

DX11 adds hardware accelerated tessellation. Tessellation can be done in DX9, OpenGL, whatever, but as the name implies, DX11 can hardware accelerate the process.
Click to expand...

Well, if you want to take it out of context that way, then you don't even NEED Direct X at all. When the Terminator 2 came out there was no "Direct X". They actually did it in Silicon Graphics (defunct) machines in unix or something. Just that a 30 second scene took like a day to render. Similar with every other CGI you see in the movies. We've all seen "realism" in computer graphics "pictures". That's NOT what we're talking about. :rolleyes:
 
rasmasyean said:
Well, if you want to take it out of context that way, then you don't even NEED Direct X at all. When the Terminator 2 came out there was no "Direct X". They actually did it in Silicon Graphics (defunct) machines in unix or something. Just that a 30 second scene took like a day to render. Similar with every other CGI you see in the movies. We've all seen "realism" in computer graphics "pictures". That's NOT what we're talking about. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Maybe he is talking in-game effects? But just because DX can do some particular effect, I did not think OpenGL could, and vice a versa?
 
They need to update the textures of everything and make it a NG mmo. Leave old graphics for old computers but so far there really isn't a NG MMO.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back