DX12 Is it all hype or is this the holy grail of DX!

[Darkstar2]

DX12 is coming soon, and it is said to offer 50% improvements in CPU utilisation and other optimisations.  So am I to understand that DX12 will offer no visual improvements but performance based ?  Will these performance increases even be noticeable considering the powerful CPU and GPUs people use now ?

ALSO it is said that NVIDIA will support DX12 on all DX11 cards.......GREAT!

http://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2014/03/20/directx-12/

Would this have any benefit to ENIGMA ? Scrapping the DX11 API and using DX12 instead? So people could produce 2 versions of their games, one DX9 and one DX12...will it really benefit that much as it is claimed?
If it's true that the CPU will benefit the most this could allow for more more physX effects, complex scenes, CPU intensive etc....

But having learned that one must not always believe what you read

[lonewolff]

Hard to say.

We are at the point where we can allready see graphics that are more realistic than photos (hyper realistic maybe?). So, there isn't really anywhere to go than to optimise and make faster.

[TheExDeus]

Performance improvements == Visual improvements.
There is no technical limit on what you can draw now. You can draw a 100% real-life image with raytracing or even regular rendering. The reason why a human face isn't 100% real in game is not because we lack the algorithms or graphics technology, it's because we lack performance.

In terms of ENIGMA, we actually need to decide whether we try going for most of the newer stuff or stick with older. Normally you have fallbacks inside the code itself, so if you cannot use DX12 feature, you just use a DX11 one. We can partially do it now, because 80-90% of rendering happens in one file - XmodelStruct.h.
The same with GL. I don't have problems making a GL4.3 (at least), but I then don't want to support 3 GL versions. I barely care about GL1.1 now, as my only development effort is for GL3.3 right now.

[Goombert]

DX12 is just doing the same thing AMD's Mantle API is doing.
http://www.amd.com/en-us/innovations/software-technologies/technologies-gaming/mantle

[Josh @ Dreamland]

we actually need to decide whether we try going for most of the newer stuff or stick with older

A huge chunk of the reason behind the graphics_systems folder is so you could do both. Any time you can't offer new technology in harmony with the old, but really want to offer it, put it in a breaking graphics system. I imagine those cases will be rare, though—I can't even think of one off-hand that wasn't settled with the GL1/GL3 divide.

[Darkstar2]

All I can say so far is that I am looking forward to Windows 10 and DX12, so far, despite its early stages, Win10 is doing quite well in games, with even some marginal increase in fps in some games (out of the box), so I think this will be an OS by choice for gamers

[TheExDeus]

I imagine those cases will be rare, though—I can't even think of one off-hand that wasn't settled with the GL1/GL3 divide.

GL4, for example, allows bindless textures and multi-element rendering. It allows you to render the whole scene with basically one draw call (so it's not the same as instancing, which allows you to render the same model multiple times with one draw call). It greatly increased performance, but requires GL4 only functions (this is a very good talk on new GL - http://gdcvault.com/play/1020791/). So I have a decision, stick to GL3, make a new graphics system GL4 (then we will have 3 GL's to maintain), or upgrade GL3 to GL4.

[Darkstar2]

How about ditching GL1 and maintaining GL3/4.....
But there again you have to ask yourself if this is a priority over other things that need fixed/done..... I mean it's not tomorrow that people will be making GL4/DX12 optimised games in ENIGMA......right ?

[time-killer-games]

The way I look at it. I don't care about DirectX I strongly prefer anything and everything that is cross-platform and that means I'm more of an OpenGL kinda person.

[edsquare]

The way I look at it. I don't care about DirectX I strongly prefer anything and everything that is cross-platform and that means I'm more of an OpenGL kinda person.

And that's one of the reasons I keep telling you that you're much more inteligent than you give yourself credit for. Always take the crossplatform road over the platform specific one if possible. 

[time-killer-games]

I'm flattered. Don't look at me I'm blushing. XD

[Darkstar2]

and picking your nose 

Yeah sorry I am a DX fan because well.......Microsoft.    Most games on PC are DX anyway and since I am a PC Wndows users what bloody choice do I have ? Are game companies releasing OpenGL shit ? No.....In line with consoles so it's DX......

From a DEVELOPER perspective, yes, it's wise to want cross platform, if you are reaching a wider market, BUT.....what is the market share for windows users vs. other platform....... Besides this topic is about DX12 from a gamer's perspective, not about developers   So as far as I know many game studios are currently in production of upcoming DX11 and DX12 titles, not OPENGL ones........So we should not expect any OpenGL 4.5 game any time soon.

Cheers.

ALSO I'd love to make Windows / Linux exports with ENIGMA but it's broken, people keep reporting that ENIGMA compiled don't run in Linux, missing files, missing dependency, etc......not of that shit for windows., and I ain't purchasing the Linux export for GMS either......
but yes, in ENIGMA I tend to use GL3.....
The day ENIGMA will be fully cross platform capable will be the day pigs have wings, fly upside down and sing the Scottish national anthem whilst downing the guinness.

[TheExDeus]

what is the market share for windows users vs. other platform

But OpenGL runs just fine on windows. There is 0 reasons to actually use DX on windows. DX is the only way to go for xbox though, so that is why you end up using it. If you only develop for PC, then OGL is the way to go - Mac, Windows and Linux with the same code.

[edsquare]

what is the market share for windows users vs. other platform

But OpenGL runs just fine on windows. There is 0 reasons to actually use DX on windows. DX is the only way to go for xbox though, so that is why you end up using it. If you only develop for PC, then OGL is the way to go - Mac, Windows and Linux with the same code.

You beat me to it Harri, also the other statement about most pc games being developed with DX may have something to do with wanting a share of the XBox cake (If your statement it's actually correct).

When crosscompiling is always best to do it the other way around, from linux to windows, that's because windows is a shitty OS and doesn't know how linux works, while linux does know how windows works. And about missing libraries well it's not the fault of the IDE but of the developer, if you want to crosscompile you have to make sure all the libraries are in place and the ide has the path, great thing that g++ can do windows exports just fine 

But ENIGMA is fully crossplatform it does work on two of the three major OS, and in mac I think there's a small problem about no devs having one (And the fact that Apple are a bunch of prissy C**ts who don't want you to develop for their OS unless you buy their shit). 

Lastly I don't happen to know any scottsman but Guinness is Irish, not sure if a scottsman would drink it while singing the national anthem. 

[Rusky]

Until Xbox One, Xbox didn't actually use regular DirectX, although its API was similar (much like PS3's API being similar to OpenGL but not actually).

However, there is a HUGE reason to use DirectX on Windows- performance, support, and tooling. DirectX drivers have way more work put into them to make them fast, fix bugs, and make them consistent with other drivers. Windows also has better graphics debugging support than OpenGL.

In many ways, DirectX is just an objectively better API. It also gets new features more quickly and doesn't have a sluggish committee that can't seem to decide what it wants.