Widescreen Gaming Forum

Yep very true, I'm sure they saved a good chunk by not having to upgrade to DX10.1. And honestly since they have the power with all of their partners it really ended up bringing ATI Down since there is such a limited number of games with DX10.1 It hurts what ATI was wanting to do by saying "Only with ATI can you get the latest DX10.1 graphics" Well the message means little to most gamers considering Nvidia wont even let a huge number of game company's use it. [Like Ubisoft - Assassins Creed for example]Sad.

That's putting it in a more accurate perspective. There's simply not enough games supporting it to even see it as a major selling feature. Furthermore it shows that despite ATI putting out some great cards lately, they have a long ways to go to sway game development. I think a lot of that has to do with their inferior driver writing.

I don't think it's fair owners of ATI based DX10.1 cards take things so far as to imply Nvidia is practicing foul play in cooperating with developers in projects that don't have DX10.1 support. In fact they do support it to some degree, they were just slow to get to the table with it. It's not Nvidia's fault that ATI are not as good at marketing their product, or supporting it for that matter.

That's putting it in a more accurate perspective. There's simply not enough games supporting it to even see it as a major selling feature. Furthermore it shows that despite ATI putting out some great cards lately, they have a long ways to go to sway game development. I think a lot of that has to do with their inferior driver writing.

I don't think it's fair owners of ATI based DX10.1 cards take things so far as to imply Nvidia is practicing foul play in cooperating with developers in projects that don't have DX10.1 support. In fact they do support it to some degree, they were just slow to get to the table with it. It's not Nvidia's fault that ATI are not as good at marketing their product, or supporting it for that matter.

Are you kidding me?

ATI does not have the money to shower the game developers to have a stupid "Plays best on ATI Hardware" like nvidia does.

Assassins creed has DX10.1 support on the disk, It also has a "Powered by nvidia" logo when you start the game, with everything maxed out even the 3850's were performing near the 9800GTX's in benchmarks[citation needed] By enabling dx10.1 on ATI Cards while AA was enabled not only did you get a better looking game but also an FPS boost through the roof 10-35%! Then mysteriously in the first patch that was rushed out the door (nearly as fast as the PC version of the game was!) it removed all traces of DX10.1 and put nvidia firmly in the lead on the benchmarks. Thats some plain old bullshit if i ever saw some.

Why would the developers waste time (probably days) implanting DX10.1 only to remove it? They could have spent all that time actually fixing the problems with the game if they really intended for it to never be included.

They still do not support it, proprietary functions that mimic DX10.1 is not supporting it what so ever.


And as a current nvidia owner right now, I sure as hell wish that I had an ATI card, for their drivers alone.



Sauce:

http://www.rage3d.com/articles/assassinscreed/index.php?p=1
http://rage3d.com/articles/assassinscreed-addendum/
HUGE visual increase jumping to DX10.1; with a huge performance increase at the same time
http://www.pcgameshardware.de/screenshots/original/2008/04/HD_3870_8800_GT_SP1.jpg

Windows 7's desktop features like Aero will use natively DX10.1 and will also incorporate a software version (by CPU) for those who don't have support for 10.1 on hardware:

Windows 7 Aero Will Use DX10.1

http://www.cpu3d.com/news/6404-1/windows-7-aero-will-use-dx10-1/story.html

The Win 7 Beta 1 is clearly DX11 based according to dxdiag.

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I know that I'll certainly wait for DX11 before i upgrade my video...

Hopefully the next Microsoft OS will be more Mikeh-friendly than Vista.

OK, I admit, I didn't know FC2 and CS support it, but CS only via patch. Also, it really doesn't bring much other than a bit more effective use of AA. Assassin's Creed only had it via a demo Ubi launched, then they pulled support for it. I maintain, DX10.1 is no big deal compared to what DX11 will bring, otherwise Nvidia would have jumped on it sooner.

Actually, it brings much more. What you see in games is only some features implemented. If you think about DX10 games (and not so much DX9 ports) where they use cube mapping, you'll see even more.

Whats great with the AA is that it can do more in each rendering pass.

You have the same function with cube mapping, where DX10 offers one cube per rendering pass, while DX10.1 offers multiple read/write per pass. COH is one of the DX10 games that uses cube mapping and would probably give a big performance increase due to the indexable multiple cube mapping arrays in DX10.1. GI is also more usable in DX10.1. of the same reasons.

DX11 is even greater offering more features. Howver, the userbase is small and unfortunatly Microsoft doesn't offer software support for some of the features in their upcoming software DX10/DX10.1.

Anyone that thinks a few games supporting DX10.1 is a realistic reason to insist on DX10.1 hardware is missing the point I think. It's ongoing support that really matters to most gamers. You know, the type that feel upgrading every 6 months to a year is rather exorbitant. Ongoing support is more a mindset of Nvidia than ATI. ATI, from my experience owning their cards for the last 4 yrs, is mainly intent on a generation or two of support. After that you can forget about any driver attention concerning your card.

Ongoing support is whats important. We agree upon that. Large titles and developers have signed up for it already . Considering how new it is (Vista SP1) and looking how slowly DX10 have adopted, its gotten a fair amount of support already. Bringing support to DX10.1 doesn't exlude the DX9 owners. ;)

It's kind of funny and ironic how many DX10 card owners were saying the same thing about not being all that concerned about DX10.1. Now there are many whom originally thought DX10.1 cards were a noticeable improvement preferring to go DX11. And keep in mind, enhanced AA doesn't mean squat in games that don't even support AA at all like GTA IV.

In the scope of DX advancements, DX10.1 will probably not be remembered or used very long.

In the scope of DX advancements, DX10.1 has been more rapidly adopted then DX10 which have been on the market longer. Developers wants their games to work the best, but it costs money with several rendering paths in developing time. Therefore, I think more who has been sitting on the fence now actually see the benifits more with the increasing userbase capabilities.

Its coming in more games then before and who knows, even upcoming titles that didn't originally have DX10.1 might get a patch like we saw in Stalker - Clear sky ;)

I for one, is going to enjoy the enhanced DX10.1 support in Windows 7 which comes out in free beta soon. Of course, it can be run on software through CPU with MS's new support of software DX, but I prefer it al natural :P

@Gimpi: Windows 7 comes with DX11, which is backward compatible with older DX. DX10.1 is the native API for windows AERO and the like. :)

The Win 7 Beta 1 is clearly DX11 based according to dxdiag.

Yeah, Win 7 is DX11, but I think Tamlin was talking about the Aero interface having support for, and using, DX10.1 extensions rather than Windows 7 being DX10.1... :)

I can only presume that they aren't utilising DX11 extensions for Aero because they aren't needed, or it isn't totally finalised but they needed a codebase with which to work from to create a stable Win 7 Aero.

Seeing as developers can patch their DX 10 games to DX 10.1 without too much effort (GSC did it and they are not the most competent developers ever) I do think its a mistake for nvidia to casually skip it over. We'll have DX10.1 games for a good while before DX 11.


I'm lucky I got a 4850. Amazing card for 130$ USD, DX 10.1 and it is still on par with nvidia's newer stuff.

ATI does not have the money to shower the game developers to have a stupid "Plays best on ATI Hardware" like nvidia does.

Though it may sound like hype to a lot of ATI owners, Nvidia has the money to do such things because they have a popular product with loyal customer base. Again, a lot of that comes back to consistently good driver writing. Both have had their screw ups on the software side, but far more so in ATI's camp from my experience.

This is pure speculation on my part, but it could be that Nvidia decided to focus on DX11 vs solely on DX10.1 when it was discovered MS was ahead of schedule on W7. I like what I'm hearing about W7, but I'm skeptical that despite it having Vista as it's core foundation, the heavy reworking of the code may put us back to square one with software compatibility taking a while to mature.

@Tamlin,
Sure DX10.1 offers more than enhanced AA, but so far the AA is all the support we've really seen in games, and very few games at that. It's common for ATI customers to bemoan what could be. Frankly you can't count on what could be in this industry though. To a degree you have to go with what is being supported the most to not have wasted features.

I'm never going to buy my hardware with the mindset that the features and intended use sounds good on paper. I want concrete evidence that I'll get widespread and ongoing support for it. With Nvidia, I feel it's much less of a gamble to have that.

Though it may sound like hype to a lot of ATI owners, Nvidia has the money to do such things because they have a popular product with loyal customer base. Again, a lot of that comes back to consistently good driver writing. Both have had their screw ups on the software side, but far more so in ATI's camp from my experience.

Thats the big problem. Camps. ATI and Nvidia are companies with shareholders just caring about profits. I never understood this camping. Many of us just buy whatever the best offering we thing is at the moment on given price point regardless of ATI vs. Nvidia.

Camping creates a lot of FUD. For some reason, users likes to bring out lies and doubts about products to promote other products. Free of charge. They are useful idiots for companies, which only interest is to earn money.

Like the driver writing. Some claim that ATI have more unstable drivers, while others say Nvidia have more unstable drivers. And, they never back it up with numbers or any kind of facts. They only throw it out as a "truth" and that this truth apply to everyone.

I've been doing support for years and I don't claim that its given you get more stability if to choose one vendor in GFX cards. If I would have made such claims, at least I would try to back it up with some facts. Something like this:

NVIDIA drivers responsible for nearly 30% of Vista crashes in 2007

http://www.engadget.com/2008/03/27/nvidia-drivers-responsible-for-nearly-30-of-vista-crashes-in-20/

Total market share of GPU's in Q1 2008:
AMD: 18.1%
Intel: 47.3%
Nvidia: 31.4%

http://www.jonpeddie.com/about/press/2008/q2-2008-gpu-shipments.php

With only the data above, I can give a more valid statement that Nvidia drivers are much worse then any other GFX manufacturer even when adjusting for market share. This statement would be more valid then any other online just saying that XXX's drivers are better then YYY's drivers, because they feel so and one vendor hurt their feelings. :P

If you are to go on about driver stability, at least dignify it with some facts and statistics to back up your statements.

This is pure speculation on my part, but it could be that Nvidia decided to focus on DX11 vs solely on DX10.1 when it was discovered MS was ahead of schedule on W7. I like what I'm hearing about W7, but I'm skeptical that despite it having Vista as it's core foundation, the heavy reworking of the code may put us back to square one with software compatibility taking a while to mature.

DX11 can use DX10.1 features and by implementing DX11 on the newer cards, the userbase of DX10.1 will increase. Going DX11 would only mean more people to use DX10.1 games. Nvidia should have given gamers DX10.1 meanwhile, since there's no backside to that.

@Tamlin,
Sure DX10.1 offers more than enhanced AA, but so far the AA is all the support we've really seen in games, and very few games at that. It's common for ATI customers to bemoan what could be. Frankly you can't count on what could be in this industry though. To a degree you have to go with what is being supported the most to not have wasted features.

The thing is that its not a wasted feature. The userbase of DX10.1 grows more and more and when the DX11 comes in cards, DX10.1 base will be even bigger including the DX11 owners. The reason why we see DX9 games, is still because of XP's large market share and developers go after the lowest common denominator (and a lot of console ports being to blame as well). DX10.1 is a supported feature already and everyting indicates that it will grow.

I'm never going to buy my hardware with the mindset that the features and intended use sounds good on paper. I want concrete evidence that I'll get widespread and ongoing support for it. With Nvidia, I feel it's much less of a gamble to have that.

I didn't quite get what you ment with that. Its not a gamble having DX10.1, its a free bonus. You still have support for DX10 and below. Its just that you have support for more as well and can take advantage of those features natively.

Just because Windows blames a crash on a set of drivers, does not mean its the drivers fault. My old setup BSODed more than 5 times a day, blaming Nvidia drivers almost half the time.

After a hardware overhaul of CPU, motherboard, and RAM; but using those same drivers everything was smooth sailing.

My point = erronous error reporting = erronous report about errors.

Though I'm not saying that the reported percentage is way off, I'm just saying that we should keep in mind that there is a range of accuracy in play here.

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