I'll just repeat what Oleg has mentioned here in forum posts:

DX9 / DX10 / DX11 will be supported.

No use will be made of tessallation in initial release though but it may be used later.

JAMF, can't help but feel you're being a little pedantic in your interpretation of "supported". If you are waiting for the devs to spell it all out in minute detail you'll be waiting a long time.

He doesn't. I'll bet Zapatista's shorts on it. ;)

My point is simply: Anyone claiming that DX11 is needed for SoW, or any DX11-specific features are being used can not show evidence of this being true. I don't expect Mr. Maddox or Mr. Shevchenko to reply in detail, or even with a "DX11 specific features are used", so I'm not waiting for that.

Just playing devil's advocate. If we see complaints by customers who bought SoW that DX11 features aren't used, they will blame the developers. Mr. Maddox can then answer each of these complaints over and over again with "Show me where I said that?". I for one don't want to see any of that. I'm just trying to warn people that "supported" doesn't mean much and will not give them any basis to complain later.

Wishing... and reading things that "have to mean" something, does not make it happen or make it true on SoW release.

You're half right; I don't want to update(yet)... because I already am DX11 compliant. Windows 7 64Bit and 5870 here, so your assumption was wrong. You know what's said about assuming?

I hope and hoped for many things WRT SoW (as one can read from my questions regarding tessellation and other things in the update threads), but I never expect too much.

Your evidence for this is.... What?
Sorry for being blunt/rude but you dont seem to know much about how computer graphics work do you? Or you didnt read my explanation.
I think I coverd the power vs graphics detail in it.

Yes you are very right, its very much up in the air atm (no pun intended) so maybe I am using wishfull thinking. Sorry for the comment about your computer, I am jaded from forums where people want to go back and play with 2d sprites because they have a 10 year old computer :rolleyes:

I do feel that it will be optional/used on the high end though, the cockpit ligting is just beutiful and I havent seen anything with lighting of that quality in DX9 especially with all the different surfaces (glass,metal panels etc).
*also want to note that earlier I didnt say it would be *only* dx11, just that it would be dx11 and use its features which I assumed from the news I have heard.

It doesn't work that way. If you want that roof or plowed field to look better it's great and saves you cycles, but for other thing like rendering large formations of aircraft. . . nope! You could make that 22 sided circle in the Dornier's engine nacelle look like a perfect circle, or that corrugated metal on the side of a Ju-52 look real, but that's about it.

Tessalation is a fancy mapping trick, not some miracle fix-all.

Oleg said that SoW would make use of DX11 (ie, features etc new to DX11).

PS - just telling you what he said, I haven't got time to search for quotes.

Can

Ok, so I say I haven't got time to check :) Here are a couple of quotes from Oleg:
Saying "We plan the game not only for DX11...." suggests it will take advantages of the improvements made in DX11.

In response to the question "I Hope they will support DX11 as it is DX brakethrough like DX 9 was." he said:
Now that is pretty clear that DX11 will have graphics that are not in DX10 or DX9, so DX11 will be a benefit.

Come on, ok lets make it simple. Run Heaven benchmark without tesselation, then with tesselation.

Notice any differance in, oh i dont know, fps maby?


P.S. As for your explanation, i dont know what i has to do with tesselation perse. Why would tesselation be usefull rendering boxes (bombers) from 4 km away? Thats not what tesselation is all about.

Its not like u get all those thousands of extra polygons for free u know. Tesselation isnt used for extra performance boost, its used to get extra eyecandy with less performance hit than with traditional tecniques, however u WILL have a performance hit no matter how u slice it compared to not running tesselation.

Is it just me who finds the post you just quoted extremely amusing? "Sorry for being blunt/rude but you dont seem to know much about how computer graphics work do you?" Backing up an argument that basically says "Tesselation = magic, be sure!". :)

... Ok no you dont but you need to think through your posts. Oleg can make beutiful and high polygon count models of aircraft, smoot rounded hulls and all. Without tessalation or distance mapping the aircraft is renderd in all its full glory even at 10 miles away where you can even make out what type of plane it is. So 1000 planes in the distance (lets say far enough that you can see there basic outline) are being renderd in full detail (high polygon count). Dont you think this will kill frame rate?

With tessalation, those aircraft in the distance would be low polygon count models, but you would not be able to see that because they are far from you on the screen, this gives a big boost in performance as it has far far far less rendering/polygons the gpu has to work with. As you get closer the tessalation kicks in and increases the polygon count gradually, you never notice the difference but at close range the plane is just as detailed if not far more detailed then it would be without tesselation. You get the quality without the performance hit that the quality would bring otherwise.

And yes I do have the unigine benchmark and have used it extensivly to setup my gpu/overclock. The reason I responded as I did before was because your question was silly, think about it...
Of course it takes a fps hit creating each cobblestone vs flat bump mapped ground. BUT without tesselation you would have the flat ground, or the ENTIRE image would be tesselated, even distant objects you cannot visually see clear enough to see any change. Therefor tessalation improves performance as it phases in geometry when you can actually get close enough to see it.

I have done some graphics work in the past with Maya 7.0 (mostly), including models, texture mapping (photoshop) and alittle animation. As far as I can tell from the Oleg quote I think he misunderstands and or isnt updated on the newest info (from what I have heard). I will look for it but I believe Nvidia advertised multi level tesselation for models with the 500 series release. Therefor the models would not have to be modeled (which they arent) as tesselation extrapolates from the base models (sure its alittle more complicated then that, but thats the jist of what I heard).

Not an amazing video but this demonstrates the difference, pay attention to the geometry mesh (I know its not a great video). As a recap tesselation allows huge polygon counts with minimal performance loss due to it being based on distance. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-6lR...eature=related