BoB lighting capabilities. OpenGL and Direct X question. HDR/Caustics supported?

[proton45]

Originally Posted by Codex

The current engine in IL-2 1946 only bump-maps water AKAIK. There are no height maps used for the aircraft skins so no bump-mapping there, as for the terrain a lot of review sites have stated bump-mapping is used on the terrain but I fail to see it.

As for OpenGL, it runs fine under Vista its just not supported natively, meaning when you installed NT to XP, DX and OpenGL was installed with it, with Vista only DX is installed. Under Vista the OpenGL API has to be installed as an ICD and this is done with your video card drivers. The disadvantage of OpenGL v DX under Vista is that OpenGL doesn't have access to the memory optimisations that DX has, so to get the same optimisations the programmer needs to code more in an OpenGL game rather than have the OS do it for it aka more work for the programmer.

Almost all of the graphical techniques used in DX10 can be done in OpenGL2.1, it just needs a little more work/coding to do it.

one place you can see bump-mapping is on the frozen rivers of any winter map...

[WTE_Tigger]

Frankly the more thats possible to be enabled the better, as long as you can dissable a setting for lower end PC's the more dynamic effects supported the better, think the long term folks, the SoW engine will be around a few years and PC tech will continue to advance.

Me I would like to see support for PhysiX by Ageia. Now that would really set SoW apart from any other similair product.

My 2c.

S!

Tiggs

[Chivas]

I know nothing about opengl or dx9 or 10, but its interesting that water in IL-2's opengl seems alot better than anything I've seen in DX9 FSX. I haven't upgraded FSX to DX10, but know it has been improved, but not sure by how much.

[Feuerfalke]

Originally Posted by Chivas

I know nothing about opengl or dx9 or 10, but its interesting that water in IL-2's opengl seems alot better than anything I've seen in DX9 FSX. I haven't upgraded FSX to DX10, but know it has been improved, but not sure by how much.

Well, FS9 or FSX is not really a good example for realistic water with DX.