DX9 for B.o.S??

[ZaltysZ]

Originally Posted by Ataros

If seems RoF visuals are not DX9 issue but art direction issue: artistic style vs. photo realistic style and maybe lighting technologies complexity.

Photorealism implies that image is like photograph, which is very different from what human eyes see in reality. I.e. photorealistic image tends to suffer from typical low dynamic range, what makes bright parts too bright, or dark parts too dark. If you are going to represent a tree in bright summer day in photorealistic way, then it will have some leaves almost black, and some leaves almost white, while other leaves will be green. Black/white leaves are details being seen by eyes, but lost because of "photorealism". If you choose to drop photorealism, and make bright leaves less bright, and dark leaves less dark, you will represent more details, but image will become more flat, less impressive/convincing. In other words, if you fix one end, you will break the other, and it will be so until graphic cards and displays will be able to represent high enough dynamic range.

I personally prefer details over impression/feeling in combat sims, because the less I see, the less realistic decision I can make. However, lots of people prefer impression, and RoF kinda goes more for later.

---

By the way, DX9 isn't so inferior visually like some people think. The differences between it and later DX APIs are more important for programmers than end users. There are things impossible or hardly done in DX9, but they are not used commonly anyway.