PCGH: Valve about DirectX10 in the Source engine

[Fr3ak]

In the Left 4 Dead interview part 2, Valve’s Doug Lombardi is talking about Direct X 10 in Left 4 Dead and in general with the Source engine.



PCGH: And what is your personal opinion about the topic? Is DX10 the way to go and therefore the way of future graphics.

Doug Lombardi: Well I mean there is always that tradeoff between taking the time to adopt the engine to a new API, right. And for us we feel like there still things in DX9 that we can achieve without having to go through the pains of moving to DX 10. (…)So for us as a company and our game designs, we've looked at the tradeoff of the work to move to DX 10 and we have always kind of felt that there is not really enough there for us to delay whatever game we are working on by six to eight month just to say we've a DX10 game. The other thing that is worth mentioning too is to run DX10 natively under the API you have to have both the card and vista. If you google to the Steam hardware survey where we poll peoples machines on Steam you can see that right now there is only about thirteen percent of those people that have both, the DX 10 card and Vista. So you have to look at that as well and say is it worth to investing for thirteen percent of the audience.

Source (English):
http://www.pcgameshardware.de/aid,64...4_Dead_part_2/

[Richard Dower]

If you google to the Steam hardware survey where we poll peoples machines on Steam you can see that right now there is only about thirteen percent of those people that have both, the DX 10 card and Vista. So you have to look at that as well and say is it worth to investing for thirteen percent of the audience.

Oi!...i'm one of those 13%, i'm DX10.1 ready...i demand a game to use it!

[Linchpin]

While I understand their point I can't help but feel that they're just too lazy to bother. They'll join the DX10 party when DX11 will be in clear sight by looks of things.

[Nuker_]

I think they will skip DX10, and move directly to DX11.

[$a1Ty]

seems like chicken or the egg

they wont make DX10 games because noone has vista, and noone will buy vista cos they're arent any DX10 games lol

[G.Foyle]

Side note: Steam hardware survey is full of bugs. It does not detect multi-GPU setups and desktop resolution correctly.

[Kingcarcas]

Oi!...i'm one of those 13%, i'm DX10.1 ready...i demand a game to use it!

It's okay man, you can save money, stock your fridge full of beer

[BrownTown]

seems like chicken or the egg

they wont make DX10 games because noone has vista, and noone will buy vista cos they're arent any DX10 games lol

Well thats one reason, but I would say most people who don't want Vista have alot more reasons to dislike it then just not being able to play Dx10 games.

I think Valve makes a good point though, you can call them "lazy", but if its gonna cost a million bucks and cause a 6 month delay then I would say take your time, I really can't tell much of a difference and neither can most people. I see people complaining alot about the cost of new games, and Valve gets tons of for being late on all their release dates, so I think alot of people are trying to have their cake and eat it too here. You can't have cheap games and short development schedules and also want them to upgrade the engine especially when it will only benefit a small minority of buyers.

[Frank M]

alot of people are trying to have their cake and eat it too

neadz moar portalz

IMO:
1.) Current Dx10 games are just Dx9 ports, or patches. Their extra
functionality was already/also available in Dx9. See Crysis: the Dx10-only
Very high settings could be unlocked with a hack, and it was running on
Dx9 hardware.
2.) Dx9 has not reached it's limits yet. Again Crysis: it has the best
graphics right now, and it runs on Dx9.
Dx9 has been around for some time now; but HDR only became popular
around 2006, when there was strong enough hardware for it. But the
much older, pre-Dx9 Morrowind already had similar (subtler and less
sophisticated) HDR-like effects! So probably the effects that currently
make dx10 "more" (like better fog, lightrays, etc.) could also be
implemented in Dx9.

So I sort of agree with Valve. Dx9 is not dead yet. Making games
natively/exclusively Dx10 would also mean that people will have to
change to Dx10 hw and Vista if they haven't done so up till now.

[Z3R0-CooL]

seems like chicken or the egg

they wont make DX10 games because noone has vista, and noone will buy vista cos they're arent any DX10 games lol

noone has vista and there arent any dx10 games....

wow.. lay off the chronic bro

[kuhla]

It makes sense from a business perspective. Doesn't mean I have to be happy with it

[Data_]

They are looking for the right decision those will bring more money. Valve won't to loose their players.

[LuckyNV]

Personally I'd like to see full multicore support done before any DX10 support.

[Calmatory]

Does DX10 give better graphics? Not really. So why to bother, when there are less than 20 % of "gamers" able to benefit of it?

They are looking for the right decision those will bring more money. Valve won't to loose their players.

They'd rather write a completely new engine from ground uo with DX10 + Multithreading than to start making Source multithreaded. So ditch the 4 yr old engine and bring us something new!

[vengance_01]

You know what as long as valve cranks out more games like HL2, TF2, Portals they can do what ever they want. Whats so great about the source engine is its scalability and its ability to still look very good on lower end machines. Valve is smart and they know right now Direct X 10 is just really marketing. Like someone else mentioned Direct X 9 still has plenty of legs left, and for businesses out their they will contiune to develop for the DX 9 because everyone has at least a DX 9 compliant card.

[Calmatory]

You know what as long as valve cranks out more games like HL2, TF2, Portals they can do what ever they want. Whats so great about the source engine is its scalability and its ability to still look very good on lower end machines. Valve is smart and they know right now Direct X 10 is just really marketing. Like someone else mentioned Direct X 9 still has plenty of legs left, and for businesses out their they will contiune to develop for the DX 9 because everyone has at least a DX 9 compliant card.

Agreed. Besides, Source-based games run wll on DX7 cards aswell. No, you can't go much above 1024*768 and no, don't even dream about AA/AF, but seriously, how many of current "top engines" can be ran with DX7 cards?

I am not saying that it is really important to support DX7, but that way they gained that $20 from me.

[bowman]

Does DX10 give better graphics? Not really. So why to bother, when there are less than 20 % of "gamers" able to benefit of it?



They'd rather write a completely new engine from ground uo with DX10 + Multithreading than to start making Source multithreaded. So ditch the 4 yr old engine and bring us something new!

1: They've stated over and over their approach is to upgrade the engine gradually rather than writing new engines, and this has worked well so far.

2: Source is already multithreaded.

[Ruroni]

They'll drop DX7 support soon enough. I remember an interview they were saying maintaining compatibility with DX7 is the tough part. I feel when they finally drop support for that.. *after EP3 maybeh?* We can break away anew.

2009 is supposed to be the year of new valve stuff, strictly for the high end. Or so they say.

[Frank M]

Personally I'd like to see full multicore support done before any DX10 support.

Dunno, I think CS:S already has great DC support, especially for an engine
of that age... Besides, support for more cores than 2 is rare even in newer
engines.

[Calmatory]

1: They've stated over and over their approach is to upgrade the engine gradually rather than writing new engines, and this has worked well so far.

2: Source is already multithreaded.

Multitheraded in which games? At least CS:S can't get my dual core CPU over 60% load. Both cores max out at around 55/65 %. So yes, it is mutli threaded, but there is ALOT of improving on that field if they want to do it efficiently.

[auchkoenig]

They'll drop DX7 support soon enough. I remember an interview they were saying maintaining compatibility with DX7 is the tough part. I feel when they finally drop support for that.. *after EP3 maybeh?* We can break away anew.

2009 is supposed to be the year of new valve stuff, strictly for the high end. Or so they say.

I dont believe thats gonna happen. Valve has never made their product high end only. They always cater to the masses, meaning 300-500 dollar pc, which is by any standard is no high end.

[Linchpin]

Multitheraded in which games? At least CS:S can't get my dual core CPU over 60% load. Both cores max out at around 55/65 %. So yes, it is mutli threaded, but there is ALOT of improving on that field if they want to do it efficiently.

What on earth does multithreading have to do with how much CPU load you have, virtually all games multithreaded or not never push your CPU to 100% loads constantly.

[Luka_Aveiro]

Oi!...i'm one of those 13%, i'm DX10.1 ready...i demand a game to use it!

ROTFLMFAO!

[LuckyNV]

Dunno, I think CS:S already has great DC support, especially for an engine
of that age... Besides, support for more cores than 2 is rare even in newer
engines.

no, only the newer Source engine introduced by EP2 has multicore support, the only other game using it is TF2. AFAIK neither game has it full enabled yet.

CSS/DODS have yet to transition to the newer engine.

[Star_Hunter]

They'll drop DX7 support soon enough. I remember an interview they were saying maintaining compatibility with DX7 is the tough part. I feel when they finally drop support for that.. *after EP3 maybeh?* We can break away anew.

2009 is supposed to be the year of new valve stuff, strictly for the high end. Or so they say.

Source already dropped DX7 with EP2. Multi-core support on EP2 engine is only party active right now. You have to change mat_queue_mode 2 (default is -1 I think) and you also have to change all the r_threaded commands in console to 1. The issue with these commands is that they often cause crashes right now.