Will the Witcher 2 ever get a DX11 patch?

[prince_of_nothing]

Will the Witcher 2 ever get a DX11 patch?

Although the graphics in the Witcher 2 are astounding (especially for DX9), will CDPR ever come out with a DX11 patch for the Witcher 2?

DX11 could do a lot to improve the appearance (and performance) of the game if implemented correctly. One area in particular would be the shadows. The shadows in the Witcher 2 aren't very good, and look grainy/dithered. DX11 could improve upon them tremendously with it's contact hardening soft shadows, and HDAO...which is superior to SSAO..

Also, instead of bloom, we could have high quality HDR lighting which looks much more natural and realistic than the oversaturated bloom effects.

Tessellation could then be added to some of the surfaces and objects, ie walls, floors, armor etc...

Another great, but subtle improvement would be the vast reduction in texture pop ins. I'm not a graphics programmer, but I know that one of the key benefits of DX11 is that it allows much greater parallel processing than DX9, which means more objects can be drawn at the same time.

So what do you guys think? Witcher 2 is already a high pedigree PC title, the only thing it is lacking is DX11..

 

[80maxwell08]

Well I honestly think that they chose DX9 in the first place to make it easier to port to consoles later on but at this point it depends. I don't know how long it would take them to work on a full DX11 patch to take full advantage but how much time would that be and would that time be better working on something else? That is my main question. We both agree that it looks absolutely great but how much better would it be with DX11. If CDPR doesn't have anything better to do with that time or they are still working on TW2 then sure but if it would take a long time and they would have stopped working on it otherwise then I would say they should pass on it. Though if that time would be used on making a good mod kit then I would definitely go with the mod kit.

 

[GuyNwah]

I'm all for developers and artists working in the technology they're most comfortable in. There are still few developers who can do good work in DX11, and a lot of crap that isn't worth emulating being done with the technology. I say let them be the judge of what technology they can use to deliver the best results they're capable of, and adopt new technology at a pace that won't make unproductive use of their time or generate more bugs than fine results. I expect they will add DX11 support in due time, but clamoring for it immediately or ahead of new content would be counterproductive.

 

[Daywalker30]

Well I don't have a DX11 graphic card, but it would be great if they add a dx10 or dx11 patch.

 

[AsTheDeath]

Well I don't have a DX11 graphic card, but it would be great if they add a dx10 or dx11 patch.

*coughs* since dx10 performs badly and adds almost nothing I do hope they won't break the game by making it dx10. (Crysis 1 was a good example: it had many 'ultra' details disabled in dx9 and those could only be enabled in dx10, unless you changed them in the config: doing this would result in 'ultra' look but with much better performance than in dx10)

On the topic of improved graphics, the Enhanced Edition videos sometimes feature better graphics (the wall) than currently are in game. It would be odd if the XBox got improved graphics over PC, so I'm expecting CDProjekt to implement that in the PC version as well. We'll see, though.

 

[eskiMoe]

DX11 seems to work pretty poorly in games that have been designed around DX9. I mean the DX11 performance in both Crysis 2 and Batman: Arkham City was hideous although they ran fluid in DX9 mode.

 

[thedagothur]

I Was wondering the same.

I Noticed a change in one of the shots for The EE trailer:

This... Could mean a possible DX11 patch, but i'm not holding my breath.
Specially since that's footage from the 360 version(the top one, obviously)

 

[Daywalker30]

*coughs* since dx10 performs badly and adds almost nothing I do hope they won't break the game by making it dx10. (Crysis 1 was a good example: it had many 'ultra' details disabled in dx9 and those could only be enabled in dx10, unless you changed them in the config: doing this would result in 'ultra' look but with much better performance than in dx10)

uhh arkham city performed way better (fluently) in dx10 than in dx9 and that applies to some other games I played in dx10 as well, so why don't take the extra fps?

 

[username_2093396]

DX11 seems to work pretty poorly in games that have been designed around DX9. I mean the DX11 performance in both Crysis 2 and Batman: Arkham City was hideous although they ran fluid in DX9 mode.

Yeah, most games that I know of which have DX11 support had it tacked on almost as an afterthought (such as the two games you mentioned). I think DX11 is surely capable of much better than that, but I don't think we'll start to see a significant improvement until the majority of developers drop support for Windows XP.

As long as they keep designing games around DX9 to keep support for XP, they'll have trouble doing DX11 correctly. I think a game would have to be designed around DX11 from the start in order to fully take advantage of the benefits that it offers, but that would also mean limiting the potential market so it's a risky move right now.

With TW2 specifically I think CDPR made the right choice because DX9 seems to have done everything they wanted it to do, and I'd rather have them spend their time making more content instead of trying to learn how to use DX11 and implement it in TW2 in a way that doesn't seem tacked-on.

I'm sure they'll move on to DX11 for future games once the market shifts and most people have DX11-capable PC's, but that will probably take another few years at least (according to the Steam hardware survey, only about 1/3 of the people surveyed had a machine capable of running DX11).

 

[eskiMoe]

As long as they keep designing games around DX9 to keep support for XP, they'll have trouble doing DX11 correctly. I think a game would have to be designed around DX11 from the start in order to fully take advantage of the benefits that it offers, but that would also mean limiting the potential market so it's a risky move right now.

BF3 did it, and the game runs super smooth in DX11..

 

[username_2093396]

BF3 did it, and the game runs super smooth in DX11..

As far as I know, Battlefield 3 doesn't support XP or DX9 (I don't have the game though so I'm just going by this article I found). I guess EA figured the franchise was big enough that it would still sell well even with the risk of cutting out potential customers with XP, or maybe their market research showed that most fans already had DX10/11 anyway. I don't think it's a risk that a smaller developer can afford to take right now though, but hopefully in a few years the situation will be more favorable towards DX11.

 

[Username.]

DX11 seems to work pretty poorly in games that have been designed around DX9. I mean the DX11 performance in both Crysis 2 and Batman: Arkham City was hideous although they ran fluid in DX9 mode.

Crysis 2 looks and runs beautifully here, agree on Batman though.

 

[M4xw0lf.978]

What i would prefer greatly over any DX11 implementation would be in-game SGSSAA, instead of the truly performance-wrecking Ubersampling.

 

[GuyNwah]

What i would prefer greatly over any DX11 implementation would be in-game SGSSAA, instead of the truly performance-wrecking Ubersampling.

Better yet, just not have the visuals break when AA modes the GPU is already capable of are forced. That way you get SGSSAA if the card supports it, without having to implement it yourself.

 

[CostinRaz]

I don't think it's a risk that a smaller developer can afford to take right now though

After they made TW2 have such high system demands? They took a risk with that, and it did pay off.

To me Arkham City played very well on my machine, but then again I have good PC.

 

[username_2093396]

After they made TW2 have such high system demands? They took a risk with that, and it did pay off.

To me Arkham City played very well on my machine, but then again I have good PC.

The minimum requirements on the TW2 box are pretty low (the box claims it can run on a Geforce 8800). I don't really believe that the game would actually run well on those specs, but nonetheless the box was attempting to keep the potential audience as large as possible by writing relatively low minimum requirements.

Arkham City ran fine for me in DX9 mode. I haven't tried DX11 so I don't have any firsthand experience with it, but at least before the first few patches the Steam forums were full of threads with people having trouble getting DX11 mode to work properly. Hopefully Rocksteady has fixed it by now.

 

[CostinRaz]

It runs pretty badly on the specs actually.

 

[username_2093396]

It runs pretty badly on the specs actually.

Yeah, I figured. I've got the recommended specs (not minimum) and it still runs around 30 FPS for me so I'm very surprised at the listed minimum requirements on the box. I can only assume that it was a marketing decision to avoid scaring people away with high requirements or something like that

 

[chromie92]

As far as I know, Battlefield 3 doesn't support XP or DX9 (I don't have the game though so I'm just going by this article I found). I guess EA figured the franchise was big enough that it would still sell well even with the risk of cutting out potential customers with XP, or maybe their market research showed that most fans already had DX10/11 anyway. I don't think it's a risk that a smaller developer can afford to take right now though, but hopefully in a few years the situation will be more favorable towards DX11.

Yea Battlefield 3 only supports DX10/11. But it does run amazing. I play at max at 1920x1200 on a single HD 5770 in single player I get 60 fps on a huge map with 60+ people I get around 50fps. It's pretty damn great. Like Constin said CDPR already took a gamble when they made the game need high requirements. Directx 9 isn't incredibily efficient and I praise CDPR for making Witcher 2 very scalable I can play at max minus AA, Uber, SSAO and medium shadows at a demanding res and still get 35+ fps. Now if there was a DX11 I bet there could be some more fps I could squeeze out.

 

[thedagothur]

Yea Battlefield 3 only supports DX10/11. But it does run amazing. I play at max at 1920x1200 on a single HD 5770 in single player I get 60 fps on a huge map with 60+ people I get around 50fps. It's pretty damn great. Like Constin said CDPR already took a gamble when they made the game need high requirements. Directx 9 isn't incredibily efficient and I praise CDPR for making Witcher 2 very scalable I can play at max minus AA, Uber, SSAO and medium shadows at a demanding res and still get 35+ fps. Now if there was a DX11 I bet there could be some more fps I could squeeze out.

on DX10? Really?

i mean i don't have the game but i keep hearing the game runs like Crap on DX10.