Really hate to post this...BUT... this looks too awesome not to.

[Ulfarus]

It may only be a tech demo but it is impressive. Eve does have the luxury of having different versions that can run directx 9 or later versions depending on your machine.

I appreciate it is about resources and the size of audience but directx 11 capable graphics cards aren't a niche but a substantial part of the market now.

As others have said games aren't all about the graphics but it certainly helps with reviews. Lets not forget X is perceived as a hard game to get to grips with for newcomers, to be fair they are not wrong the UI hasn't made any significant leaps since the original game.

I hope that rebirth looks good, unfortunately it is not how the game looks but the features of rebirth that have made this a wait and see, rather than a pre-order.

[wwdragon]

I hope X:Rebirth stays DX9.

REquiring DX11 would cut out a lot of people who would otherwise play the game.

[Sahvion]

I hope X:Rebirth stays DX9.

REquiring DX11 would cut out a lot of people who would otherwise play the game.

Umm, not really. DX11 is a staple now on graphic's cards, which means that most of your gamers would more than likely have access to said card (there will naturally be those who don't, but their numbers are most likely in the minority)

That's why I agree that there should be a DX9 and DX11 option.

[rusky]

I don't get why you need the latest and greatest in gfx for XR though.

Space games don't really need amazing gfx tech to look pretty, and i think X3 still looks very nice today and probably still will next year.

The less effort is spent on prettier gfx at this point, the better imo. If you want the latest gfx innovations, look up Crysis 3.

[Ulfarus]

Look at the demo in the opening post. It shows exactly what this sort of tech is capable of and why it would be good in a space sim.

I would rather have it than not, the asteroids look amazing, as does the ship.

The X games have always tried to look amazing and shouldn't stop now.

[SuckMyNova]

Looks amazing, reminded me of this (same tech?):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00gAbgBu8R4

Sure, it would be nice to have this level of detail in X-Rebirth, but honestly, assuming the implementation consumes significant amounts of developer time, I'd rather not have it because after a week the initial wow-effect will have faded anyway, leaving only the content that had to be dumbed down as a tradeoff.

[Loktin]

I hope X:Rebirth stays DX9.

REquiring DX11 would cut out a lot of people who would otherwise play the game.

Umm, not really. DX11 is a staple now on graphic's cards, which means that most of your gamers would more than likely have access to said card (there will naturally be those who don't, but their numbers are most likely in the minority)

That's why I agree that there should be a DX9 and DX11 option.

The reason people don't like the idea of cutting edge graphics all the time is that people (the majority, I promise you) don't update their graphics card regularly. Even I feel bitter about needing to upgrade the parts on a machine I paid $1300 for like two and a half years ago.

ofc it is important to understand that DX 11 features don't exclude DX 9 cards.. developing DX 11 features can eat away at development without providing DX 9 users anything in return. You win some, you lose some, imo, but the frustration should be pretty understandable.

[Zanzubaa]

oh wow ye Teselation technology is a great way of dealing with graphic intensive asteroid fields. they would not all have to be the same either, you could mix it up a bit without impacting graphic performace to much.

[Zloth]

This would help a TON with the rocks. You've all seen how asteroids in X3 will suddenly pop from low detail to high detail. That's terrible for immersion! Tess makes the details come in smooth as silk. Ships could stand to gain, too, as the OP's video shows.

I don't really know a bump map from a normal map so I don't really understand what the dev was talking about there but it sounds like this isn't too horribly difficult to put in. The video card itself is figuring out all those fiddly little details so it's not like an artist needs to design every square millimeter of every ship.

As for DX11 popularity, Steam is saying 42% of gaming computers have DX11 as of April. NVIDIA's new batch of cards likely pushed that number up even more this month. By 2013, I expect over half of gamers to have DX11.

And remember: reviews are written for how the game looks and plays when it comes out. Yes, Egosoft could add tess in a patch six months after the game comes out but all the reviews will be written by then.

The future is now, folks. The "Heaven" demo mentioned above may be a tech demo but it's one that came out years ago. I'm sorry if you can't afford it right now but, hey, Egosoft is into the long term. So what if you don't get the eye candy on day 1? You know very well that Egosoft will make sure there's a day 300, a day 600, and probably even a day 1000. You WILL get to see it some day.

P.S. Stone Giant is another good one for viewing tesselation.

[Chris0132]

This would help a TON with the rocks. You've all seen how asteroids in X3 will suddenly pop from low detail to high detail. That's terrible for immersion! Tess makes the details come in smooth as silk. Ships could stand to gain, too, as the OP's video shows.

So does adding in a couple of extra LOD levels.

I can't really see much since DX9 that would really add to a space game.

I mean, tesselation is ok I guess, but a space game is more or less idealy suited for the LOD method, as it's all discrete models, not an actual continuous environment. And it's not like you could use god rays or distortion effects or dynamic material effects much, because god rays would mean everything glows, there isn't anything to distort in space really, and you don't see much in the way of textures beyond the starbox and planets, and egosoft can easily devote some time to making those look good without new API technology. I mean, look at say, the citadel portal effect in HL2:EP2. That looked absolutely awesome and it was all DX9, and a simple layered model effect, something like that for planets with cloud layers and the like would make them look lovely.

Personally I think the X:R screenshots look better than the tech demo, because good art has a lot less to do with technology and a lot more to do with how good your artists are, and the X:R screenshots show that egosoft has some damn good artists. You see the same thing with skyrim, it looks awesome because bethesda have really good artists, not because they use DX11.

[amtie]

Those extra LOD levels for EVERYTHING will cost a LOT. You're practically asking for a remake of all models, albeit on a less-detailed level. Whereas tessalation could do that automatically. The remake involves artist's time, which reduces model diversity due to not being able to work on more unique models, and increases the game's size, for those extra LOD models.

I'm not pro-DX11 or pro-DX9, to be honest. I just want X:R to look good (and I don't mean great or photorealistic). I'd rather have TC graphics and far more gameplay/intuitive UI etc.

[Zloth]

Planets that you can't go to would not be a good use of tesselation. If X:R is like X3:TC then simple 2D pictures will do just fine again. However, while real space is exceedingly empty (and dark), space in games is full of all sorts of things. Big rocks being one of them. Spaceships and space stations being others. These would gain from having a detail level that smoothly increases as the player's point of view gets closer to the object.

Personally I think the X:R screenshots look better than the tech demo, because good art has a lot less to do with technology and a lot more to do with how good your artists are, and the X:R screenshots show that egosoft has some damn good artists. You see the same thing with skyrim, it looks awesome because bethesda have really good artists, not because they use DX11.

A great artist can make wonderful pictures out of notebook paper and a child's watercolor set. You'll notice that very few of them actually DO that, though. Similarly, great graphics artists have made very pretty work even back in the 8.... err... well, even back in the 16 bit days. But giving them more technology to work with lets them make even better art.

Hehe, Skyrim might not be the best example. I had 3D Vision cranked up for that game. You've played Skyrim but I've been there.

[Nanook]

Planets that you can't go to would not be a good use of tesselation. If X:R is like X3:TC then simple 2D pictures will do just fine again. ...

Except that planets in TC are three dimensional objects, not 2D art. I know because I've flown around a few and killed myself in the atmosphere of others. Admittedly, the textures of the surface are basically 2D, but the planets themselves are 3D.

[wwdragon]

As long as we can still run it on normal DX9 built machines, I'll be happy.

[Chris0132]

A great artist can make wonderful pictures out of notebook paper and a child's watercolor set. You'll notice that very few of them actually DO that, though. Similarly, great graphics artists have made very pretty work even back in the 8.... err... well, even back in the 16 bit days. But giving them more technology to work with lets them make even better art.

Yes which is why I would entirely support buying the egosoft devs the latest modelling software and a 3d texturing package or something.

But the newer DX versions just don't offer anything I know of that would be of use to a space game. Like I said, tesselation is kinda cool, but space games are ideally suited to just using LODs, you don't generally operate at very close ranges and most of the stuff you do see close up is going to be artificial, and thus angular, and thus very easy to keep to low polycounts.

We have long since reached the point where technology doesn't offer very much in the way of new and amazing visual effects, HL2:EP2 blows up buildings using animation technology from 2004, and it looks awesome. Skyrim could probably be built on the oblivion engine and look almost as good, art just doesn't have much to do with technological limitations any more, it's about how good your art direction is, how you make your game visually stand out with your design decisions, how you make eye catching scenes, how inspired your art is, not how many polygons it has.

Crysis has all the art tech in the universe, but everyone remembers the combine from HL2 better than anything in crysis, because one is really well designed artistically, and one has really powerful technology. All the technology in the world won't help mediocre art direction, and good art direction is good regardless of what technology you put on it.

[amtie]

Except that planets in TC are three dimensional objects, not 2D art. I know because I've flown around a few and killed myself in the atmosphere of others. Admittedly, the textures of the surface are basically 2D, but the planets themselves are 3D.

Nanook, although I presume you're talking about the physical surface, planet surfaces ARE supposed to look 2D. If you've seen some of the X:Rebirth screenshots with a planet in the background, the surface appears to be in 3D. It looks wrong. In reality, due to the distance and scale of topography of the planet surface compared to the distance to the planet, the surface of the planet SHOULD look 2D. Until you get close. Just like in the Infinity Alpha demo.

[notaterran]

According to the Infinity demo it runs on a Q6600 and a 4890 (not exactly cutting edge) but I suspect there's an obscene amount of memory involved.

[NLS]

No, smart coding doesn't need much memory. It doesn't mean everything is in RAM.

[Bill Bones]

If not else, CCP really has got a strong grasp on trailers...


EVE Inferno trailer