Curse

seven · Jan 19, 2006, 09:12 PM // 21:12

something new in the advanced options tab was a line that showed
"renderer: directx 8".

i'm quite sure i'm using DX9.0c and my vid card supports it, so i was wondering if there was a way to change it into DX9.

thanks

crimsonfilms · Jan 19, 2006, 09:29 PM // 21:29

What video card do you have?

angshuman · Jan 19, 2006, 09:45 PM // 21:45

Yep, I'm getting DX8 too, and I have a 7800GTX with 81.98 drivers. Was the renderer info also visible before the Jan 19 update? I never noticed. Anyway, I did not see any noticeable differences in-game, so it might be that the game has been using DX8 all along.

Z|insane · Jan 19, 2006, 09:47 PM // 21:47

As far as I know the game has always been DX8... I mean when I upgraded my graphics card all I got was the ability to crank anti aliasing.. The details and such stayed the same.

Kaguya · Jan 19, 2006, 09:58 PM // 21:58

Guild Wars isn't DX9 game, so it still renders in DX8.

Nothing wrong with your hardware, now move along.

If the renderer-part says software, then worry

EternalTempest · Jan 19, 2006, 09:58 PM // 21:58

I wonder if they plan an graphics engine upgrade down the road with future chapters (or maybe chapter 2 is DX 8/9 support instead of DX 8 only).

Or it's one of those "hidden" settings that developers have visible to them that they turned on for the masses.

Sajittarius · Jan 27, 2006, 03:48 AM // 03:48

yea i noticed the renderer said dx8 today also and I have a 7800gt... I found something online about halflife and other games with the same rendering engine i believe, it said to put -dxlevel 9 in your shortcut. I did this, and when i started up gw it acted like it was updating, and then in game uner advanced graphics options, the renderer thing disappeared. I'm not sure if it was coincidental and they removed it or if it is now using dx9. I didn't really notice a difference in image quality, but mayvbe it did change slightly...

swaaye · Jan 31, 2006, 04:59 AM // 04:59

Yeah I knew it was stupid of them to put that info in the Options box. LOL.

The work required to update the entire engine to a fancy DX9 shader glory festival would greatly over spend what they bring in on this game. Companies don't rebuild old products. Not to mention if they did, it would run far slower, and half of their players would be canned because MANY are running with iffy hardware.

And, honestly, what do you want? It to look like EQ2 or WoW? They don't exactly impress me honestly. And they run terrible. EQ2 especially is horrible. It looks horrid IMO and runs even worse. And uses Gigs of RAM.

Honestly, how many of you knew that this game was DX8 before they put that in Options? Do you guys even know what the limits of DX8 are? We never hit them. Hardware never evolves enough to take full advantage of a software tech before we sprint onward as usual. If they can pull off the effects they do with DX8 PS1.1 shaders, well, good for them! This game runs so well!

Many games have multiple rendering paths. Doom3 and HL2 are the biggest examples. And it takes a ton more R&D to pull that off. HL2 and Doom3 target hardware enthusiasts whereas GW obviously targets lower-end to mid-range. Just look at what people on these forums run in general.

The developers of GW were smart. They targetted a larger group of hardware by going with a refined DX8 based engine. They should never have put that display in the Options box though. Bad publicity there.

edit: Haha...looks like that display is gone now! Guess they got lots of complaints about it. Heh.

Kaguya · Jan 31, 2006, 07:00 AM // 07:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by swaaye

Haha...looks like that display is gone now! Guess they got lots of complaints about it. Heh.

Or, what I'm guessing, a lot of email in the tech support about 'How can I change the game to DX9 plzzzz'

Gorebrex · Jan 31, 2006, 02:28 PM // 14:28

GW is coded using DX8, so there is no way to make it use DX9, nor is there any real need. It looks great, runs rather well(aside a few lag problems once in awhile), maybe in chapter 4 or 5 we'll get DX 9 or maybe theyll use DX10(thought I doubt it).

EternalTempest · Jan 31, 2006, 06:41 PM // 18:41

Windows Vista is coming out this year and they are only supporting DX 9 & 10 but dropping support under Vista for older versions. http://blogs.msdn.com/tdragger/archi...18/514571.aspx

So if you get a new pc with Windows Vista, you may not be able to play GW. I highly supsect they will update the game to be DX8/9 Supported so Windows Vista can play. I see this option showing up latter (after an update).

It do admit, GW is a extermly well made game and what it does with DX8 is great.

Kaguya · Jan 31, 2006, 07:26 PM // 19:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by EternalTempest

Windows Vista is coming out this year and they are only supporting DX 9 & 10 but dropping support under Vista for older versions. http://blogs.msdn.com/tdragger/archi...18/514571.aspx

So if you get a new pc with Windows Vista, you may not be able to play GW. I highly supsect they will update the game to be DX8/9 Supported so Windows Vista can play. I see this option showing up latter (after an update).

DX9 is fully backwards compatible, games using older versions run fine on newer ones.

Quote from that page:
And since Microsoft wanted you to be able to run Vista on the PC you already own that meant including DX9. In fact, the new user interface is written in DX9. DX10 will be there for programs that make specific calls to it. For a game like Flight Simulator that means first checking the OS and DX versions and then deciding which functions to call.

Dropping all existing DX1-DX8 games from Vista as 'not supported' would be pretty stupid pull, since all gamers would look at Vista as 'new Linux', the platform where there's no games at all. And that would be a big hit on the sales of a new OS.

And it will take few years to get Vista 'spread' around, as the requirements are over the top for pretty much every computer there is, there won't be games purely made for Vista for some time. If we don't count Solitaire and whatever comes with it.

Plus, Wikipedia says that Vista works fine with DX7 cards, but will lose the 'pretty desktop'.. Not official info on Wiki, but.. Will see when the product is out.

awesome sauce · Jan 31, 2006, 10:16 PM // 22:16

Why does it tell you to use dx9 when you start up the game though? It even has dx9 right there on the installation c.d.

swaaye · Feb 03, 2006, 03:08 AM // 03:08

Cuz the game is compiled to use DX9. The renderer uses DX8 functions, but it probably is built to use DX9 in some way. And DX is more than just D3D; there's audio, input, net, etc.