Microsoft, Flight Simulator developers use images to paint misleading picture
,----[ Quote ]
| We received this set of screenshots ages ago from Microsoft itself, which
| used this game heavily to promote the beauty of DX10 and how necessary is to
| switch from Windows XP to Vista. These two screenshots ended in quite a lot
| of mainstream magazines, and were all over the place in specialist IT media.
|
| [...]
|
| Nobody buys explanations about why Flight Simulator runs so slowly on
| quad-core processors and most powerful graphics cards, as we concluded in our
| review.
|
| FSX is rendering practically everything, forget about any modern 3D feature
| such as Occlussion Culling, Occlusion Querry and Z-buffer compression and
| putting a bitmap cockpit on blanked alpha texture, while everything else is
| being rendered.
|
| This procedure just kills performance and we could not imagine any game past
| DX7 utilizing such a concept.
|
| We cannot avoid the thought that this plot might have been done deliberately,
| in order to spark interest about the game itself and boost sales of a product
| that usually has a limited customer base.
`----
http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2007/11/26/flight-simulator-developer
This is the type of lying scum one needs to deal with when competing against
Microsoft. They use extremely misleading benchmarks (like Get the Facts, which
is banned in places for "misleading marketing", I believe).
Related:
Vista Offers Nothing to Gamers
,----[ Quote ]
| This is just a small sampling of games obviously, but for our
| intended experiment, I think they did the trick. We wanted to
| simulate what a normal gamer might go through in order to play
| games on Vista, and the end result was just slightly more hassle
| than you would with XP.
`----
http://tomshardware.co.uk/2007/03/01/vista_offers_nothing_to_gamers_uk/index.html
Crysis DX10 Fraud Exposed - DX9 to DX10 Patch
,----[ Quote ]
| Crytek developers have deliberately crippled Crysis for the only purpose of
| marketing DX10 and Windows Vista. the proof is a simple config file tweak
| allows the use of 'Very High' quality textures, shadows, etc on DX9 and
| WinXP.
`----
http://haleyshothouse.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5159
DX9 and DX10 performance compared
,----[ Quote ]
| So, it seems, there is some difference to crow about - although it is our
| suspicion that, given the time and inclination, most of the flasher DX10
| features could be retro-fitted without much hassle, and the differences are
| more a product of time and money than capability.
`----
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=41958
Inside CNET Labs: Lamenting DirectX 10
,----[ Quote ]
| We compared the same title side by side on a system running DX10 on Vista to
| the same title on an identical system running DX9 on XP, and it's
| difficult--sometimes impossible--to detect significant differences in how the
| games look or perform.
`----
http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9750536-1.html
Adding DX10 has "done nothing"
,----[ Quote ]
| Having tested the DX10 rendering path against the DX9 version, the chaps at
| the fantastically named Elite Bastards say that they can't "Help but feel a
| little disappointed to see yet another game where the inclusion of DirectX 10
| functionality has done nothing for the title either graphically or from
| performance standpoint".
`----
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=41043
OpenGL 2.x and 3.0 APIs arrive this year
,----[ Quote ]
| Approximately three months after that, Mount Evans (OpenGL 3.0) will
| run specifically on hardware born after November 8th, 2006. You've
| guessed it correctly, we are talking about DirectX 10-class hardware,
| bringing all the features of unified 3D architecture to the world of
| OpenGL. Mount Evans is compatible with Longs Peak, but of course -
| you will require OpenGL 3.0 class hardware to run everything.
`----
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39846
Valve survey shows hundreds of thousands steamed up
,----[ Quote ]
| However, the survey also shows how far Microsoft et al have to go
| - currently, DX10-capable gamers (ie those with Vista and a DX10 card)
| make up 1.21% of the gaming population.
| ^^^^^
`----
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=40049
DAAMIT! AMD's DX10 is not up to scratch
,----[ Quote ]
| The gap isn't much, but there's a good 10-15 per cent difference between
| the two cards, and this is rather disappointing for a card that has
| been repeatedly marketed as future proof.
`----
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=40048
Lord of the Rings Online: DX10 Patch
,----[ Quote ]
| The DX10 codepath offered by the latest update to the Lord of the Rings
| client software gives us no reason to recommend anyone upgrade to Windows
| Vista right now to use it. It offers a couple of real visual quality
| upgrades, but currently with a monstrous performance penalty.
`----
http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTQxMywxLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==
ATI: Linux vs. Windows Vista
,----[ Quote ]
| Wow! We were completely blown away when our final results came in and the
| Linux 8.42.3 driver had outperformed Windows Vista with Catalyst 7.10 in
| Enemy Territory: Quake Wars. It wasn't just a neck-and-neck race but Linux
| was about 10 frames per second faster when running at 1280 x 1024 and 1680 x
| 1050.
`----
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=897&num=3
Gears of War PC Performance and IQ
,----[ Quote ]
| DX10 On = No Advantage
|
| We are not sure exactly what turning on DX10 does, but we do know it causes a
| large performance drop on every video card. In our testing we found
| absolutely no image quality differences by turning this to “On.” The only
| benefit was being able to use “On/Antialiasing” for 4X AA, but you need a
| very fast video card to use that setting. If you have a GeForce 8800
| GTX/Ultra level video card you can enjoy that setting. But on the GeForce
| 8800 GT/GTS and Radeon HD 2900 XT you will have to sacrifice other in-game
| options or resolutions in order to use 4X AA. It is rather a shame because we
| noticed that 4X AA does improve the visual quality of this game in a
| noticeable way.
|
| Disappointing In-Game AA Controls
|
| [...]
|
| Overall Summary
|
| Gears of War plays very well with DX10 set to “Off,” and this is the mode you
| will find the best gaming performance with.
|
| [...]
|
| The Bottom Line
|
| We found no image quality differences inherent to enabling DX10 mode, but we
| did find a large performance drop on every video card. Simply put there is no
| reason to run this game in DX10 unless you have a powerful enough video card
| to handle 4X AA with this mode enabled. For the best performance run this
| game with DX10 “Off” and crank up the resolution with maximum in-game
| settings for a very fun, fast paced, action game.
`----
http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTQxNiwxLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA
Vista-only game cracked
,----[ Quote ]
| Falling Leaf Studios had previously reported that they were working
| on the 'Alky Project' that would contribute 'Alky Compatibility
| Libraries' to allow the successful running of Halo 2 and Shadowrun
| on Windows XP machines.
|
| Looks like it was a lot simpler than that.
`----
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=40538
Hacked DX10 for Windows appears
,----[ Quote ]
| A chap called Cody Brocious from San Diego, California, claims to
| have started to create an wrapper for Windows executables so that
| they can be ran on another operating system, with no prejudice
| about that operating system.
|
| A year in, the Alky Project has gone live under the cover of a
| company Falling Leaf Systems. Members of its Sapling Program will
| be able to get the wrappers for DirectX10 applications and run
| them not just on DX10 hardware under Windows XP, but with some
| DX9 hardware as well.
`----
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39095
Valve questions Microsoft's commitment to PC gaming
,----[ Quote ]
| Half-Life 2 developer Valve thinks that Microsoft's current
| "Games for Windows" marketing push is a cynical ploy to sell
| more copies of Windows Vista, rather than a genuine effort to
| invigorate the PC gaming market.
`----
http://tomshardware.co.uk/2007/03/12/valve_questions_microsofts_commitment/
|
|
