Directx 10

[[DE]Glen]

Warframe already supports DirectX 9 and DirectX 11 and with Update 14.5 we will be adding experimental support for DirectX 10. 

 

Last month when I was hunting hitches I found that certain problems were much worse in DirectX 9 and looking at the telemetry I noticed a substantial number of users stuck using it:

 

It occurred to me that a lot of DirectX 9 players might actually have computers capable of running DirectX 10 even if they are not quite modern enough for DirectX 11. With this in mind I set out one Sunday afternoon to see how difficult it would be to add DirectX 10 support.

 

It turned out to be pretty easy: the trick was to not write a native DirectX 10 driver but instead add a mode to our existing DirectX 11 driver that makes it target downlevel hardware with a few features disabled (Runtime Tessellation and Shader Model 5). 

 

Currently the new driver mode is disabled by default but you can enable it in the launcher settings (it is just like the DirectX 11 option and will be grayed out if your computer does not support it).

 

If you are currently stuck in DirectX 9 mode I would really appreciate it if you could check to see if the DirectX 10 option is enabled for you and turn it on if you can -- it might make a few things run a little smoother -- especially shader upload hitches!

 

Note that if you are running Windows Vista which did not ship with DirectX 11 support you may need to install a few extra packages (see Microsoft KB179113).

 

Although I doubt there are many crashes that are exclusive to this new DirectX 10 mode it would not surprise me if there were a few. If you try it out and get crashes that do not occur in DirectX 9 (or 11) it would be very helpful to get the WAR number for the crash. 

 

For those of you who have not had the pleasure of getting a WAR number from a crash, here is how you get one:

 

 

 

 

Please try not to post unrelated crashes; it would be most helpful if you could only post crashes that are exclusive to DirectX 10 mode so that we can fix it up and get it turned on by default!

 

There other type of bug you might see is graphical glitches or errors that similarly only occur in DirectX 10 mode -- if you find these the best thing to do is to use F6 to take a screenshot (they end up in Warframe folder in your My Pictures folder). Bonus marks will be awarded for glitches that are verified to not occur in the other driver modes. 

 

I will be closely monitoring the effects of this DirectX 10 support for those who choose to opt-in; please use this thread to report your findings.

 

 

NOTES & KNOWN-ISSUES:

 

• a bug prevented this feature from actually working until update 14.5.1

• the High Dynamic Range option was not working in DirectX 10 or 11; if you had HDR disabled in DirectX 9 and switched to 10 or 11 you might have noticed that the bloom was more accentuated -- I've fixed this locally and a future hotfix will restore feature parity.

[Kestral9999]

FINALLY!!!

[--FORMA--]

Edited August 27, 2014 by --DARUDE-SANDSTORM--

[Doomsdayparade]

Hopefully people appreciate this!

[--Q--JoeTheBanshee]

Great work, Glen!

[noveltyhero]

This is off-topic but nobody should use Windows Vista, that abomination hurt millions of people :'(

 

Sorry for that, on topic Directx 10 isn't too bad but between 11 and 9 I choose 9. Glenn will we get support for Directx12?

[Letter13]

Will this be rolling out in the next patch/launcher? 

 

Also will DirectX 10 be visible to those who are able to run DirectX 11, or will it simply not be in the launcher settings? I'm asking since I don't see the option (although I am already able to run in DX11 mode).

[[DE]Glen]

Will this be rolling out in the next patch/launcher? 

 

Also will DirectX 10 be visible to those who are able to run DirectX 11, or will it simply not be in the launcher settings? I'm asking since I don't see the option (although I am already able to run in DX11 mode).

 

Update 14.5 -- Soon ™

 

You can disable 11 in the launcher and enable 10 if you want to test it on a Dx11-capable card -- I've been doing this myself for the last few weeks to watch for bugs.

[Letter13]

Update 14.5

Aha. Sorry I missed the bit at the top of the post.

 

I'll definitely try it out once it's released, assuming that those who can run DX11 are able to uncheck DX11 and check DX10.

[Ace_Kayo]

Awesome! I will gladly test this out on my GTX 295

[PeanutMonster]

U Y CRASH WARFRAME?!?!?!?

[NetSlayer]

Glen is incredible!!!!

Hurray for devs!

 

[[DE]Glen]

This is off-topic but nobody should use Windows Vista, that abomination hurt millions of people :'(

 

Sorry for that, on topic Directx 10 isn't too bad but between 11 and 9 I choose 9. Glenn will we get support for Directx12?

 

9 does shader upload synchronously; 10 and 11 do it in the background which will mean less hitches (aka: frame drops). I've also carefully benchmarked Warframe in both 9 and 11 side by side and there isn't a measurable performance difference (upload time aside) -- you can run 9 if you want but I think most people will have a better experience getting away from 9.

 

12 isn't available to the general public yet -- I'm sure we'll get there eventually but it's not going to be a easy Sunday-afternoon project.

[unknow99]

Does that mean...Better performances for my low end laptop?... :D

[Gekker]

Sweet. Glen still has some tricks up his sleeve :D

[KriLL3]

Reason I don't use DX11 is because it doesn't work with steam's overlay.

[noveltyhero]

9 does shader upload synchronously; 10 and 11 do it in the background which will mean less hitches (aka: frame drops). I've also carefully benchmarked Warframe in both 9 and 11 side by side and there isn't a measurable performance difference (upload time aside) -- you can run 9 if you want but I think most people will have a better experience getting away from 9.

 

12 isn't available to the general public yet -- I'm sure we'll get there eventually but it's not going to be a easy Sunday-afternoon project.

Aha, thanks! By the way, sorry for mispelling name XD

[Archistopheles]

Glen, we need a special edition DirectX Fragor skin now. "Designed to smooth out the rough spots and flatten bugs"

[HiPNoTiK]

Reason I don't use DX11 is because it doesn't work with steam's overlay.

I use DX11 and my steam overlay works

Using 64bit

[Satinpuppies]

Reason I don't use DX11 is because it doesn't work with steam's overlay.

Works for me.

[Alteria]

Interesting, I'll give it a try on my brother's laptop.

[Redhux]

Hey

 

I have been forced to downgrade DirectX 11 to 10 since U14 came because i lost like 20 fps.

 

Even now it isn't constantly fluid (running the fps counter from the option menu of the game) variating from 45 (While Ash's Ulti) to 85 +/-.

 

I have a decent rig even if it is old (i5 2500K, MSi Z68A, 8 Go of PC3-12800, SSD, HD6970 2Go, 850w PS and câble connection) and i'm running Windows 7 x64 up to date on a 24" screen (1920*1080 60Hz).

 

I'm running the last drivers for my card (Tryed old ones, they're lesser efficient).

 

 

 

So please keep us informed, i'll pay a sight in the launcher's option.

 

Thanks

[Rydian]

Reason I don't use DX11 is because it doesn't work with steam's overlay.

Works for me.

[Shehriazad]

Now I will just wait for DX12...the first DX to actually be worth the  name of DIRECT ;p

Edited August 27, 2014 by Shehriazad

[I-KILU]

I'm the one of those users using dx9...tho my gpu supports dx11. And the only reason for it - possibility to force hardware AA (SGSSAA) in dx9 mod. It will be so good to have a proper antialiasing support in dx11...something like Nvidia's TXAA.

Edited August 27, 2014 by I-KILU