Introduction

Unlike previous DirectX launches where new games using the technology often trailed the introduction of the new API by a year or more, the transition from DirectX 9 to DirectX 10 has been a swift one so far: already a trio of DirectX 10 games have been released (Lost Planet, World in Conflict, and BioShock), while a pair of games have been patched to take advantage of DX10 – Company of Heroes DX10 patch came in May, while Call of Juarez was patched and released for the US market with DX10 support in June. Other games we can look forward to later this year include Age of Conan, Crysis, EVE: Online, Flight Simulator X (Patch), Gears of War PC, Hellgate: London, and Unreal Tournament 3.

As we’ve mentioned in the past, all of these games use DirectX 10 shaders in different ways. Some games will use DirectX 10 to improve performance, while others will use DX10 shaders to improve graphics. Some games will undoubtedly even combine a mixture of the two. Crysis, for example, is expected to try and do both, while Epic’s DX10 optimizations are focused mainly on improving performance (although based on this interview it also looks like AA support and higher detail textures will be DX10 exclusive features). Because developers are all using DX10 differently, we’ve tried to do our best documenting how the various games perform and use DX10, with the BioShock and World in Conflict series of performance articles being our most recent example just last month.

New patches bring updates to existing DX10 games…

But the first wave of DX10 benchmarks are outdated thanks to recent driver updates from AMD and NVIDIA, and in the case of Lost Planet, a new patch was released on August 16th that delivered numerous enhancements thanks to the use of the geometry shader. One notable addition that the 8/16 patch provides is a new DX10 fur shader. We’ll let these screenshots do all the talking:

DX9 Fur

DX10 Fur

With the new patch Capcom is also using DX10’s geometry shader to improve motion blur:

DX9 Motion blur

DX10 Motion blur

This technique uses geometry shaders as well as vertex texture fetch to improve image quality.

The game also supposedly boasts improved depth of field, although we couldn’t find any differences offhand. DX10 should also offer softer shadows, although again, we couldn’t find any great examples of this in-game. We took dozens of screenshots and while we did note differences it was hard to attribute them directly to DX10. With the latest Lost Planet patch, DX10 performance is also closer to the DX9 path in the game.

World in Conflict is another DX10 title we’ve tested in the past. Earlier this month the final version of the game was released, with the DX10 path in the final code of the game delivering improved performance over the beta build we tested last month. We also decided to throw Company of Heroes into this updated DX10 article since we didn’t publish a dedicated Company of Heroes DX10 performance article when that game was patched to support DX10 back in May (at the time the CoH patch was released we were preparing to board a Boeing 777 for Computex in Taiwan). Technically, little has changed with the game’s DX10 path, but we wanted to test the game anyway with the latest drivers from AMD and NVIDIA, as both companies have had time to optimize their driver for the DX10 path in this game.

PT Boats Knights of the Sea

Beautiful water and smoke here

Check out those waves

…and a new DX10 benchmark arrives

We’ve also included a new game into this article, PT Boats: Knights of the Sea. This game is currently under development by developer Akella, creators of Sea Dogs and Pirates of the Carribean. In the words of the developer, PT Boats: Knights of the Sea is a “naval action simulator that places gamers in charge of a mosquito fleet of the Allied Forces, Russia or Germany during the height of World War II”. The game offers a strategic element in tactical mode, or if you prefer the hands-on approach you can take command of any crewmember among your fleet of ships. As you advance in rank, you’ll get more boats and warships under your command, while the game’s multiplayer component allows each player to take on various positions aboard the ship where you’ll be fighting online against another rival team.

The game supports DX10 and AGEIA’s PhysX physics processor, and graphically sports some of the best graphics we’ve seen in a naval simulator.

German plane overhead

Another U-boat shot

Check out the detail on the ship, translucent water

PT Boats: Knights of the Sea uses DX10 shaders for advanced effects like smoke and water. You can see the amazing reflections in this batch of screenshots:

Light reflects off water

Another shot of sunlight reflecting off water

Reflections

HDR muzzle flashes with reflections too

Relections

Here are some more PT Boats: Knights of the Sea screenshots we captured from the DX10 benchmark:

Underwater light beams

Advanced water transparency

Torpedo finds its mark!

Ship up close

Nice water ripples

Lots of smoke here

He is going down

You can really see the lighting/shadowing difference between DX9/10 in this pair of screenshots:

PT Boats DX9

PT Boats DX10

The DX10 benchmark for PT Boats: Knights of the Sea was released last Friday and can be downloaded here. The DX10 benchmark weighs in as a 256MB download and requires the installation of AGEIA PhysX (don’t worry, it runs fine if you don’t have a PhysX PPU).