In an interview with Assassin's Creed 2's 3D Lead Programmer, it was revealed that the game will not be taking advantage of any DirectX 10, 10.1, or DirectX 11 features. Like most PC games, the game will stick with DirectX 9 API programming to get the job done.
This is small surprise after there was a bit of controversy with the first Assassin's Creed PC game, which supported DirectX 10, and then had DirectX 10.1 support (which offered superior AA quality) removed in a patch released for the game. The DX 10.1 support removal was apparently to address a bug in the rendering -- but the DirectX 10.1 features support never made it back into the game. Some gamers however found reason behind the removal of the DirectX 10.1 support a bit suspicious, and tried to guess Ubisoft's motivation in doing so.
Although Ubisoft will not be updating to DirectX 10 or DirectX 11 for the PC release of the game, there will be additional PC-only stuff added to the technical functioning of the game, such as improved multicore support, and support for higher resolutions. There will also be 8X AA support, whereas the console version only has 2X AA.
The PC programming team is not over-eager to move to the new features offered by DirectX 10, and especially DirectX 11, because the amount of gamers with DirectX 11 capable cards is still relatively low. Because console games will continue to use DirectX 9 for a while to come (at least until the next generation of consoles arrives), it seems that DirectX 9 will continue to reign supreme for PC gaming for a while yet. With very few big budget PC-only exclusive releases, it might be a long time indeed until we see our first real game that supports DirectX 11 beyond just a couple of minor things, such as the improved water in racing game Dirt 2.
Source:PCGamesHardware
Section:PC Games
|
Ubisoft to take focus off licensed games‘Kick-Ass’ Star Chloe Moretz Is One Of 10 To Watch In 2010
