Batman can clean up everything in Arkham City except for the new villain that goes by the name of DX11

Subject: General Tech | December 7, 2011 - 12:57 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: dx11, batman arkham city, gaming

We have seen previously that at the time of release, Batman Arkham City was not really a DX11 game.  Sure you could enable DX11 but it would make the game unplayable.  [H]ard|OCP were one of the first to complain about the performance and recently they revisited the game now that we have some new drivers ... and were disappointed again.  Right now the best experience you can have is with a GTX580 and with DX11 effects disabled.  [H] feels this is truly sad as tessellation would bring a lot to the atmosphere of the game but until DX11 is fixed you simply won't be able to see the game as it should be.  Their recommendation is to hold off on purchasing this game until they have fixed it.

"The Caped Crusader has returned to crack more skulls on the streets of Arkham City. Rocksteady has enhanced the venerable UE3 engine with DirectX 11 and PhysX support, but can this aging graphics engine really handle such large, richly detailed outdoor areas? You might be surprised."

Here is some more Tech News from around the web:

Gaming

• Serious Sam 3 BFE @ HardwareHeaven
• Batman Arkham City Review: PhysX and 3D Vision 2 Experience @Hi Tech Legion
• Surprise! A New X3 Expansion Beams In @ Rock, Paper, SHOTGUN
• Flatout 3: “20,000 Fully Destructible Objects” @ Rock, Paper, SHOTGUN
• Back To Front(ier): Pioneer @ Rock, Paper, SHOTGUN
• Need for Speed: The Run (PS3) @ HEXUS
• Super Mario 3D Land Nintendo 3DS @ Tweaktown
• Rayman Origins (XBOX 360) Game Review @ HardwareHeaven

So you want to play Batman? Dump the DX11!

Subject: General Tech | November 30, 2011 - 12:51 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: gaming, batman arkham city, dx11, oops, consolitis

Just in case you were under the impression that Ryan was the only one having issues with DirectX 11 in Batman Arkham City, check out the problems [H]ard|OCP had.  DX11 was essentially unplayable even on multi-GPU systems, with NVIDIA handling the game a little better than AMD.  Using DX 11 in the game enables HBAO and tessellation as well as something new for NVIDIA users called Multi-View Soft Shadows, which do add to the visual quality of the game, if you are willing to live with an average 30fps or so ... with bonus stuttering.  Even better, this is yet another example of a game with its frames capped by default, not quite as bad as Need For Speed The Run but it is still limited to 24-62fps until an .ini file tweak is performed.

"Batman: Arkham City is upon us, and we wanted to give you a preliminary look at how performance is stacking up. We've found some issues running in DX11 that seem to be a detriment to gameplay. DX11 may not be the best option, at this time, for this game, our performance data and feedback explain why."

Here is some more Tech News from around the web:

Gaming

• Battlefield 3 Mini Tweak Guide for Latency (ping) and more @ Tweaktown
• Batman: Arkham City Performance Analysis @ Tweaktown
• The Lord of the Rings: War in the North (PC) Game Review @ HardwareHeaven
• Batman: Arkham City (PC) Game Review @ HardwareHeaven
• Jagged Alliance: Not Yet Back In Action @ Rock, Paper, SHOTGUN
• Major Skyrim patch released for Xbox 360, PS3, PC @ HEXUS
• Need For Speed: The Run @ kitguru
• Saints Row: The Third (Xbox360) @ HEXUS
• Tekken Hybrid (PS3) Game Review @ HardwareHeaven
• Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 Game Review (XBOX 360) @ HardwareHeaven
• Need for Speed: The Run (XBOX 360 / PS3) Game Review @ HardwareHeaven

Batman: Arkham City DX11 Stuttering Issue

Subject: General Tech, Graphics Cards | November 23, 2011 - 03:50 PM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: dx11, batman

We have been waiting for Batman: Arkham City for quite some time on the PC, and after weeks of delays, the game was finally released this week, to quite a bit of fanfare.  NVIDIA has been touting the game as the poster child for several technology features like DX11, 3D Vision, PhysX, etc.  It appears that the developers have had some issues though with the release - DX11 features are causing significant stuttering even with high end hardware.

Batman doesn't like it when his games are late...and broken.

I put together a quick video comparing the gameplay experience with and without DX11 enabled; you can see it below.  The system specifications for our test bed for this video were:

• Intel Core i7-965
• Intel X58 motherboard
• 6GB DDR3-1600 memory
• GeForce GTX 580 1.5GB graphics card
• Driver version: 285.79
• Windows 7 SP1 x64

The DX11 settings that are causing the issues are tessellation, ambient occlusion and a new type of soft shadow rendering.  When these features are enabled the game experiences noticeable, repeatable and quite annoying stutters both in the actual gameplay and during the integrated benchmark. 

In our video below you can clearly the see the phenomenon in action. 

On the official Batman: Arkham City forums, the publisher gave the following statement, confirming the broken DX11 implementation.

PC DirectX 11 Issues Please Read
We have received reports of performance issues from players of Batman: Arkham City on PC. After researching the matter, we found that running the game with DX 11 is causing the performance issues. We’re working on a title update to address this matter and expect to make it available in the near future.

In the meantime, a workaround for this issue is to run the game with DX 9 instead of DX 11. Instructions on how to turn off DX 11 are listed below.

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience with your gameplay experience and thank you all for your patience as we work to resolve this issue.

While we love to see new technologies implemented in games that improve our gameplay experience, we HATE it when it delays games or causes issues like this when released.  Here is hoping that the developer, publisher and driver teams from AMD and NVIDIA can fix this quickly.

Never mind the barrier, we even tessellated the water table!

Subject: General Tech | August 17, 2011 - 02:56 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: crysis 2, dx11, tessellation

The Tech Report took an indepth look at the "Enhanced, bionic Jersey barrier in DirectX 11" recently.  The original Crysis is still famous for its ability to crush even the best GPUs that were available when it was originally released and its continued ability to do so at very high resolutions.  Now that Crysis 2 has power slid out of it's console roots and we PC gamers received not only support for DX11 but also a high resolution texture patch which helped the game with its visual impact, it seemed worthwhile to investigate the actual changes to the process used to draw images in Crysis 2.  That lead to the discovery of not only the world's most detailed concrete barriers but also the realization that whether you can see it or not, water is being rendered in painstaking detail.

^{A hydrologist's dream}

"When we fired up Crysis 2 in its DirectX 11 "ultra" quality mode, we saw that some obvious peaks were related to the creation of tessellated objects. Not only could we see the hull shaders used in the first stage of tessellation—proof that tessellation was in use—but we were also able to see the polygon meshes output by the tessellation process. We noticed some of the same things Damien pointed out, along with a few new ones, including one of the true wonders of this game's virtual world."

Here is some more Tech News from around the web:

Gaming

• Contemporary Graphics Cards in Crysis 2 DirectX 11: Crysis 2 Revisited @ X-bit Labs
• PC Age of Empires Online review: give nothing, take from them everything @ Ars Technica
• Section 8 Prejudice Review @ HardwareHeaven
• Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition: 3D Vision Tested on all NVIDIA GTX 500 Series Video Cards @Hi Tech Legion
• Minecraft Pocket Edition Brings Indie Game to Android @ Wired
• Serious Sam 3 PC hands-on: constant, awesome chaos @ Ars Technica
• Counter Strike back with Global Offensive @ HEXUS
• Modern Warfare 3 To Have Dedicated Servers @ Rock, Paper, SHOTGUN
• RageGage Desktop Computer Gaming Toy @ TechwareLabs
• iPhone App of the Week: Zombie Gunship @ t-break
• Catherine PlayStation 3 @ Tweaktown

Podcast #160 - Lenovo ThinkPad X1, OCZ RevoDrive 3 X2, Crysis 2 DX11 update, Llano preview and more!

Subject: General Tech | June 30, 2011 - 02:50 PM | Ken Addison
Tagged: podcast, X1, Thinkpad, revodrive, ocz, nvidia, llano, Lenovo, Intel, dx11, crysis 2, amd

PC Perspective Podcast #160 - 6/30/2011

This week we talk about the Lenovo ThinkPad X1, OCZ RevoDrive 3 X2, Crysis 2 DX11 update, Llano preview and more!

You can subscribe to us through iTunes and you can still access it directly through the RSS page HERE.

The URL for the podcast is: http://pcper.com/podcast - Share with your friends!

• iTunes - Subscribe to the podcast directly through the iTunes Store
• RSS - Subscribe through your regular RSS reader
• MP3 - Direct download link to the MP3 file

Hosts: Ryan Shrout, Jeremy Hellstrom, Josh Walrath and Allyn Malventano

This Podcast is brought to you by MSI Computer, and their all new Sandy Bridge Motherboards!

Program length: 57:49

Program Schedule:

1. 0:00:45 Introduction
2. 1-888-38-PCPER or podcast@pcper.com
3. http://pcper.com/podcast
4. http://twitter.com/ryanshrout and http://twitter.com/pcper
5. 0:02:16 Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Review: Thin is In
6. 0:03:08 Samsung Nexus S 4G Review: Google Bliss.
7. 0:05:04 Super Fast PCI Express Cable Capable of 32 Gbps Announced By The PCI SIG
8. 0:08:37 OCZ RevoDrive 3 x2 480GB PCIe SSD Review - Seriously Fast Storage
9. 0:24:23 This Podcast is brought to you by MSI Computer, and their all new Sandy Bridge Motherboards!
10. 0:25:00 Crysis 2: DirectX 11 free update released
11. 0:31:45 NVIDIA Releases GeForce GTX 580M and 570M, Brings Optimus to Hardcore Gaming Laptops
12. 0:34:10 Badaboom, the once NVIDIA only transcoding accelerator, now works with Sandy Bridge
13. 0:38:40 Llano's dance card is available, pick a date with your favourite new AMD APU tomorrow
14. 0:41:05 Just Delivered: Cost effective AM3+ Boards.
15. 0:42:30 Show and tell: Llano CPU and MB
16. 0:44:26 Free games?
    1. http://www.pcper.com/news/General-Tech/Meet-Medic-Uber-Update-and-TF2-itself-are-freed
17. 0:48:20 Quakecon Reminder - http://www.quakecon.org/
18. 0:50:45 Hardware / Software Pick of the Week
    1. Ryan: Bitcoins?  Ken is testing a LOT of GPUs for this!
    2. Jeremy: I guess I'll shout out to Might & Magic entertaining me for 25 SMEGGING YEARS!
    3. Josh: Eyefinity!  It is a lot of fun.  Surprising capabilities from many modern applications.  Even a lot of older ones...
    4. Allyn: RevoDrive 3!
19. http://pcper.com/podcast   
20. http://twitter.com/ryanshrout and http://twitter.com/pcper
21. 0:56:35 Closing

Crysis 2: DirectX 11 free update released

Subject: Editorial, General Tech, Graphics Cards | June 27, 2011 - 04:44 PM | Scott Michaud
Tagged: dx11, crysis 2

Last Wednesday we reported on the announcement of the Crysis 2 DX11 patch and high resolution texture pack upcoming for the 27^th of June. Looking at the calendar it appears as if your graphics card just ran out of time to rule the roost. Clocking in at 546 megabytes for the DirectX 11 update and 1695 megabytes for the high resolution texture pack the new updates are not small especially since that does not include the size of the 1.9 patch itself. The big question is whether these updates will push the limits of your computer, and if so, is it worth it?

Can you run me now? … Hello?

VR-Zone benchmarked the new updates on an Intel Core i7-965 system paired with an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580. We believe they accidentally mislabeled their Extreme Quality benchmark with their Ultra Quality benchmark as the ultra is the more intensive of the two settings; also, ultra should have the biggest difference between DX9 and DX11 settings as DX11 effects are not enabled at the extreme settings. ((Update: 6/28/2011 - That's exactly what happened. VR-Zone fixed it; it is correct now.)) Under that assumption you are looking at approximately 40 FPS for a 1080p experience with that test system and all the eye-candy enabled. That is a drop of approximately 33% from its usual 60 FPS under extreme settings.

But how does it look? Read on for all of that detail.