With the recent launch of the
ATI Radeon HD 5000 series, as well as the introduction of the first
DirectX 11 compliant hardware, we should hopefully see more developers support
Microsoft's DirectX 11 API's.
BattleForge players are now the first to experience richer visuals and increased performance.
BattleForge, a Real-Time-Strategy (RTS) game by
EA Phenomic Studio, was recently transformed into a
Play 4 Free game and is bundled with a lot of
ATI Radeon graphics cards. It fully supports
DirectX 9, 10, 10.1 and with its latest update even
DirectX 11.
What is BattleForge?
BattleForge is a Play4Free game that combines strategy, fantasy, trading cards and magical spells in a dynamic online environment. Combining the strategic, real-time gameplay of classics such as Command & Conquer™ with a fully enabled, online collectible community, BattleForge pioneers strategy gaming with its online multiplayer design and community features set. The collectible cards in the game are the tools of war -- each representing a spell, unit or building that is conjured directly onto the battlefield in real time in stunning 3D graphics. BattleForge features single-player scenarios and cooperative scenarios supporting 2-12 players, as well as Player vs. Player (PvP) ranked and unranked duels. With co-op play, chat rooms, and a robust marketplace featuring direct trade, an auction hall and in-game mail, BattleForge is the first RTS to combine the social and community aspects of an MMO with an exciting RTS.
Source: EA press releaseBattleForge and DirectX 11
The latest
BatteForge patch offers a new setting in the options menu.
Screen Space Ambient Occlusion (SSAO) can now be set to "very high" if you own a
DirectX 10 or
DirectX 11 graphics card.
DirectX 10 cards will use
Pixel Shader 4.1, while cards that support
DirectX 11 will use the new
Compute Shader 5.0, which offers a significant increase in performance according to the developers.
[...]BattleForge players will now experience unparalleled graphic performance and even richer visuals including DirectX 11 specific features like high definition ambient occlusion (HDAO).[...]
Source: EA press releaseAs the benchmarks at
computerbase.de are showing, the developers are right. A
Radeon HD 5770 running with a resolution of 1680x1050 for instance would render 26% faster in
DirectX 11 than in
DirectX 10. The difference increases even more with higher resolutions: Running in 2560x1600 the
Radeon HD 5770 would render 35% faster!
Applying Anti-Aliasing and/or Anisotropic Filtering will of course decrease the difference, but the results are still awesome. 14% faster rendering in 1680x1050 with 4xAA and 16xAF, and 20% in 2560x1600.
Source: computerbase.deWhat is DirectX 11?
DirectX 11 is
Microsoft's latest graphics technology. It features
Tessellation,
Multi-Threading, and
DirectCompute.
Tesselation calculates a smoother curved surface resulting in more detailled images.
Multi-Threading scales multi-core CPU's. This results in higher FPS (frames per second) while keeping increased visual effects.
DirectCompute can be used to utilize the power of graphics cards to accelerate applications, resulting in improved graphics and faster desktop tasks.
The next games to fully support
DirectX 11 will be
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat and
Dirt 2.
Keep yourself updated on the latest Hardware and Technology news here at
Gamereplays.org.
