Dragon Age 2 Direct X11 first impressions (DX11) on the PC (via Steam)

So I have been playing the full release of Dragon Age 2 on the PC with DX11 enabled, and wanted to give some initial impressions.

• DX9 looks much better than the demo of Dragon Age 2 I have no idea why they must have tweaked it since demo
• DX11 looks much better than DX 9, motion blur is excellent, shadows are excellent (a DX11 feature)
• Frame rate takes a big hit on DX11 Im not sure its worth it in combat
• Spell effects look amazing (you can see shadows cast on the ground beneath fireballs as they shoot across the land)
• The Highest setting enables the DX 11 features, and when the Highest setting is enabled the game is pretty much unplayable – it’s a bit of a stutter fest. It would appear that this is either an Nvidia driver issue, or that it has something to do with tessellation.
• If you bump it down a notch from Highest to High, the game suddenly becomes playable – you’re still on the DX 11 setting, but as far as I can tell the High setting is actually some kind of backwards compatibility with DX 10. The next question then is, what’s the difference, visually, between Highest and High – and honestly, I can’t see any difference at all

From http://www.pcgameshardware.de Dragon Age 2: DirectX 9, DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 plus high-resolution textures, translated from german
The first comparison shows how the shadow quality and the soil on a DX9 on a DX10 changed to a DX11 graphics card.Thus, the dynamic shadow of the character under DirectX 9 and has broken down roughly. With DirectX 10, however, it is smooth clean and no longer flickers – even high-resolution textures in the background SSAO active and visible. With the use of DirectX 11 is the first thing Displacement mapping on the floor (the character sinks into something), the shadow is a “” Contact Hardening Shadow “: The left foot, he has still stung over a sharp edge, which always with increasing distance soft – as in real life.

Only with a DirectX 10 graphics card or better, Dragon Age 2 menu, ambient occlusion, thus Screen Space Ambient Occlusion on. This provides a shade of objects that can be seen very well to the character and the brickwork in the background. There, each brace and casts a shadow on the wall column – this makes the building appear clear plastic.

Another benefit of the plasticity of the high-resolution textures, which lacks the demo and by the way in DirectX 9 mode are not selected (as well as anisotropic filtering). Bioware, however, has not only increased the level of detail by detail textures shader drastically, but installed in many places other assets. Thus, the pixel wallpaper is not just sharper, but revealing details like reliefs.

The depth of field turbidity provides a blur for objects that are not focused. In general, the characters, the approaching very close to the camera and details on the background of the game. The effect is compared to Metro 2033 is very weak and is used discreetly. Our picture shows only a small section to illustrate the effect – in full screen and in motion is the depth of field turbidity hardly discernible.

Dont forget to download and enable the high resolution texture pack

Source: http://www.pcgamingbuzz.com

 Founder of GamertechTV, and EIC, executive editor of GamertechTV Read more from this author

Technorati Tags: Dragon Age 2, DX11, impressions