DirectX 9.0 Beta - performance gain ?

[PeTe]

Havent tried it myself [ yet ], but noticed on www.rage3d.com forums that most people reported minor/major increase in performance on Radeon 8500.. Morrowind seems to LOVE DX9. Most games it doesnt increase fps that much, but make the games run smoother.

Going to try it out later when i really have time to tweak my machine, dont want to *uck my PC up just now. But actually i didnt find that any negative comments.. [ well maybe one comment, but that could just be some idiot ].

So anyone here tried it yet ?

Pe-Te

[Kosh Naranek]

No beta-I-wanna-expire-before-the-final-version DX9 to me.

Besides ... nothing makes use of it yet so why bother.

[GT98]

plus you might run into the dreaded time bomb with it....it kills itself after a certain date and I had that happen with me with an eariler DX..and the final didnt come out till 2-3 weeks later

[The PIT]

Very Good point GT98. Also since it's beta it's pretty pointless talking about performance gains as other items may added or switched that may take these away. Of course performance may also increase but I wouldn't expect much.

[Jammrock]

When I have a Parhelia in my system...then I'll worry about DX9 on my hard drive.

Jammrock

[Indiana]

I have installed the Beta (it's time to do a new Windows-install soon anyways).
So far no adverse effects. But I didn't see huge (if any at all) speed improvements, either. Still the image-quality seems up from DX8.1.

And yes, you do have to do some registry version-string "cheating", otherwise IntelVidiaMark2001SE won't run, yelling at you that DX8 is needed.
Seems MadOnion are only checking for the specific DX8/8.1 version string. D'OH! (But tells you something about how they're coding )

[The PIT]

I've seen one place claiming 2-3 fps increase in some games but thats near enougth margin of error anyway.

[Indiana]

Update: There's already an uninstaller for DX9 out:

http://home.elp.rr.com/vortex2050/dx9/

[PeTe]

Well some peple reported about 30-40% increase in fps at 1600x1200 resolution on Morrowind, sounds pretty good to me. And others comment that example on GTA3 before they installed DX9 beta they got single digit fps at certain point of the game EVERY time.. and now it never drops below 20.

Maybe the D3D is improved.. or DirectSound. Going to try it out next weekend/week.

Pe-Te

[PeTe]

Originally posted by Kosh Naranek
No beta-I-wanna-expire-before-the-final-version DX9 to me.

Besides ... nothing makes use of it yet so why bother.

Hmm.. Now you can uninstall it if you want.. and nothing uses D3D/DirectSound parts ? EVERY single game uses DirectX for sound/input.. maybe these are optimized.. its not just some new fancy effects update you know..

Pe-Te

[PeTe]

a copypaste from Rage3d.com forums.. somebody made some benches...

I have installed DX9 and then test it. My PC system:
MSI KT3 Ultra
AMD Athlon XP 1900+ oc->2100 FSB 166 Mhz
512 DDRAM 333Mhz
Radeon 8500 128 MB DDR 300/600 - 6071 with my tweaking for quality
Audigy Platinum eX

Morrowind:
DX8.1
Seyda Neen night
17-21 FPS
Balmora
16-25 FPS
DX9.0 beta 1
Seyda Neen night
29-37 FPS
Balmora
27-39 FPS
- distance max, shadows max, AI max, 1024x768x32
CodeCreatures
DX8.1
avg. 32 FPS
DX9.0 beta 1
avg. 48 FPS
-1024x768x32 + sound on
3D Mark 2001 SE
DX8.1
9850
DX9.0 beta 1
11257
I do not have GTA3 for test, next week i think

Well atleast someone is getting helluva performance increase. Not that 3DMarks mean anything, but isnt that increase about the same you get with G400 ? j/k

PeTe

[Novdid]

GTA3 was a bit choppy with my R7500, maybe I should give it a try...hmm...wait!!!

There is a "Parhelia" coming!!!

[PeTe]

OT.

I thought it has been Coming Soon[TM] for years ? And i can still remember how damn hard i was to get a G400MAX when it got out so i dont expect Matrox doing anything different this time either [ i was one of the lucky ones, i got a card soon, but then you couldnt get any MAXes here in finland untill 3 moths later ]. If you dont preorder from Matrox Shop, you are *hit out of luck.

And im pretty sure that IF i buy a new graphics card THIS year it will be R300 [ Yes, im happy with ATI drivers. ], but im not in a hurry... R8500LE still kicks ass. Maybe when Doom 3 comes out its time to buy a new card.. 8500 will run any other game just great, but that one seems so powerhungry [ and GREAT ] that it might need a new card, but thenagain Doom3 is due released 2003.

PeTe

[Indiana]

It seems they improved the DirectSound speed, as two independent early tests I have seen have both got a slight fps increase even in QuakeIII (an OpenGL game!).

[PeTe]

Havent seen any real tests, but have read about people having much smoother playing on SoF2.. allso a OpenGL game, so sure looks like that DX9.0 is a improvement over DX8.1a.

Ill try to look for test about it.

PeTe