DX9 vs [BETA] DX11 - Experiences & Review

[Shaigat.8935]

Jin.8501: "Never used vsync after upgrading to gsync monitor. "

 

Of course. Mental shortcut, "switching off vsync" -> turning off also gsync, completely.

I checked with gsync and vsync alone (as it is more popular situation), to check this weird (input? I'm not fully convinved) lag.

I usually cap 120Hz the TV (on which I play mostly) is capable to show (pvp, fractals...).

 

Edited September 27, 2021 by Shaigat.8935
clarification

[MaLong.2079]

In my case, DX11 showed consistent 60 fps everywhere. So much better that I even increased shadows, environment, collision, texture and shader settings. And still got consistent 60 fps.

 

However, I had to go back to d912xpy because of the crashes in WvW.

 

I think DX11 runs smoother and with better fps than d912xpy. So I will be ready to try it again when they release an update.

[dace.8019]

For me the absolute main improvement is the reduction/elimination of (micro)stuttering.

 

The FPS gains are nice (and they no longer seem to dip as low, as often, in zergy stuff) and very welcome, as are slight improvements to loads, but this will be the main thing I remember from this implementation. 

 

It's just so smooth compared to before. 

[Marikus.1875]

Not sure why OP reviewed things like graphics etc.

Devs never said a graphics improvement was part of this DX11 beta release. They said those would come in the future.

Having said that, the most important part for me, the FPS and smoothness of the game, were absolutely improved.

[notebene.3190]

Mostly a great experience for me. Removes the stuttering I used to get when I first login to Mistlock Sanctuary and do a 360 turn.

 

One interesting place where it 'added' stutter is in the Dragonstorm (if I used the correct Dragon[something] name) fight at the very end, after you focus the crystal and she pulls you back up top. The animation of myself and everyone being pulled up became a massive stutter frame experience. It's fine without DX11 on (relatively, as fine as everything else is fine).

[Lonecap.4105]

Mixed bag for me. In some ways, things look better. Other things however (translucent FX) look messed up.

Also, while my overall fps is higher, I'm getting framerate spikes.

[RyuDragnier.9476]

Overall an improvement on my end. Faster loads, way better picture, better FPS. I was running 24FPS in a packed LA when before I was getting around 14FPS. Definitely an overall improvement. My only complaint is that I'm getting quite a lot of crashes, especially during boss fights in open world.

[Jukhy.2431]

17 hours ago, Marikus.1875 said:

Not sure why OP reviewed things like graphics etc.

Devs never said a graphics improvement was part of this DX11 beta release. They said those would come in the future.

Having said that, the most important part for me, the FPS and smoothness of the game, were absolutely improved.

Indeed, I think many people didn't read or missed/skipped the purpose of this initial dx11 beta in game update notes: "The goals for the initial implementation of DirectX 11 are stability, visual, and performance parity with DirectX 9. Most players will likely see negligible performance improvements at this time."
So this is exactly the phase where you should expect visual bugs and crashes to happen.

For me the beta has been quite steady so far, altho I do not have much time to play and experiment with it. Had one system freeze where I had to reboot. Haven't seen any graphical issues but I hear there are some with missing textures (boxes) and weird colors. FPS is better but not as good as with d912pxy. Smooth camera rotation is major plus for me, and also the skill/ability effects seem to be more fluid now.

[notebene.3190]

Just played the LW story 'Descent' and at the end with DX11 on, I missed all the great animations and graphics in the sky. I saw Taimi and me and Caithe all standing on a ledge somewhere, but Aurene in the sky and all the animation was just blackness. All those textures were missing.

[Gibson.4036]

I did discover last night that DX11 seems to make GW2TacO not work.

The TacO is telling me I need to update it, so maybe this is not true of the current version.

And I'm aware ANet doesn't have a responsibility to make sure a third party overlay works. It does seem to be one of the most used add-ons in the game, though, so if it is an issue in the most recent version, hopefully that can be fixed.

______

Also, I really want an ability to create graphics settings load outs I can toggle between, now. Even with DX11, I need to turn all my settings down for WvW, which is as simple as clicking "best performance". Now, however, with DX11 I'm able to turn up more of my settings to in other parts of the game, but not across the board to the highest "best appearance" settings. That means a PitA tinkering through settings each time I do PvE if I want to get the most I can out of DX11.

Edited September 29, 2021 by Gibson.4036

[fatihso.7258]

5 hours ago, notebene.3190 said:

Just played the LW story 'Descent' and at the end with DX11 on, I missed all the great animations and graphics in the sky. I saw Taimi and me and Caithe all standing on a ledge somewhere, but Aurene in the sky and all the animation was just blackness. All those textures were missing.

I just did it and it was exactly as you typed. What a bummer lol.

[Strixxe.2019]

Radial mount menu  add-on is not working 😞

[Harak.8397]

I've noticed much improved performance when loading into crowded areas. Panning the camera no longer skips frames BUT there is a noticeable delay in mouse to camera movement in general play and some kind of slow down happens here and there where character running animation remains smooth but slows down noticeably for half a second or so.

Promising debut but I've gone back to DX9 for the moment.

[Sugar Min.5834]

The game still hang when I gave DX11 a try again. In less than one minute after i logged in, my screen hang and then I was prompted that GW2 is not responding and was told to close the program and i did. Three times in a row i tried and the same thing happened. The game is good only when i unchecked DX11. Nothing changed even after a few patches -.-

[fenriswolfman.5486]

Its been a huge improvement for me.  Never goes below 60fps usually hangs around 110ish.

3700x, rx5700xt

[Pifil.5193]

On 9/29/2021 at 4:08 PM, notebene.3190 said:

Just played the LW story 'Descent' and at the end with DX11 on, I missed all the great animations and graphics in the sky. I saw Taimi and me and Caithe all standing on a ledge somewhere, but Aurene in the sky and all the animation was just blackness. All those textures were missing.

 

Yeah, me too, it was kinda funny really, everyone looking in awe at a pitch black sky. 😊

 

In the follow up section on the airship all my graphics were screwed up, half the icons failed to render in my inventory and if I turned back the entire airship disappeared. A restart fixed it.

 

I've noticed a few odd graphical glitches too, the rubble in Thunderhead Keep was made of green and red blocks like someone dropped their LEGO blocks on the floor, the nodes of magic on Dragonfall map were in faint little rectangles that sorry of thing.

 

My NVIDIA drivers are fairly recent but I'll update them again and see if it improves anything.

[phokus.8934]

It’s be great if it didn’t crash me everytime I dismounted or crashed me after about 10 minutes.

[MarkoGold.7126]

i get random crashes on dx11 not often but its annoying when in meta. 

[Astralporing.1957]

In addition to what has been mentioned before (occasional crashes), it's the weird glitches when something crucial does not render that make it a problem as it is.

Two examples from Icebrood Saga:

First is the shooting game in Grothmar and shooting balloons event in Drizzlewood. With dx11 the white pixel targetting indicator is not visible, which makes hitting anything a lot harder. Second is the mine disarming event from Drizzlewood: when you trigger the mine the disarming sequence is not visible, which (again) makes disarming much harder.

Those are not the only issues (there are cases of some attacks not showing AoE indicators, etc), those are just the most recent ones i can specifically pinpoint at the moment. I guess i should have made a list, but unfortunately this usually happens when i am too busy with Doing Something to divert attention to this, and i tend to forget about it later on. In the end however there was quite a lot of those "small issues", so much, that, coupled with the abovementioned occasional crashes, i just decided to go back to dx9+dxvk for now.

(BTW: Ironically, the cinematics seemed to render just fine for me)

Edited October 4, 2021 by Astralporing.1957