Frostbite Technical Director Implementing DirectX 12 in 2016; Frostbit 3 Improvements;Vulkan API

[Humbug]

Not really. See I'd love to play BF4 for example but the one thing that has stopped me if the fact that it's Origin only. If it was at least activated on steam then required origin to launch, like Uplay, I would have gotten it by now. But I just refuse to install and use origin for the purposes of 1 or 2 EA games, they haven't earn that for me personally.

There's no absolute truth here so not trying to change your mind.. But IMO Origin is alright. It's not as innovative and feature-rich as steam. By for your basic launching, updating games, cloud saves it's ok and does not annoy the user. You don't have to always leave it running in the background. With the PC being an open platform it's inevitable that multiple distribution platforms exist. In fact the success of Origin, GOG, D2D, battlenet etc is healthy for the industry rather than a 100% steam monopoly. Hell even on steamOS you can exit steam and download a game from gog. I guess that's what defines us as PC- we give up the simplicity of one interface for the sake of being an open platform.

[Misanthrope]

There's no absolute truth here so not trying to change your mind.. But IMO Origin is alright. It's not as innovative and feature-rich as steam. By for your basic launching, updating games, cloud saves it's ok and does not annoy the user. You don't have to always leave it running in the background. With the PC being an open platform it's inevitable that multiple distribution platforms exist. In fact the success of Origin, GOG, D2D, battlenet etc is healthy for the industry rather than a 100% steam monopoly. Hell even on steamOS you can exit steam and download a game from gog. I guess that's what defines us as PC- we give up the simplicity of one interface for the sake of being an open platform.

 

It's actually not the features or anything like that, it's simply the fact that they don't sell em directly on steam. If it's not on steam, then it must be a competing platform and their catalog is actually not that great. Like I said a very petty pet peeve on my end but still.

[LukaP]

I have to disagree: It's not like their current engine is shit, it's actually pretty reasonable and young as well meaning that even on DX11 they could still do a lot to improve. More over, it already works on directx 11 why do you need to say "Ok we're dropping support for all direct x11 users" Like I said they have to know that will cost them some sales overall simply because migrating users to 10 won't happen overnight.

 

Sorry maybe I'm just too fucking cynical but I smell the MS bucks at work here: the argument will resolve itself when they confirm or deny support for Vulkan on windows 7 since then we'll know if it's a technical decision or a business one.

I didnt say its shit, i said they are optimising it. there is a huuuge difference in meaning there. And no its not modern. FrostByte came out with BF:BC back in what 2008? And most of that code is still in FB2. So no, most of it is not modern.

Well if a game dev wants to use DX11 they still can with FB2, which i assume will get updated to feature set 11_3. or maybe there will be 2 versions of FB3, and you can decide which one to use, as a studio.

 

You seem very cynical. Well they are supporting Vulcan, and the only reason to do that much more work is because either they want Linux/SteamOS support, or they want W7 support. But since they said they want W10 to be the minimum requirement, id go with the former. And in the long run, that is a very good thing

[Doobeedoo]

Not really. See I'd love to play BF4 for example but the one thing that has stopped me if the fact that it's Origin only. If it was at least activated on steam then required origin to launch, like Uplay, I would have gotten it by now. But I just refuse to install and use origin for the purposes of 1 or 2 EA games, they haven't earn that for me personally.

 

So yes I am kind of an exception about being inconvenienced but trust me I'm far from the only exception. Now we're not talking about just installing another app but we're talking about installing an entire fucking OS. This would take most people at least a couple of days to get all their settings and programs reinstalled and such. And no just hitting "upgrade" is not an option most of the time that's just bad vs a clean install formatting your drive. You think many inexperienced users will be upgrading to 10 just to play a few games? Some might but some will not, the thing here is that overall it will costs them sales.

 

But you're certainly free to remain a skeptic, we can take a look at Windows 10 adoption rate in 2016 and see just how many sales they will be missing if they completely block Windows 7 and 8 (remember my other argument: supporting Vulkan means that they can still support windows 7 with vulkan so any restriction will be artificial, not technical)

Bah, I just hope you're not one of those that won't play a game if it's not on steam lol. Saw so many comments "is it on Steam", if answer is 'nop' they wouldn't care, like wtf. Ow, and those games weren't on Origin or something, just plain without any of those services.

I mean, I have BF and bought Crysis 3 on Origin, while I'd like them to be on one place, well it's not, but I wanted Crysis 3 multiplayer so I got it. 

 

I wanted to play Gears of War series but I won't get a TV and Xbox for it, that would be an extreme compared to OS.

 

And those gamers that really love to play those upcoming titles, they will upgrade. And those inexperienced users, they would not be that hyped to do so, or will later on. If someone would really want to get that specific game, that person will do so even if being inexperienced. There won't be much fuss about installing a new OS.

Those that "fuck it, whatever I won't play it then" are just bunch of casuals.

 

Pretty sure they all have some knowledge about computers to do so. Not like you will stay on one OS for 10y.

[Humbug]

You seem very cynical. Well they are supporting Vulcan, and the only reason to do that much more work is because either they want Linux/SteamOS support, or they want W7 support. But since they said they want W10 to be the minimum requirement, id go with the former. And in the long run, that is a very good thing

Isn't vulkan also replacing openGL ES? So they may be doing it because they want the flexibility to use frostbite on android and other mobile/tablet platforms with max performance. Not necessarily Linux and mac osx

[Misanthrope]

Bah, I just hope you're not one of those that won't play a game if it's not on steam lol.

 

No I do play games that are on GOG for example, but they have a lot of old and classic games and not so much overlap with Steam. Like I said it's more a matter of Origin just not having enough games for me to justify going through the pain. The same can be said for me about Battle.net Good service and all, still not getting it for only 1 or 2 games I might play.

 

I can play other RTS games like Grey Goo with steam so I'm not getting battle.net just for SC2. I can play other shooters on steam and city builders on steam so I'm not getting origin for 2 games only.

[Misanthrope]

I didnt say its shit, i said they are optimising it. there is a huuuge difference in meaning there. And no its not modern. FrostByte came out with BF:BC back in what 2008? And most of that code is still in FB2. So no, most of it is not modern.

Well if a game dev wants to use DX11 they still can with FB2, which i assume will get updated to feature set 11_3. or maybe there will be 2 versions of FB3, and you can decide which one to use, as a studio.

 

You seem very cynical. Well they are supporting Vulcan, and the only reason to do that much more work is because either they want Linux/SteamOS support, or they want W7 support. But since they said they want W10 to be the minimum requirement, id go with the former. And in the long run, that is a very good thing

 

1) Ok so I mean that even though they can optimize it even more, the engine it's good already, I mean you can run pretty reasonable looking games on an APU (skip to 5:00):

 

 

I realize that optimizing even further means that they can push the engine harder and such, but I don't think it's so necessary that you need to cannibalize windows 7 and 8 sales, and yes I am cynical so let's just wait on that whole availability. This is not a slide against the devs but my suspicion comes from Microsoft: this is exactly  how they operate snatching exclusives, they've done this a thousand times in the past for both the xbox and directx releases, for no goddam good reason at all other than their bullshit game of artificial scarcity.

[Humbug]

On the subject of Vulkan; not a bad read...

 

Mantle, Metal, DX12 are all proprietary API’s that enable the GPU to be programmed in a very explicit way. Vulkan, with its Mantle roots, is also a very explicit API, and it achieves this in a cross-OS, cross-GPU fashion. To better understand the real benefit of these explicit APIs, we need to go back to their inspiration: the game console. For years, the console game engineers have been developing their software directly on the hardware. The extended life-cycles of video game consoles allows these platforms to reach a large audience; and using a 3D API can get in the way of creating a better game engine. The engine developers took over the responsibilities of building command buffers, keeping them in flight and managing the GPU resources required to ensure the hardware worked properly and efficiently. Ultimately the console game engines were able to squeeze the maximum performance out of the GPU while still leaving plenty of CPU bandwidth available for the game logic itself.

 

Traditional PC and mobile hardware are in a different boat. With new and better hardware coming out very frequently from competing vendors, change comes quickly on these platforms. 3D APIs are necessary to insulate the engine developer from a proliferation of hardware traditionally at a cost to overall performance. The task of building command buffers, keeping them in flight and managing GPU resources falls primarily to the drivers. Efficiently getting the most performance out of PC Hardware has become more complicated than the console way of programming directly to the hardware. The previously mentioned explicit APIs recognize that challenge, and have embraced the type of programming traditionally done on consoles allowing game engine developers to write more directly to the hardware. Vulkan's explicit approach exposes the nature of how modern GPUs work while still managing to abstract away most of the hardware and OS differences. The result is a manageable number of special cases that can be written by engine developers to enable a broad range of hardware to work more effectively than ever.

 

The first Valve title to be ported to Vulkan was Dota 2, which they showcased back at the Game Developers' Conference when announcing Vulkan. The Valve developers involved in adding Vulkan support to Source 2 compared writing this Vulkan back-end to writing a hardware drivers themselves. In conjunction with the sample Intel Vulkan driver being developed by LunarG on contract for Valve, they brought it up in about four months (from November 2014 to February 2015). LunarG was developing this reference driver in-step with the Source2 Vulkan back-end with "more and more sophisticated features" being added over time. Jens Owen, the CEO of LunarG, explained, "The Source 2 Vulkan back-end would be enhanced to utilize these features with integration and debugging being done by driver and engine developers working closely together. This team had minimal GPU debugging tools, nominal validation layers and a Vulkan API that was being defined and refined simultaneously with development. Their success hinged on two key elements: their experience with the 3D graphics pipeline and full access to the Vulkan driver source code."

 

"Enabling Valve’s team of Source 2 developers full access to the source code in the Vulkan sample driver made this development possible. Simply giving them a black box to figure out how to use the evolving Vulkan API would not have yielded the resulting GDC demo in such a short period of time. It was encouraging to see the benefits of providing driver source code to engine developers. The engine developers do not know the driver and hardware architecture like the driver team does but being able to step across the Vulkan interface in the debugger enabled the teamto see what the driver was doing with the workload and more often than not isolate an issue in either their back-end, or the driver, or both. The driver and game engine teams worked to interpret challenges in their respective areas of expertise and communicate clearly to the other side what was needed. We attribute the productivity realized while tracking down the most difficult issues to having a strong team of 3D graphics experts with full visibility of the source code on either side of the Vulkan interface," Jens added.

 

In speaking to the success of open-source drivers, Jens continued, "After the initial bring up, the Source2 backend now works on black box Vulkan drivers as well." Presumably, these "black box" Vulkan drivers are the forthcoming binary blobs out of AMD and NVIDIA. Valve funded the development of this reference Intel driver in understanding the benefit of having the driver source code available when bringing up a game on Vulkan for the first time. Once the Vulkan specification is out this year and the subsequent release of this open-source driver, they hope it will benefit others in porting their games/software to Vulkan.

 

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=valve-lunarg-vulkan&num=2

[LukaP]

Isn't vulkan also replacing openGL ES? So they may be doing it because they want the flexibility to use frostbite on android and other mobile/tablet platforms with max performance. Not necessarily Linux and mac osx

It is, but the kind of games you would use frostbyte for... not really what you would run on an A8X (as an example of a powerful oGL ES chip). Plus since FB is a closed source, inhouse design, only EA games will ever use it.

 

1) Ok so I mean that even though they can optimize it even more, the engine it's good already, I mean you can run pretty reasonable looking games on an APU (skip to 5:00):

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch

 

I realize that optimizing even further means that they can push the engine harder and such, but I don't think it's so necessary that you need to cannibalize windows 7 and 8 sales, and yes I am cynical so let's just wait on that whole availability. This is not a slide against the devs but my suspicion comes from Microsoft: this is exactly  how they operate snatching exclusives, they've done this a thousand times in the past for both the xbox and directx releases, for no goddam good reason at all other than their bullshit game of artificial scarcity.

1. Because it can run something on an APU we should not strive for better performance on the same hardware?

Well to be fair, W7 is old. Im not saying everyone should move off of it immediately, but since this is speculated for Holiday 2016, you are basically getting 6-7 quarters to upgrade, and given that "Redstone" W10.1 is rumoured at 2016 as well, id say its a reasonable requirement. In any way, if you are running an OS from 2009 in Q3/4 2016, you really need to update yourself... Especially since it will be for free.

[Misanthrope]

It is, but the kind of games you would use frostbyte for... not really what you would run on an A8X (as an example of a powerful oGL ES chip). Plus since FB is a closed source, inhouse design, only EA games will ever use it.

 

1. Because it can run something on an APU we should not strive for better performance on the same hardware?

Well to be fair, W7 is old. Im not saying everyone should move off of it immediately, but since this is speculated for Holiday 2016, you are basically getting 6-7 quarters to upgrade, and given that "Redstone" W10.1 is rumoured at 2016 as well, id say its a reasonable requirement. In any way, if you are running an OS from 2009 in Q3/4 2016, you really need to update yourself... Especially since it will be for free.

 

See, now we're getting into "You have to upgrade because it's for free!" I don't have to do anything I don't want. I shouldn't need to just for 1 or 2 games. Yes there might be other very compelling reasons for upgrading, yes the OS might end up being very good (Though I do have to take Barnacules advise when he predicts it will be extremely buggy and that users will end up being the testers) however I refuse to be strong armed: I do not support the concept of exclusive anything and this is specially true when it's not due to costs or inconvenience for the devs (they already have a working DX11 version) but when it is clearly because someone like Microsoft pays money to dictate where I can and cannot run my fucking games.

So yes we're moving into matters of principle here so I'll drop the conversation because if you think I'm cynical already you wouldn't like me when I'm following convictions and principles.

[LukaP]

See, now we're getting into "You have to upgrade because it's for free!" I don't have to do anything I don't want. I shouldn't need to just for 1 or 2 games. Yes there might be other very compelling reasons for upgrading, yes the OS might end up being very good (Though I do have to take Barnacules advise when he predicts it will be extremely buggy and that users will end up being the testers) however I refuse to be strong armed: I do not support the concept of exclusive anything and this is specially true when it's not due to costs or inconvenience for the devs (they already have a working DX11 version) but when it is clearly because someone like Microsoft pays money to dictate where I can and cannot run my fucking games.

So yes we're moving into matters of principle here so I'll drop the conversation because if you think I'm cynical already you wouldn't like me when I'm following convictions and principles.

hahaha i agree with you completly, except for one point. We have to move forwards. and the best way to do it is by forcing it through exclusivity. And i am willing to do it. Id rather upgrade my OS for free to get DX12 support than have to upgrade my ram because the game includes an exe that wont let it run on systems with under 6GB of ram even though with a hack it has no problems running at high on 4GB of ram. *cough* COD Ghosts *cough*

[Misanthrope]

hahaha i agree with you completly, except for one point. We have to move forwards.

 

That we do, but "forward" is not necessarily what MS produces or intends to move to. The decision should be based on merits, not money. Otherwise, MS would gladly move us all "forward" into xbox console gaming and heavy DRM and 60 bucks yearly for online multiplay.

[LukaP]

That we do, but "forward" is not necessarily what MS produces or intends to move to. The decision should be based on merits, not money. Otherwise, MS would gladly move us all "forward" into xbox console gaming and heavy DRM and 60 bucks yearly for online multiplay.

What makes you so intent on hating MS here? This is a topic about FrostByte moving to DX12 exclusively. IF this ends up being a deal with microsoft, you should be hating on EA for taking that deal, not MS for offering it. 

[Misanthrope]

What makes you so intent on hating MS here? This is a topic about FrostByte moving to DX12 exclusively. IF this ends up being a deal with microsoft, you should be hating on EA for taking that deal, not MS for offering it. 

 

Let's analyze that deal: Vulkan is admittedly permitted, mainly because MS doesn't perceives OSX and Linux/SteamOS as a real or immediate treat to them (Correct assessment in fact: they're not) However it is more interested in forcing users to abandon Windows 7 and do not want a repeat of Windows 8. Compelling reasons like being free, those are fine. The bullshit tricks of old like hijacking games and directx versions to new OS versions for no good technical reasons however it's not ok. It intentionally damages PC gaming in general just so they can perpetuate this obsessive desire to control things.

[LukaP]

Let's analyze that deal: Vulkan is admittedly permitted, mainly because MS doesn't perceives OSX and Linux/SteamOS as a real or immediate treat to them (Correct assessment in fact: they're not) However it is more interested in forcing users to abandon Windows 7 and do not want a repeat of Windows 8. Compelling reasons like being free, those are fine. The bullshit tricks of old like hijacking games and directx versions to new OS versions for no good technical reasons however it's not ok. It intentionally damages PC gaming in general just so they can perpetuate this obsessive desire to control things.

Well there is one really good technical reason. No fucking legacy code, meaning more optimisations, meaning better looking games and better performance. IDK about you, but that is the main quest of many Gamedevs and gamers alike

 

I understand your point, but as an actual developer, i see this from a different perspective, one that is much more positive.

[Humbug]

Let's analyze that deal: Vulkan is admittedly permitted, mainly because MS doesn't perceives OSX and Linux/SteamOS as a real or immediate treat to them (Correct assessment in fact: they're not)

Technical question- is Microsoft allowing Vulkan or do they not have a choice in the matter. The khronos group members decided to create a standard. The engine makers of nitrous, frostbite, unity, source2, ue4 made their graphics engine to interface in that language. And NVIDIA, AMD, Intel wrote windows drivers for it to work with their GPUs. With all that happening is it even possible for Microsoft to ban vulkan on windows?

[Misanthrope]

Technical question- is Microsoft allowing Vulkan or do they not have a choice in the matter. The khronos group members decided to create a standard. The engine makers made their graphics engine to interface in that language. And NVIDIA, AMD, Intel wrote windows drivers for it to work with their GPUs. With all that happening is it even possible for Microsoft to ban vulkan on windows?

 

I'm not sure they actually have a choice in the matter, good question.

[LukaP]

Technical question- is Microsoft allowing Vulkan or do they not have a choice in the matter. The khronos group members decided to create a standard. The engine makers of nitrous, frostbite, unity, source2, ue4 made their graphics engine to interface in that language. And NVIDIA, AMD, Intel wrote windows drivers for it to work with their GPUs. With all that happening is it even possible for Microsoft to ban vulkan on windows?

I'm not sure they actually have a choice in the matter, good question.

They do not, its up to the Engine makers to decide whether they want Vulcan or not, and then technically it will work on any OS Vulcan has libraries for. 

[bigboy678]

Nope, I'll be the first one to say that's just stupid: MS will certainly not convert all windows 7 users to 10 by 2016 (it's just not realistic) so you will hurt your sales.

 

Why do you think windows 7 users will stay at windows 7 instead of moving up to 10? while i dont think MS will convert every windows 7 users i do think they will convert a lot just for the fact that windows 10 is free for a year. MS doesnt want windows 7 to become the new xp and that really is the only reason i can see that windows 10 will be free

[Misanthrope]

Why do you think windows 7 users will stay at windows 7 instead of moving up to 10? while i dont think MS will convert every windows 7 users i do think they will convert a lot just for the fact that windows 10 is free for a year. MS doesnt want windows 7 to become the new xp and that really is the only reason i can see that windows 10 will be free

 

I talked a bit on this on the thread

 

1) A lot of windows 7 users are not power users. They will not look into any updates if their computer does what they want

 

2) Some gamers overlap with 1) not everybody that can game on a PC or is even a gamer is tech saavy. I have a friend who's an avid pc gamer and probably spends more time than me gaming and such, but she just doesn't handles tech very well so just got an alienware laptop and usually can't troubleshoot even simple driver issues and would go "aw man x game doesn't works right, moving on!" and never troubleshoots. She won't be upgrading to 10 for sure

 

3) Even some tech saavy users like myself have reasons not to want to upgrade: It takes a very good reason for me to format my system. I hate it when I have to and it's pretty time consuming to make backups of games and such I have installed or redownload a bunch of shit, install a new OS, download a ton of drivers (even on a good connection most mobo manufactures have bullshit speeds to download drivers) etc. I would rather not update my OS at all unless is an imperative need (Like not being able to boot) and for example I remained on Vista 64 sp2 for years just because my games still worked and I did not wanted to go through formatting my drive to get on 7. And no, just updating a current install doesn't always works and I rather not risk it, and if I am making back ups and shit might as well format and get a clean install

[deviant88]

All i need to know is that UE4 DX12 is in works,now back to UE tutorials.

[rockking1379]

personally, great they are gonna support more than just DirectX...BUT they still wont port the engine to linux. and instead choose to waste time proving they can run the engine on a damn iPad.

[bogus]

personally, great they are gonna support more than just DirectX...BUT they still wont port the engine to linux. and instead choose to waste time proving they can run the engine on a damn iPad.

If you are paid to do something, then you are not wasting time.

[NateGSR117]

Can't wait to see this drop next year, but until then I'll play some more blood born 

[TwistedDictator]

Can't wait to see this drop next year, but until then I'll play some more blood born 

 

How far are you on blood born? Bloodborn is awesome