FSX-DX10:3rd progress report - just another Wednesday
It is time to update everyone on the progress we have made on the FSX-SP2(DX10) release.
First, we have a name change. We have a set of fixes that we want to widely deliver, and that means installing on XP and Vista, for DX9 and DX10. So with that being the case, the name FSX-DX10 isn’t accurate and we are now calling the release FSX-SP2(DX10) to indicate that while DX10 is the main feature, this is really SP2.
Second, I am not going to be able to talk to either the bug fixes in SP2 or the DX10 features until early September. I know, I know. I promised mid-August, what is up with that? Well, I am going on 3 weeks of vacation starting August 14th, and we will not be fully baked by then. So any feature discussion would be speculative and not authoritative. If I wait until I return, week of September 4th, the features will be done or cut and I can make an authoritative post.
So that’s when I will perform the analysis of the “magic screenies” to showcase what features we intended by those screenshots, what the real DX10 feature set is ( hint, it isn’t what was in the “magic screenies” in all cases ), and what DX9 improvements we are delivering.
With that said, on to the progress discussion. As I said in the last post, the phases of the project are:
1) Device and Infrastructure bring-up
2) Geometry Pipeline bring-up
3) Pixel Pipeline bring-up to "rough DX9-level comparability"
4) DX10-specific feature work.
The 1st post on FSX-SP2(DX10) here covered Phase 1 and 2. The 2nd post on FSX-SP2(DX10) here covered progress on phase 3, and this post will continue the coverage on Phase 3 progress.
One feature that was obviously not working in the previous posts was clouds. You did get to see the geometry we used to make the clouds effect, but now we have working clouds in DX10 as shown below. I include both an “in-town” shot here as well as an “in-air sunset” shot here because I really enjoy the sunrise and sunset effects in FSX. One thing that might not be obvious is clouds require alpha. In the previous post the trees had textures but no alpha, so the clouds work actually helped with the trees.
Next on the implementation bring-up was the emissive textures which meant the cities now look proper at dusk and dawn as shown here. At roughly the same time, we brought up bump map support which meant the aircraft models started looking right, as shown by the Bell here.
It’s not all about the world, though. Our in-game UI, known as XUI, is all rendered using shaders. So we had to convert that. For quite a while, there was no in-game UI. Now there is, as shown here. It is now no longer necessary to memorize the shortcuts for the feature you want to test, you can just use the menu. Nice, if not earthshaking. And solid progress.
Here is another shot with Water 1.x working. As well as fog in the distance. Those are two key features and they were a long time coming. It’s nice to have them done.
So where does that leave us in Phase 3? Well, we are done. Here are 2 screenshots, DX9 and DX10 to show what the 2 pipelines look like side by side. Do you see a difference? Hint, look at the top left. Yes, ta-da, that is correct. DX10 is running faster than DX9. By 17% or so. So see, there is proof that DX10 might actually be ok. That is the only difference you should see! Being done with the 3rd milestone, "DX10 looking like DX9", means all DX9 rendering features are now operational in the DX10 pipeline and look identical. That means the engine is fully flyable in DX10, but no new features are enabled.
That puts the team fully into the "DX10 feature" phase or milestone. On to the finish line!
So thats where we are. Let the comments begin :-).