the cryengine dx10 conspiracy.

[Spawn]

When running crys** on xp on a dx 9 machine, ultra high detail settings are disabled. If you run crysis on vista on a dx10 machine, ultra high detail settings are enabled, meaning you only can see the extra detailed eye-candy if you play on vista with a dx10 compatible gfx card. Or can you?

Some players found out, that if you change the files in the charval directory in cry***, the high settings will actually display the ultra high settings.

In other words: You do not need vista or a dx10 compatible card to view the ultra high detailed settings in this cryengine2 powered game.
Some call this a conspiracy where crytek was working with microsoft in order to push vista/dx10 on to customers wanting the best gfx the game could offer.

In other news, a student programmer made dx10 compatible with windows xp.
Although this is alpha software and you have to compile the files yourself, it actually works.

Makes me wonder... will there be ultra high detail levels available for crytopia? And will they be Vista only?

http://jcidiot.wordpress.com/2008/06...on-windows-xp/

[Darker_Star]

Wonder if we will get a 'real answer'...

DS...

[kygon]

/ignore cry2speculation until date = implementation day


lol

[SnapNet]

Originally Posted by kygon

/ignore cry2speculation until date = implementation day


lol

while date < implementation

if cry2speculation != fun
/ignore
else
discuss & enjoy

[aridash]

this is not surprising. DirectX10 is supposed to have some stuff that requires Vista, somthing related to memory management i think. But both Nvidea and ATI havent supported it in the hardware, so developers dont implement it, so making it redundant. There was expectation when Nvidea announced they wouldnt be including the feature that MS would back track and release DX10 for XP, but with nothing in SP3 that seems dead now.

however, im sure you will still need a dx10 card to see the very high detail effectivly, otherwise you probably going to be doing some stuff in software.

[sky west]

From Wiki :

[edit] DirectX 10
See also: Direct3D 10, Direct3D and Vista, List of games with DirectX 10 support

A major update to DirectX API, DirectX 10 ships with and is only available with Windows Vista; previous versions of Windows are not able to run DirectX 10-exclusive applications[4]. Changes for DirectX 10 were extensive, but only Direct3D featured a major overhaul of the API.

Many former parts of DirectX API were deprecated in the latest DirectX SDK and will be preserved for compatibility only: DirectInput was deprecated in favor of XInput, DirectSound was deprecated in favor of XACT and lost support for hardware accelerated audio, since Vista audio stack renders sound in software on the CPU. The DirectPlay DPLAY.DLL was also removed and was replaced with dplayx.dll; games that rely on this DLL must duplicate it and rename it to dplay.dll.

In order to achieve backwards compatibility, DirectX in Windows Vista contains several versions of Direct3D:[5]

Direct3D 9: emulates Direct3D 9 behavior as it was on Windows XP. Details and advantages of Vista's Windows Display Driver Model are hidden from the application if WDDM drivers are installed. This is the only API available if there are only XP graphic drivers (XPDM) installed, after an upgrade to Vista for example.
Direct3D 9Ex (known internally during Windows Vista development as 9.0L or 9.L, the L standing for Vista's codename: Longhorn): allows full access to the new capabilities of WDDM (if WDDM drivers are installed) while maintaining compatibility for existing Direct3D applications. The Windows Aero user interface relies on D3D 9Ex.
Direct3D 10: Designed around the new driver model in Windows Vista and featuring a number of improvements to rendering capabilities and flexibility, including Shader Model 4.
Direct3D 10.1 is an incremental update of Direct3D 10.0 which is shipped with, and requires, Windows Vista Service Pack 1.[6] This release mainly sets a few more image quality standards for graphics vendors, while giving developers more control over image quality.[7] It also requires a whole new set of requirements, including Shader Model 4.1 and 32-bit floating-point operations. Direct3D 10.1 still fully supports Direct3D 10 hardware, but in order to utilize all of the new features, updated hardware is required.[8] As of April 24, 2008, only the ATI Radeon HD3xxx series GPUs are compliant.

Notice that DX10 is backwards compatible and has older Dx versions to its disposal. This is done so DX10 can also run with older non-dx10 software. The fact that he can run CE2 on ultra high does not automatically imply he's using dx10. Maybe it produces some more eye-candy on xp, but he's not using shadermodel 4.0 for example, to get it. Features like the WDDM 2.0 require a bit more tweaking then just renaming stuff under xp to work. Besides this good man is referring to DX as being an engine. It's not, it's a framework.

I also doubt there is a conspiracy with dx10 and vista. You have to remember that MS also had to invest in vista and dx10(which is also owned by MS). Can't really blame them for pushing vista on the market. I mean your running xp now, but what where you running 6/7 years ago? Why did you make the switch to xp when you did? Right. Ofcourse there are bugs with a new OS, but that's only temporary. In the end all window users will go to vista. Only new problem is, now you have to pay for it. The OS is the most important piece of software on your pc. It enables all other software to run on it. I don't mind paying for that, if it works.

Conclusion:

You don't really need DX10 and vista to enjoy the CE2 update on EU.
The overall improvement to the graphics with CE2 under dx9 is more than enough to keep you pleased for years to come.

[AkiranBlade]

Originally Posted by kygon

/ignore cry2speculation until date = implementation day


lol

DECLARE conspiracyCursor CURSOR FOR

SELECT [conspiracy_theories].[conspiracy_detail] FROM [conspiracy_theories]

OPEN consipracyCursor

DECLARE @conspiracyDetail varchar
FETCH NEXT FROM conspiracyCursor INTO @conspiracyDetail

WHILE (@@FETCH_STATUS <> -1)
BEGIN

--Ignore @conspiracyDetail
INSERT INTO threads VALUES ('wait until it''s released')

FETCH NEXT FROM conspiracyCursor INTO @conspiracyDetail

END
CLOSE conspiracyCursor
DEALLOCATE conspiracyCursor


*This won't work, 100EFD for the person who spots why first.

[Eelco]

Originally Posted by AkiranBlade

DECLARE conspiracyCursor CURSOR FOR

SELECT [conspiracy_theories].[conspiracy_detail] FROM [conspiracy_theories]

OPEN consipracyCursor

DECLARE @conspiracyDetail varchar
FETCH NEXT FROM conspiracyCursor INTO @conspiracyDetail

WHILE (@@FETCH_STATUS <> -1)
BEGIN

--Ignore @conspiracyDetail
INSERT INTO threads ('wait until it''s released')

FETCH NEXT FROM conspiracyCursor INTO @conspiracyDetail

END
CLOSE conspiracyCursor
DEALLOCATE conspiracyCursor


*This won't work, 100EFD for the person who spots why first.

because its total bullcrap? xD
sorry im not really keen with those methods.
xD

[AkiranBlade]

Originally Posted by Eelco

because its total bullcrap? xD
sorry im not really keen with those methods.
xD

It has it's place, and hence, you don't have 100 EFD

[Doer]

Marco said the amazing screenshots featured in the exhibition were most likely rendered using DX9, so i don't really see the point here.