World of Warcraft Now Supports DirectX 12

I don't understand the performance loss that this article is talking about. I noticed major improvement in town with a ton of people in it. This was on my nvidia 1080 at 1440p 120hz.

How do you tell whether gsync is working when frame rate is 100+? I didn't notice it not working.

I think that their benchmark methods perhaps were not as [H] as they could be- IIRC, just dicking around in say Ironforge during peak times is a pretty good test, as is a good 'ol 60-man.

For G-Sync, you can go to the G-Sync settings in the Nvidia Control Panel (not Geforce Experience), and under one of the File-menu row dropdowns there is a setting to have it put up an overlay when its operating.

Not particularly useful when it's working, though- it's preventing artifacts when it's doing its job- but good for being sure when you're trying to get it working.
 
I dunno I got bored with the fact that it was all big raids and hours of my time. I wanted something I could play with meaningful story for an hour or two without having to rely on large groups of people to be available. I stopped having time to sit down and do 12+ hour raids...

I found myself just enjoying doing random achievements and playing all the quests (I do like the story it has). Group I raid with has like a 2 hour attention span for raids so we don't progress fast but it keeps it fun and not stressful.
 
I wonder why they would get rid of exclusive full screen however, play music etc in background to allow one to alt-tab properly (many other games do this) likely does not hurt or matter to them either way because the "code" is already there, why remove the ability?.

It was a DX9 thing, where it completely takes over your monitor. In DX11/12, Windowless full screen amounts to the same thing as Exclusive full screen but without the resolution/refresh rate juggle that resets most monitors, or the awkwardness in multi-monitor situations.

If you want to run at a different-than-desktop resolution now, you do it via resolution scale, rather than actually changing the resolution of the monitor.

I'm all for it, I never use Exclusive Fullscreen when I can absolutely help it - multi-monitor user here, the resolution juggling would always mess up my desktop.
 
I was honestly thinking the same thing when I read it- basically historical knowledge that's fairly ingrained.

Should probably test current titles/drivers/operating systems to see if there really is a difference.

In my guild, its fairly common knowledge that borderless window "kills" performance on lower end rig. Anything remotely decent and you wont know the difference.
Been using bordeless fullscreen forever with wow since you can often alt tab out.

Im most surprised that people still play this game...

I've played on and off over the years.
The game itself is pretty boring for me outside of mythic raiding.
Even that can be a drag if you aren't in a good guild with friends (be it virtual or real life).
If for some reason my guild would stop raiding I'd probably stop playing. The community/your guild is what makes or break the game imho.
Since I'm French Canadian the community is relatively small and we all know each other at least virtually (at the semi hardcore level or higher).

I dunno I got bored with the fact that it was all big raids and hours of my time. I wanted something I could play with meaningful story for an hour or two without having to rely on large groups of people to be available. I stopped having time to sit down and do 12+ hour raids...

I play at a semi competitive level (2x 3 to 4 hours raid +1 optional, we ranked 205 on mythic argus in NA) and while we'll play a lot for the first ~2 months things are gonna slow down a lot after that.
 
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I'm glad to see them continue to modernize their graphics API (and hope there are other updates to the graphics themselves, engine features etc), as they have done in previous expansions. However, I am wondering how this will affect those on non-Windows OS such as Mac (which they officially support) and the very large group of Linux users playing through WINE (to which they give a tacit and unofficial nod). Blizzard titles have long been favorites for the Mac/Linux community as they've offered OpenGL rendering options, though it is a little disappointing they don't offer a Linux client after all this time.

WINE used to have really great DX9 performance but not so great DX11, though that has subsequently evolved a bit. As of WoW 7.3, WINE could use the DX11 client variant with good performance by using the DXVK (ie DirectX To Vulkan) additional module. I wonder how well that will work with DX12? In theory it should be easier since they're "closer cousins", but with DirectX you never know. Ultimately it would have been nice if they avoided DX12 and went directly to Vulkan, given that it is equally viable on all OSes so if nothing else it would make the Mac support easier I'd think. Perhaps in the future there will be a Vulkan rendering engine. For the moment however, I hope that WINE + DXVK will work smoothly with DX12. Sure, users could fall back on DX11 + DXVK but its always nice to have the latest engine graphical updates and whatnot.

I'll have to try this out on both my Windows and Linux installs. At the moment I have an Nvidia card, so I'd be a bit curious why there should be a performance issue there but...we';ll see.
 
I still play wow but take breaks at the end of expansions. I will be playing next expansion but that is more so because the other MMORPGs are terrible whereas I constantly have fun in wow. Every expansion isn't the same thing no more than every first person shooter is the same as Wolfenstein lol.

I don't understand the performance loss that this article is talking about. I noticed major improvement in town with a ton of people in it. This was on my nvidia 1080 at 1440p 120hz.

How do you tell whether gsync is working when frame rate is 100+? I didn't notice it not working.
Disable triple buffering if you have it enabled. It's harder to tell with both V-Sync and triple buffering, and you get the former in windowed modes whether or not you want it.

If you want to test it better you can always use a DSR resolution to bring the framerate down into the optimal G-Sync range, which is around 60-70% of the monitor's refresh rate (so 72-84 FPS at 120 Hz). It would be more obvious there than at a framerate close to the refresh rate.
 
I dunno I got bored with the fact that it was all big raids and hours of my time. I wanted something I could play with meaningful story for an hour or two without having to rely on large groups of people to be available. I stopped having time to sit down and do 12+ hour raids...

This is completely fixed with the inclusion of LFR. I play an hour or two when I can. I spend more time grinding in D3 than I do in Wow as of late.
 
I'm all for it, I never use Exclusive Fullscreen when I can absolutely help it - multi-monitor user here, the resolution juggling would always mess up my desktop.

I run four monitors with three different resolutions- a 4k60, a 1440p165, and two 1080p60 (vertically stacked), all on the 1080Ti with current drivers and W10, and don't have too many issues. Mostly it's just windows getting moved around a bit, which is something that I can't wrap my mind around still being a problem, but it's not that big of a deal.

Though I know it used to be a PITA!
 
I'm glad to see them continue to modernize their graphics API (and hope there are other updates to the graphics themselves, engine features etc), as they have done in previous expansions. However, I am wondering how this will affect those on non-Windows OS such as Mac (which they officially support) and the very large group of Linux users playing through WINE (to which they give a tacit and unofficial nod). Blizzard titles have long been favorites for the Mac/Linux community as they've offered OpenGL rendering options, though it is a little disappointing they don't offer a Linux client after all this time.

it's a bit of a slap in the face imo.

Maybe we will see DX12VK ? sounds like a 1980's super car: The Lamborghini DX12VK :joyful:
 
I dunno I got bored with the fact that it was all big raids and hours of my time. I wanted something I could play with meaningful story for an hour or two without having to rely on large groups of people to be available. I stopped having time to sit down and do 12+ hour raids...
Sounds like you want a single player game. However, there are now 4 different difficulty of raids so the easier ones are much faster.
 
I'd expect DX12 -> Vulkan conversion on Linux to be a bit of a mess at first, but it should stabilize quite nicely, and should eventually be a better solution overall than current conversions. I'd hope that it would result in a fairly lightweight wrapper layer that is inconsequential to performance.
 
For 2003 graphics...Big fucking deal.

You realize that they've updated the graphics for every single expansion right? You used to be able to play the game on Glide, DirectX 7, etc, now the options are DirectX 11 or 12. Models, maps, textures, the engine itself, quite a bit has been updated over the years. But when EA pops out a new Battlefield game using the same engine as before with some new maps and only minor updates to models, etc it's obviously a totally new game right?

Windowed forces V-Sync.

That doesn't seem to be what many are reporting. I can't test G-Sync but most seem to be saying that it doesn't work properly. I can confirm that Adaptive VSync is totally broken in Windowed Fullscreen as my FPS shoots way above my refresh rate.
 
windowed without vsync I'd get 100 fps right after the patch, before I'm quite sure windowed used to force vsync and I was at 60.
 
Vulkan cannot be used because Vulkan isn't supported on Mac and for whatever reason wow is supported on Mac but not Linux.

I'm not advocating Vulkan from a Linux perspective in this case, more of a Windows 8 and 7 perspective. There are probably more WOW users on 7 and 8 than Mac anyway.
 
You realize that they've updated the graphics for every single expansion right? You used to be able to play the game on Glide, DirectX 7, etc, now the options are DirectX 11 or 12. Models, maps, textures, the engine itself, quite a bit has been updated over the years. But when EA pops out a new Battlefield game using the same engine as before with some new maps and only minor updates to models, etc it's obviously a totally new game right?



That doesn't seem to be what many are reporting. I can't test G-Sync but most seem to be saying that it doesn't work properly. I can confirm that Adaptive VSync is totally broken in Windowed Fullscreen as my FPS shoots way above my refresh rate.

I do realize it, but minor texture upgrades aren't a modern engine. My wife still plays that stupid game every couple of years or so and just started again a month ago. It still looks like dated 2003 shit.

You won't find me defending EA either, I've had them on boycott since BF2.
 
Vulkan cannot be used because Vulkan isn't supported on Mac and for whatever reason wow is supported on Mac but not Linux.

Vulkan doesn't work on Mac? I'm guessing there's some "The Apple Way (tm)" explanation for this, right? Guessing its something about Metal being the "One True Path, in the name of Jobs". After all Vulkan, like OpenGL (which is supported on Mac) is open and has Khronos backing etc... so it shouldn't be difficult to work to bring to Mac I'd expect. It seems odd having an open graphics API that runs on Windows and Linux yet NOT Mac. A quick google just found - https://moltengl.com/moltenvk/ so it seems like Metal > Vulkan is available now and perhaps native support could be added in the future. Though for the sake of this discussion, DX12 doesn't work on Mac either, so looking away from Vulkan and choosing DX12 seems kind of silly, especially if they could have a single bare metal graphics API that works under Windows and Linux now with Mac perhaps in the future. Ah well.
 
Not a compelling argument, sorry. On my PC configuration I can almost always tell when a game launches in "windowed fullscreen" because it always comes with the requisite microstutter.

Windowed forces V-Sync. In present context, VRR tech from both AMD and NVIDIA tends to not work well with windowed games despite there being support for it.

We already have people in this thread saying the game is running smoother for them on NVIDIA cards.

They remove the ability to go exclusive fullscreen because they don't want the support tickets complaining that it is broken.

AFAIK, The microstutter usually comes from context switch between windows desktop apps and DX apps. Sometimes a driver would be running a software stack that said, "Oh I'm processing a non-D3D graphics update, on a window outside the 3D app", and then it subsequently throttled down as desktop apps don't need the extra speed. DX, & IHV Drivers and memory increase have made huge improvements on this. The IHV drivers kept 3D app draw buffer and shader program resident on context switch so they don't have to be reloaded, with all relevent GPU registers pushed to the internal stack.

Anyway your microstutter should be eliminated if you go full window mode on a single monitor.

I could be wrong on this. It's been a long time since dug down to the metal.
 
I do realize it, but minor texture upgrades aren't a modern engine. My wife still plays that stupid game every couple of years or so and just started again a month ago. It still looks like dated 2003 shit.

You won't find me defending EA either, I've had them on boycott since BF2.

I haven't touched EA since all their copy protection crap really slowing down performance. I also don't like how they screwed their developers out of their bonus for BF. Or the fact they like to shut down studio's after they buy them.
 
I found myself just enjoying doing random achievements and playing all the quests (I do like the story it has). Group I raid with has like a 2 hour attention span for raids so we don't progress fast but it keeps it fun and not stressful.

I quit in Nov 2010 and havent kept up with it. Its possible its a lot better than when I played, or maybe worse depending on how badly they changed the classes.

This is completely fixed with the inclusion of LFR. I play an hour or two when I can. I spend more time grinding in D3 than I do in Wow as of late.

Thats cool, I dont plan to go back though. It was way too addictive at the time and I dont want to "relapse".

Sounds like you want a single player game. However, there are now 4 different difficulty of raids so the easier ones are much faster.

See above about quitting nearly 8 years ago. I do mostly play single player now but I enjoy gaming with friends when I can. I just dont like the random people typically. I could deal for the most part in an MMO until the "end game" when it required dozens of hours and people to get anywhere. When I was playing Evercrack I played all the way to 60 without ever doing a planes raid. Sure I didnt have the best equipment but I was good and my small guild was mostly casual.

I am not trying to convince anyone the game is good or bad. Just saying why I got tired of it and that I dont plan to go back. For some I am sure its a great game...it might even be a great game for me now. But I also know I was addicted to it at one point and I dont want to be again. So I am going to avoid it.
 
I do realize it, but minor texture upgrades aren't a modern engine. My wife still plays that stupid game every couple of years or so and just started again a month ago. It still looks like dated 2003 shit.

You won't find me defending EA either, I've had them on boycott since BF2.

It's not the best looking game out there, but it's definitely come a long way since 2003. Go look at a screenshot of launch WoW then look at it now. It's night and day different. It's been done in small increments, so it gets lost sometimes, but if you take it as a whole, WoW basically looks like a completely different game now.
 
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It's not the best looking game out there, but it's definitely come a long way since 2003. Go look at a screenshot of launch WoW then look at it now. It's night and day different. It's been done in small increments, so it gets lost sometimes, but if you take it as a whole, WoW basically looks like a completely different game now.

Still looks like shit. Better textures, nothing more. Still low poly count over a decade garbage.
 
Not all games are about eye candy. It’s gameplay. That’s why I play WoW. And why I play the old school NES games.

It is familiar game play. A surprising number of things that you can do within the game world. many Easter Eggs as well.

And it is a community. After gaming with people and forming social ties for 10+ years it's hard to walk away.
 
Still looks like shit. Better textures, nothing more. Still low poly count over a decade garbage.

I mean, clearly I'm never going to convince you, but it's way more than just textures. Water has been completely overhauled, character models are now high poly, some armor pieces are now actually 3D models rather than painted on textures, weapons are much higher poly with good looking textures and particle effects, classes all got entirely new animation sets, etc.

Bottom line is it's still the benchmark for all MMO games because of it's gameplay and overall polish. I much rather play that than some gorgeous game with crap gameplay (ie basically every MMO released in the past 3 years).
 
I mean, clearly I'm never going to convince you, but it's way more than just textures. Water has been completely overhauled, character models are now high poly, some armor pieces are now actually 3D models rather than painted on textures, weapons are much higher poly with good looking textures and particle effects, classes all got entirely new animation sets, etc.

Bottom line is it's still the benchmark for all MMO games because of it's gameplay and overall polish. I much rather play that than some gorgeous game with crap gameplay (ie basically every MMO released in the past 3 years).

Haven't played FFXIV then I take it? Started out as utter garbage and got overhauled into now the only MMO that has ever challenged WoW's subscriber base for numbers. Also is way more polished at this point.
 
I mean, clearly I'm never going to convince you, but it's way more than just textures. Water has been completely overhauled, character models are now high poly, some armor pieces are now actually 3D models rather than painted on textures, weapons are much higher poly with good looking textures and particle effects, classes all got entirely new animation sets, etc.

Bottom line is it's still the benchmark for all MMO games because of it's gameplay and overall polish. I much rather play that than some gorgeous game with crap gameplay (ie basically every MMO released in the past 3 years).

I tried the Star Wars MMO years ago. But there was no community.
 
Haven't played FFXIV then I take it? Started out as utter garbage and got overhauled into now the only MMO that has ever challenged WoW's subscriber base for numbers. Also is way more polished at this point.

I have actually. Played it quite a bit when then relaunched it a few years ago. I just don't like the long gcd. It makes the combat feel too slow for me.
 
I have actually. Played it quite a bit when then relaunched it a few years ago. I just don't like the long gcd. It makes the combat feel too slow for me.

Fair enough, but the point was in response to your no other mmo being as polished comment and that wow is the benchmark. I don't believe that is really true at this point. FFXIV has been a more polished experience for a long time and there is pretty strong evidence it has either eclipsed or is really close to wow's subscriber base size. Impossible to know for certain as blizzard started hiding their numbers when they started falling heavily.
 
Fair enough, but the point was in response to your no other mmo being as polished comment and that wow is the benchmark. I don't believe that is really true at this point. FFXIV has been a more polished experience for a long time and there is pretty strong evidence it has either eclipsed or is really close to wow's subscriber base size. Impossible to know for certain as blizzard started hiding their numbers when they started falling heavily.
Elder scrolls online is huge too.
 
Fair enough, but the point was in response to your no other mmo being as polished comment and that wow is the benchmark. I don't believe that is really true at this point. FFXIV has been a more polished experience for a long time and there is pretty strong evidence it has either eclipsed or is really close to wow's subscriber base size. Impossible to know for certain as blizzard started hiding their numbers when they started falling heavily.

Where is this evidence? They had a big spike when they went F2P for the first 35 levels and that’s about it.
 
For 2003 graphics...Big fucking deal.

Yeah, lol. Was going to say the same for the game to least likely need this. I suppose it's still good they develop it and try to improve something though it's a questionable improvement.
 
When World of Warcraft was extremely popular in the mid-to-late 2000s, I did receive several invites, but didn't really get into the game. I saw how much of a time sink WoW was, and I figured I'm better off immersing myself in the World of Upper Education and getting my business degree. This was followed by playing the World of Getting My Debts Paid Off. Next stop, playing the World of All My Backlogged Games.
 
When World of Warcraft was extremely popular in the mid-to-late 2000s, I did receive several invites, but didn't really get into the game. I saw how much of a time sink WoW was, and I figured I'm better off immersing myself in the World of Upper Education and getting my business degree. This was followed by playing the World of Getting My Debts Paid Off. Next stop, playing the World of All My Backlogged Games.
I did all that (except a different degree) AND played WoW at the height of Wrath of the Lich King (2008/2009ish). I think you just missed out :p

Seriously though, it was good times (especially since my wife played), but you can find good times in lots of places if you're willing to look!
 
I found myself just enjoying doing random achievements and playing all the quests (I do like the story it has). Group I raid with has like a 2 hour attention span for raids so we don't progress fast but it keeps it fun and not stressful.

that to me is the key.. It can be fun when kept a little casual and don't let the time sink drown the fun factor. I also like the story. sure there is a hole or two in it, but overall its a pretty big and arching story line, with lots of little ones.
 
FFXIV is also only 5 years old, so it of course will have a newer set of graphics. It also runs on ps3 and ps4 which opens them up to more markets than WoW.


If graphics were all that mattered (and to some few people it is) then why do we get all worked up when older games get shut down or are not compatible with newer versions of windows?


Just to argue the graphics or go home, here is a list of games you probably would also hate that launched in 2004 along with WoW: Half Life 2, Far Cry, Fable, Red Dead Revolver, Garrys Mod, Doom 3, Unreal Tournament 2004.

I might have to try ffxiv again though, i played it last summer for a bit but just couldn't get into it, not sure why. Maybe was the 'it isnt WoW feeling?'. The only mmo i could really play along side wow was eve online. Wish that one could pick up again.
 
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