"First of One" wrote in message
...
Come to think of it, what tangible features is DX10 supposed to offer
anyway? FP48? Game developers are barely scratching the surface with
Shader Model 3.0. What could they possibly do, graphics-wise, to make a
game like F.E.A.R. look more realistic?

Higher resolution meshes in the models. But that's the base end stuff, the
building block. At the upper rendering end, I don't know. Softshadows give
an awfully realistic (and sometimes creepy) feel to the whole scene. The
lighting/shadowing *did it* for me in FEAR. It went from ' it's ok,
ho-hum' to 'oh hell!' just that quick.
That's going from 6800GT 256 single card to 7800GTX 256 SLI. When I turned
on Softshadows for the 6800GT, things slowed to molasses in January in game.
Nothing in FEAR slowed down the 7800GTX's though. And the softshadows and
ultra quality lighting do make a huge difference in both quality of the
scene and in performance hit.
We've now got real looking effects of all kinds. fire, smoke, water, rain,
mist, shadowing, lighting. More realistic looking / shaped models would
help.
McG.

--
"War is the continuation of politics by other means.
It can therefore be said that politics is war without
bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed."

"NightSky 421" wrote in message
...
I think a lot of people in the know are going to sit this out and wait
for the DirectX 10 parts to come out before upgrading. It's not terribly
far away in the scale of things.