Age of Conan's DX10 put to the test

It's been a long time coming, but Age of Conan's Testlive server is now running a version of the game that can output DirectX 10 graphics, a feature that many people missed at launch. The current implementation probably isn't indicative of what will end up on the Live servers, but if you just can't wait and want to see the work-in-progress, Age of Conan Vault has a number of DX9 to DX10 comparison screenshots on show right now. The test client as-is doesn't have some of the cooler features like volumetric fog or windy trees just yet, but these would be better seen in video form anyway.

The most stand-out difference between the screenshot pairings that we can pick is the upped brightness and visibility in dark areas on the DX10 side. In some (but not all) of the shots, the textures look noticeably better too. The AoC Vault reviewer experienced a significant FPS drop, from roughly 50FPS down to 20FPS, when switching from DX9 to DX10, but this is apparently not that common among other testers -- most do get their share of graphical glitches and crashing though. Hopefully it's all ironed out when Funcom decides to push DX10 to the live servers at a later date.

Reader Comments (13)

There's already a performance drop off between XP and Vista, so is this on top of that or is there another drop-off across the boards?

Still, not bad. It's only 6 months before they've finally got around to possibly considering maybe implementing at some point in the future (perhaps) something they promised was included in the game at launch...

the performance drop you speak of has for the most part become non existent with AoC patches and Microsoft hotfixes and SP's Many different reviews of SP1 shown that vista is now on par and in same cases outperformas XP... they do exchange blows, but for the most part there are no longer any larger differences.
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Right. I'm going off what my brother - who has a dual-boot set-up - said when he first got AoC running on both.

Oh and regarding the shots themselves, it's all a bit underwhelming. I remember being initially very impressed with AoC's visuals but looking back at them now, I can't say I feel the same. Maybe it's the choice of shots. The grass, though, looks really fake and the trees look spindly, like low-poly models. And the character models look odd now I look at them again. I dunno. Their skin is flat, undetailed.

I hate to pimp LOTRO again, but I could pull out a dozen screens from it for every AoC one that would put Funcom's effort to shame.

I checked out all the screenshots... the DX10 improvements only seem to excel in dark shots, with the lightening actually really hurting the day shots. And at that, the improvement is not so great, with only the last comparison being noticeably enhanced. I know for me, I'd rather take performance.

only 6 months late and STILL riddled with more bugs then a aids patient :S

Is it just me, or do those AoC shots look as if there's a missing light-source or no AA on them or something?

I can't put my finger on it but everything looks composited, like they've been photoshopped from a variety of sources... The "natural/living" elements look like cut-outs and there's something just wrong about how they're all put together...

On both DX9 and 10 I mean...

Is it that bad in-game? I don't recall now.

I don't know, for LotRO I think the difference with DX10 is pretty significant. It doesn't go from DX9 to looking like a Pixar movie, but who expects that? The differences in lighting and shadows (especially from trees) makes a huge difference, in my opinion.

Even in this shot, it's clear there's better lighting and shadows. It's more than it just being "brighter". Is it enough for me to want to run out and buy a DX10 card? No... but since I already have one, it's a nice thing to see.

The problem with DX10 is much like the problem with HDTVs a few years ago. Developers still have to worry about the significant amount of people who don't have DX10 cards or even those who just don't have Vista. It's not a priority, clearly, and I imagine that is largely what extends these development times and makes DX10 seem like a ton of work.

I imagine as time goes on that will be less and less of an issue for many reasons.

DX10!! Awesome! When AoC releases, it's going to be...

huh?

What do you mean it's been out 6 months? Didn't they promice this was in the box?

Oh.. nvm. Fail again, Sweeds.

Looks a lot better when you actually play it compared to screenshots but that's true of everything. YOu should really ignore these bitter people that won't get over release for this one game and try it out if your interested. Or we should all just base every MMO on it's launch no matter how old they are. Eve sucks, it was buggy as crap at launch. Wow sucks it had the honor system in the book and box and it didn't launch for 7 months and the one they used wasn't anything like the one in the book. Etc etc etc.

But AoC wasn't just "buggy" at release. It was sold with CONTENT MISSING.

Not content that didn't work properly or content that needed a bit of polish. No, it had CONTENT THAT WAS PROMISED BUT NOT THERE.

How would you feel if you bought a CD with 20 songs listed and then found it only included 2 song? Would you say that "just needed a bit of work?"

Funcom lied to its customers, plain and simple.

I do have to say that was my biggest complaint about the game. AoC states on the box it uses DX10. It was on the Games for Windows DX10 site.

I had to find out that the DX10 button in-game did nothing through a random patch note. I found out that DX10 wasn't even included by scanning through a press release about how good the launch sales were. It was buried in there.

AoC is certainly improving, but that really bothered me. I still feel lied to there and, fairly or not, it still affects my interest in the title.

one correction. erling erlingson LIED to us. the person who delivered most of the lies and somehow he still works there

graphics where never the problem of AoC - the lack of (not flawed) gameplay, and dishonest marketing was.

dx10 will change nothing on that matter.

Age of Conan's DX10 put to the test

Reader Comments (13)

Posted: Dec 16th 2008 9:09AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Dec 16th 2008 10:16AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Dec 16th 2008 9:29AM (Unverified) said

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Posted: Dec 16th 2008 10:03AM Temko said

Posted: Dec 16th 2008 10:18AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Dec 16th 2008 10:53AM Softserve said

Posted: Dec 16th 2008 10:58AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Dec 16th 2008 11:18AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Dec 16th 2008 11:21AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Dec 16th 2008 3:18PM Softserve said

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Posted: Dec 17th 2008 4:15AM (Unverified) said

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