Was it really necesarry to drop DX 9 support and cut off older computers?

NativeJoe · March 2016

Rosveen wrote: »

How do PCs so old even run ESO? It must not be very comfortable experience.

Ironically it's not that bad. You can run eso comfortably with something as low end as a dual core processor and a 1-2gb video card and be just fine on max settings if your panel is 1080 or less.

How do I know this? I was running this game on my old computer e8400 dual core, 4gb of ram, and 1gb amd video card (7500 series) on a 720p 32 inch screen.

I've since upgraded and im now rocking a custom computer delided and water cooled i7 4790k @ 4.93ghz and 16gbs of 2133 ram.... a FAR cry from what I was playing this game at. wanna know what changed? 30 frames.

LostScot · March 2016

Denidil wrote: »

howardeb17_ESO2 wrote: »

LostScot - thanks.
That's what I meant. I'm glad somebody confirmed it.

And yes - why can't Zenimax do the same, if maintaining DX9 is not a big deal.
I don't understand it.

because LostScot doesn't know what he's talking about. DX9 and DX11 are fairly different, DX9 and DX12 are lightyears apart. The way you structure code to work with DX12 and DX9 is different and largely contradictory. They're trying to move forward.

Also the percentage of players whose video cads are OLDER THAN SIX YEARS OLD should be pretty small.

I'm saying that the DX9 rendering library shouldn't need to be updated moving forward. DirectX9 is old, sure, but it's stable. Developers have found the best ways of utilising the DX9 API, we've explored the limits of its abilities. The only changes made to the DX9 renderer used in the game I work on is when bug fixes are required, which let's face it, isn't required often given the age and stability of DirectX9 and the drivers available for older graphics cards.

You're spot on when you say that DirectX 9 and 11 are two entirely different things. I know first-hand what the learning curve was like switching from 9 to 11 for development. But when the older one simply needs to be maintained, 99% of development effort goes into adding new functionality to the DirectX11 rendering library on our team. Maintaining backwards compatibility for DirectX9 is easy, because we already have the processes in place in our assets pipeline. We've expanded the assets pipeline to output additional resources specific to DirectX11, but there was no need to change what it was already capable of in order to maintain backwards compatibility.

Stats for my game indicate 40% of our playerbase use DirectX9 hardware. Another poster in this topic said that a Steam survey shows 30% of Steam users only have DirectX9 or 10 available to them. It's smaller than the other chunk of the percentage, but it's by no means small when equated to an actual figure.

jamesharv2005ub17_ESO · March 2016

Im pretty sure ZOS had the information on how many people actually use dx9 before they made the switch. I highly doubt its 40, 30 or even 10 percent of the ZOS playerbase. Otherwise they simply would not have done it. ESO is ESO. Your unnamed game (you really should name the game you work for so we can compare) is not ESO.

Denidil · March 2016

LostScot wrote: »

Denidil wrote: »

howardeb17_ESO2 wrote: »

LostScot - thanks.
That's what I meant. I'm glad somebody confirmed it.

And yes - why can't Zenimax do the same, if maintaining DX9 is not a big deal.
I don't understand it.

because LostScot doesn't know what he's talking about. DX9 and DX11 are fairly different, DX9 and DX12 are lightyears apart. The way you structure code to work with DX12 and DX9 is different and largely contradictory. They're trying to move forward.

Also the percentage of players whose video cads are OLDER THAN SIX YEARS OLD should be pretty small.

I'm saying that the DX9 rendering library shouldn't need to be updated moving forward. DirectX9 is old, sure, but it's stable. Developers have found the best ways of utilising the DX9 API, we've explored the limits of its abilities. The only changes made to the DX9 renderer used in the game I work on is when bug fixes are required, which let's face it, isn't required often given the age and stability of DirectX9 and the drivers available for older graphics cards.

You're spot on when you say that DirectX 9 and 11 are two entirely different things. I know first-hand what the learning curve was like switching from 9 to 11 for development. But when the older one simply needs to be maintained, 99% of development effort goes into adding new functionality to the DirectX11 rendering library on our team. Maintaining backwards compatibility for DirectX9 is easy, because we already have the processes in place in our assets pipeline. We've expanded the assets pipeline to output additional resources specific to DirectX11, but there was no need to change what it was already capable of in order to maintain backwards compatibility.

Stats for my game indicate 40% of our playerbase use DirectX9 hardware. Another poster in this topic said that a Steam survey shows 30% of Steam users only have DirectX9 or 10 available to them. It's smaller than the other chunk of the percentage, but it's by no means small when equated to an actual figure.

That's assuming you aren't implementing new graphics features. If you're implementing new features, and want to keep feature parity with all renderers its a different story. Furthermore your player base, and steam's player base, is not ESO's player base. As the person above me pointed out I'm sure that they've gathered telemetry on the player base.

DX11 was introduced in 2009 with the launch of Win7 (and backported to Vista a few days later). Virtually every video card from 2010 on is DX11 capable.

MjolnirVilkas · March 2016

Yes but there are NO new graphic features in ESO and never will be. Also I saw someone compare ESO to Witcher 3 and I have to say that comparison is laughable.

danno8 · March 2016

I also would not be too surprised if older dx9 only systems were linked to accounts that spend less than accounts that were linked to higher end systems.

Now before you come on here and say "I spent $10000 on this game and have a dx9 system!!!!", understand that I am talking about averages, not fringe cases.

It makes sense that those who have the cash to spend on newer systems would also have the cash to spend in the store, on new dlc's, subscriptions, etc...

Spacemonkey · March 2016

I wouldn't be surprised if the only reason they kept DX9 to begin with was from some uncertainty on publishing the game for X360 also. (Like the other console mmos that came out around the same time)

As clearly that will never happen, they must have wondered if it was worth keeping around, checked the impact of them dropping it. Pros vs Cons, and it must have come out that it wasn't worth the effort, no matter how small of an effort it might have been.

There's a lot of people on these forums that work as programmers, developers, software engineers etc... and we all like to go about our days as if we know every single thing there is for any single project out there. Truth is that every single person in this topic is talking out of their hat. Even those who say they know exactly what they are talking about. Including me.

The only people that can tell you WHY is ZOS. And only ZOS.

Tinolyn · March 2016

Considering how poorly this game runs on decent hardware, I'm surprised anyone with older cards would want to put up with it.

Rakkul · March 2016

Zos must have done their homework - and decided they could live with the loss of a percentage of the player base.

Not exactly great customer service, but it was their decision to stomach the loss so that's it.

For those who can no longer play the game and the cost of upgrading is too much - forget it - there's higher priority things in life. But I do feel bad that you're source of enjoyment has been pulled from you.

Zos - I can understand why you did this and whilst it doesn't affect me, it wasn't the greatest customer support decision I've seen.

thejynxed · March 2016

Friends and relatives in the industry are dropping DX9 support like a hot potato because pretty soon so are AMD and nvidia, let alone Microsoft.

jcasini222ub17_ESO · March 2016

Do pc players, only pc players, that have been here since beta expect anything different? Im resisting being absurdly snarky but console release plus console crown store, pc is an after thought.

The running joke/not joke is pc beta tests for console (prior pc na beta tests for pc eu- which really didnt matter since bugs got rolled out either way). PC feels like an after thought now generally. Pvp perfomance seems a hell of a alot better on console which makes me think trials/vet dungs on console are more stable too, but I haven't looked up those videos.

Idk what the hold up on ZoS's end of not opening up paid 25 buck or 20 buck transfers. Its a simple cash in move that actually has me surprised ZoS hasn't taken advantage of it. This would have been the absolute perfect time as well since ZoS would literally have been creating a market in the dx9/dx10 people that were being dropped on pc.

howardeb17_ESO2 · March 2016

Zenimax, could you tell us something about it?

Wily_Wizard · March 2016

LostScot wrote: »

You've obviously never done any rendering engine development then. Worst part is there are people who know even less, they'll read your post, and they'll actually believe it. I'm speaking from first-hand experience, and there is zero need to drop multiple rendering outputs. The devs for ESO are already maintaining both OpenGL and DirectX rendering outputs, trust me, maintaining the feature set of the existing DX9 renderer alongside outfitting the DX11 renderer with new features is a tiny amount of work for a developer.

Likewise, there's no chance that you have internal knowledge of what ESO's financial restraints are. While it may be technically possible, they may no longer be able to allocate the man-hours required to accomplish all new tasks of maintaining and implementation. Sometimes "financial" cuts have to be made. If you work for a software developing company, then you should be well aware of this precept.

MjolnirVilkas · March 2016

howardeb17_ESO2 wrote: »

Zenimax, could you tell us something about it?

LOL

howardeb17_ESO2 · March 2016

Such a valuable post.
What's so funny, that i would like to know Zenimax's response?
Maybe the fact, that I'm one of a milion and it seems many people here agrees with their dropping DX9 support, so they give a **** on me.

BDB_Inc · March 2016

@howardeb17_ESO2,

I don't think he was laughing at you, but at the thought that we might get a response. Many of us have pretty much given up.

jamesharv2005ub17_ESO · March 2016

What response would you have them give you? Its old outdated tech. Old outdated tech gets updated all the time. Its why we dont still play games in a DOS window.

howardeb17_ESO2 · March 2016

As I wrote, it's sad many people agrees with them, I can do nothing.

jamesharv2005ub17_ESO · March 2016

howardeb17_ESO2 wrote: »

As I wrote, it's sad many people agrees with them, I can do nothing.

You dont got $30 for a new vid card that supports dx11?

howardeb17_ESO2 · March 2016

It's not a problem.
I didn't want to discuss it.

I just want to know, why it was necesarry.
But Zenimax won't answer anyway.

jamesharv2005ub17_ESO · March 2016

Rich lambert said in a recent interview without having to support dx9/10 they wont have to butt up against some kind of "hard cap" while coding. Went over my head Im a hardware guy.

MjolnirVilkas · March 2016

howardeb17_ESO2 wrote: »

Such a valuable post.
What's so funny, that i would like to know Zenimax's response?
Maybe the fact, that I'm one of a milion and it seems many people here agrees with their dropping DX9 support, so they give a **** on me.

Sorry if you understood my post incorrectly, but like BDB_Inc said I wasn't laughing at you but at the thought that there will be a response from ZOS.

jamesharv2005ub17_ESO wrote: »

What response would you have them give you? Its old outdated tech. Old outdated tech gets updated all the time. Its why we dont still play games in a DOS window.

Dx11 is outdated aswell so if they really wanted to go with the new trends and tech, they should support dx12 only.

btw, before someone jumps on my post again, I heavily disagree with ZOS decision to drop dx10 support.

danno8 · April 2016

Just wanted to chime in and say I goofed in reading the Steam survey and included the DX11 cards + Vista + in with the DX 9+10 group. So the number of DX9 + 10 incompatible systems is more like 15%

MjolnirVilkas · April 2016

Which to me still seems quite a lot.

Blackbird71 · April 2016

MjolnirVilkas wrote: »

Which to me still seems quite a lot.

I can't speak specifically about ZOS, as I don't know their numbers, but considering that most businesses operate with less than a 10% profit margin, yes, cutting out 15% (or more) of your customers is a lot.