Nice table Salem978 ! talking capabilities, I can add a few lines about 12_2.. recently Microsoft and NVida have added some interesting features (May 2020 W10 update) and these capabilities from feature level 12_2 can be individually queried in a 12_1 program, using CheckFeatureSupport() . The ones I know of (and work on MX-330) are:
GPU depth testing
multithreaded rendering
bundles.
For us, these features could all be interesting for performance reasons. Depth testing is much faster in DX-12 compared to DX-11 and may provide (<- speculation !) means to solve the infamous “Grey horizontal line” issue in many games also MSFS. Multithreaded rendering will allow your CPU to support a high end GPU and yield a lot of extra performance on e.g. i9/3080. Bundles can be used for duplicated objects, like trees and AI-buildings. Bundles would comprise an enormous gain in FpS, because it allows showing these objects without having to add them to a new command list on the CPU side. I show one result, from a well known DX-12 example..
Below - modification of - DynamicIndex geometry contains 25x25 instances of a city block, each consisting of a 1MB mesh. It shows about 625MB of data. To render something like this in DX-11, my little board will go 18-20 FpS. With DX-12, I can run this baby at 60FpS, using Bundles.. Difference between the old DX-11 instancing and bundles is all elements may show a different texture:
When this broke I immediately ordered a $20 TPM module on Amazon for my motherboard. My CPU is fine. I just wanted to start experimenting with it and comparing hardware vs. CPU.
Prices started spiking and the vendor nullified the order with no notice (it simply disappeared) even though I ordered before the run on TPM modules. With Microsoft not soft launching the TPM requirement long ago this news hit a market with no real stock. Now, at least some with modules have jacked up prices if you can even get them.
No doubt in my mind that we’ll soon see a glut of TPM modules as manufacturers try to catch up - but that will likely be too late with all the manufacturing and shipping delays we have now. I don’t know that TPM modules will be a viable solution in the short run thanks to low stocks on hand.
I’m not so sure. If you look at corporate behavior then vs. now, they are exactly the same company now as then. Microsoft is focused hard on lock-in, subscription models, eliminating competition, etc, and still show no signs of actually doing what is best for users of their software.
Can’t argue that. It’s absolutely true. However, there will be a lot fewer vulnerable systems. Business and government will upgrade to systems that can be secured. Many home users with pre-TPM systems will also upgrade. Others will just update the OS. End result is a much smaller attack profile.
We are under attack. I don’t know if Win11 and TPM will detect existing infections but it will hopefully stop new ones. I don’t want to sound like chicken little but the internet is hostile. Criminals and nation states are recruiting systems. I’d bet there is enhanced effort now to get that foot in the door in as many systems as possible. It’s literally a war and something has to be done. We either have some systems vulnerable and stuck at Win10, or all systems vulnerable and running Win11.
eBay is once again nothing more that a storefront for Scan, depending on what you search for.
I bought two Gigabyte TPM modules, with one as backup, on the Friday this all came to light. These same modules are now going for up to £150, with my specific model for £125.
As mentioned previously, the render scaling setting scales each axis to 50% when set to 50, so you get 0.5 * 0.5 times the pixel count. So you are correct, but so is my previous post.
This is also clearly shown in the Q&A video where the render resolution can be seen at the top of the FPS counter, and indeed shows a lower resolution than 1920x1080 at 40% of 3840x2160.
I can see the logic in rolling out some new things on Xbox first rather than on PC, though I recognise that may be frustrating for those on PC waiting for it.
Firstly, I expect the Xbox version has been built this way for its July 27th launch, so downgrading it in order to maintain parity with PCs at the launch date simply isn’t an option, nor a logical one to take from a development perspective.
Second, delaying the Xbox launch from July 27th in order to have a parity launch with PC would be a marketing disaster for the huge potential Xbox player base. So, if the Xbox version is ready there’s no sensible grounds to delay its launch, I mean why would you?
Third, bringing Xbox to MSFS has a huge benefit for the developers, it’s a known piece of hardware that they can test changes and improvements on without having to worry about the endless variations and configurations of PC. The Xbox (or “DirectX Box” as it was originally informally known as), was literally designed to make things easy for developers.
I suspect this disparity between platforms is a temporary one and brought out entirely by circumstance (the Xbox launch isn’t getting delayed just because the development for PC isn’t quite ready).
In the future I can easily expect new innovations to be tested on Xbox first (as a known piece of hardware) but then released to all platforms when ready for all, as there won’t be this unique console launch date to contend with.
So I get it, it’s annoying. But I doubt this is the start of an ‘Xbox takeover’ it’s just an annoying consequence of a fixed-date console launch. PC platform will always have greater flexibility and a higher performance ‘top end’.
PC users have been beta testing every continuously evolving products for years, whether they realise it or not, this is nothing new. Besides we’re getting performance optimisation as well, so it’s not as if we’re being left behind the Xbox release.
As for your last paragraph, sorry but that’s just laughable, watch the Q&As, read the interviews, look at the development plans and get some understanding please.
Just to clarify what’s happening with DX12, as they explained in the latest dev Q&A livestream.
They’ve implemented support for DX12 in the xbox version as they’ve got to for the Series X|S platform. However, on it’s own with no additional development this does nothing, and will behave like DX11. All it does is open up the future possibility of the developers making use of the new features and improvements it contains. The devs will need to work on the features of DX12 they want to make use of, adding each one as they go. This will happen to both PC and xbox version at the same time over the coming months.
So the xbox version will currently have no additional benefit over the PC version in this respect. Having DX12 implemented isn’t the same thing as making use of it’s features. All of the optimisations they say they’ve done as part of Sim Update 5 ready for the xbox release are separate to DX12, and will benefit both the PC and Xbox versions.
It’s a pitiable fact that you haven’t known in a year that the dev team have strictly been planning the implementation of DX12 for the PC at the time of Xbox series release, particularly easily noticeable on the weekly published dev update snapshots since day one.
The dev simply botched it, tho.
It’s not my fault to remind my fellow simmers of this failure.
