Request - A DX9 vs DX10 direct comparison review

[Paul J 349]

Good man! Take a boo at the first pinned post, Ian - it's all there! Either pdf or a Word doc. :smile:

[MrSpeaker 122]

Good man! Take a boo at the first pinned post, Ian - it's all there! Either pdf or a Word doc. :smile:

 

Thanks Paul, Im so out of the loop I didn't realize there was a dx10 forum. lol wish me luck.

[Paul J 349]

Luck?? Aaaah - you've been around long enough to know what you're doing! :LMAO:

[ant_1984 20]

Well I took the plunge last night and tried out DX10 following the excellent guide that's pinned in these forums and whilst I don't have any screenshots or anything to share with you these were my findings based on my hardware.

 

I tested both DX9 and DX10 at default KSEA and also at ORBX YMMB & YMML. I don't have FTX PNW installed at the moment but I do have FTX Australia installed as well as using REX essentials and having my FSX.cfg set up following Word Not Allowed's guide.

 

The tests were all conducted with the default C172, Fair Weather and at the same time of Day. I also had a fresh install of UT2 with AI running at 100%, but bearing in mind I haven't assigned repaints to those not assigned by default and I was not using the generic livery to replace those that were missing.

 

I also had the latest Nvidia Inspector and Nvidia Drivers as of 18/09/2012 installed.

 

The main things I was looking for was both image quality and performance.

 

Performance:

As far as performance goes in terms of FPS, I found the FPS to be virtually identical in DX10 and in some situations (i.e. looking at the populated section of ORBX YMMB), my FPS were actually 1-2fps lower under DX10. but on the whole it was about on par and I was able to consistently achieve 30fps except for heavily detailed scenery or at KSEA with 100% traffic (this dipped down to 28fps).

 

If I was being really subjective and picky I could say that maybe the FPS in DX10 had fewer random dips under my locked 30fps but that is a BIG maybe and the smoothness under both DX10 and DX9 was basically identical from what I could see.

 

Image Quality:

With regards to Image quality both DX10 and DX9 had their pros.

 

As far as DX10 goes the water does look nicer but I found there was a high level of shimmering on the water off in the distance, but this could be due to me using the REX Essential "Sparkling Textures", needless to say I didn't have this problem in DX9 and I couldn't live with it in DX10. I also thought that the Autogen trees looked slightly nicer in DX10, sort of like they had a richer more realistic colour or something.

 

I also didn't really like the cockpit shadows in DX10. At first glance I thought they were great and added to the immersion, but what wrecked it for me was the really rough edges on the shadows. At certain angles the shadows would sort of shimmer over the instruments and I found this annoying. My aircraft shadows on the ground also didn't appear to be affected by AA and were quite rough. I even tried another users setting of applying a bioshock setting but this had no effect for me. I also didn't get the feeling that AA as a whole worked as well in DX10.

 

With DX9, whilst the water doesn't look quite as nice I didn't have any shimmering off in the distance as I did in DX10. I also felt that the AA was much nicer under DX9 and the image on my screen seemed a lot crisper and more realistic. Not to mention my shadows had AA applied properly.

 

So what conclusions did I draw from this?

 

I really liked some aspects of DX10 but at the moment I think I'll probably stick with DX9 due to what I believe to be better image quality and AA being applied properly.

 

I'm really grateful for the work that has gone into getting DX10 preview to a useable state and I will certainly keep an eye on these forums and tinker with DX10 as new fixes or improvements are discovered.

 

I'd welcome any feedback on what you think of my findings or any suggestions to solve the problems I came across in DX10.

 

Cheers! :smile: