Wednesday, July 18th 2018
World of Warcraft Engine Updated to Support DX12, Adds 21:9 Cinematic Rendering
The folks at Blizzard have taken it into their hands to update the eons-old, but still running strong, World of Warcraft. Some back-end improvements have been made, and were essentially lost within the latest patch notes - as in, not even mentioned - that included this update to the latest API. The game now supports DX11 and DX12, but there's a caveat - only AMD users should use the DX12 implementation. Players using an NVIDIA graphics card will see an immediate performance hit from going to the more modern renderer. For now, the change is virtual - there doesn't seem to have been any particular work for performance improvements.
Other changes include ditching Exclusive Fullscreen (now only windowed and borderless windowed modes are available), improving the cinematic renderer for 21:9 ratio support, and changing graphical options. The performance presets of low, medium and high have been swapped with 1-10 sliders (a change prior to this patch), which allow for more granular control of graphics options - and improved performance, since more rendering variables are now affected. The game really does run extremely well nowadays, however; it seems a little counter intuitive to devote the resources to add DX12 support for barely any real improvement, so this could be the herald of future changes.
Sources:
WoW Patch Notes, via Reddit
Other changes include ditching Exclusive Fullscreen (now only windowed and borderless windowed modes are available), improving the cinematic renderer for 21:9 ratio support, and changing graphical options. The performance presets of low, medium and high have been swapped with 1-10 sliders (a change prior to this patch), which allow for more granular control of graphics options - and improved performance, since more rendering variables are now affected. The game really does run extremely well nowadays, however; it seems a little counter intuitive to devote the resources to add DX12 support for barely any real improvement, so this could be the herald of future changes.
64 Comments on World of Warcraft Engine Updated to Support DX12, Adds 21:9 Cinematic Rendering
I've always played windowed FS when you have dual screens and make tabbing easier.
I was quite surprised yesterday to see the 21:9 cinematic.
Buy BFA and get the whole game including vanilla and previous expansion.
Nobody contests it is an old engine and looks 'dated'. But what you get today is a huge step forward from what it used to be. Not many developers go to these lengths to improve an engine so fundamentally. And its not just the engine in a technical sense, which provides the performance leaps, but the addition and upgrades of particle effects and a pass for virtually ALL of the game's skills and spells, animations, etc etc etc.
And the stupid thing is, when you play this game (I've already quit again) it is actually much of the same vibe it always used to have. This game simply has soul and some extremely well crafted mechanics and the graphics + engine support that perfectly. Thát is why Blizzard games remain popular. They are like you say specific in their art direction and that goes much, much further than the # of polygons or texture res.
'Millions will buy it'... yes but not because of DX12. If you think that is a selling point for ANY game you've lost the plot. Your comment about looks and 'being so CPU taxing' also seems a bit weird. Graphics lean on GPU, and this game has more going on than GTA V at times to stress the CPU.
The requirements for maxing out the game is silly though, that I agree on fo sho. But turn off the fancy stuff and you could - at least up to Warlords of Draenor - run it on a C2D and a GT520, and I know this because I did it.
I don't know if the updated system requirements are fair though,and you provably can get by on less, especially if you drop view distance. Also consider the minimum GPU requirements: GTX560, HD7850 and ... Intel 530? One of those ain't like the others.
Does it have optimisation issues? Yes and this is where the age is playing against them. It is not like the engine can be swapped so easily. With all the problems it is still quite an achievement to add DX12 to something from at least 2002 (if not 1999, WoW, IIRC, uses very heavily modified WarCraft III engine).
Their DX11 implementation, for example, actually improved performance AND graphics (lightning, as far as I can remember).
Friend of mine was sitting right here, updating the game to the latest DLCs. It looks just as shitty as it did in 2004 - but back then it was acceptable.
edit:
I'm not even talking about the cartoon style, which I admittedly hate, but that's my personal taste and nothing else.
It's the complete emptiness of the game world, single colour ground textures, and for example, trees that are LITERALLY 100 polygons at most. Stuff like that.
www.computerbase.de/2018-07/world-of-warcraft-wow-dx12-directx-12-benchmark/#diagramm-wow-directx-11-vs-directx-12-1920-1080
The main benefits for AMD users come from increased performance when using a lower end CPU of course:
www.computerbase.de/2018-07/world-of-warcraft-wow-dx12-directx-12-benchmark/2/#diagramm-prozessor-benchmarks-auf-einer-rx-vega-64-1920-1080
The magic sauce Nv put into their drivers from 337.5x means their DX11 performance puts the need for DX12 to bed.
www.pcgamer.com/farewell-to-legion-world-of-warcrafts-best-expansion-in-a-decade/