Epic: DirectX 11 Coming to Ureal Engine 3

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By Kevin Parrish
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Unreal Engine 3 has received a huge injection of DirectX 11, Nvidia PhysX, APEX and 3D Vision support. No, PC gaming is NOT dead.

Tuesday Nvidia announced that Epic Games has finally added DirectX 11 support to its Big Mac of the gaming industry, Unreal Engine 3. Currently both Nvidia and Epic are teaming up at Game Developers Conference this week to present an exclusive demo showcasing the brain-hemorrhaging eye candy brought on by DirectX 11 including tessellation, multithreaded rendering and DirectCompute.

According to Nvidia, the real-time demo was developed using GeForce GTX 500 Series GPUs. "It represents Epic's proposal for what the next generation of gaming will look like and sets a new bar for what can be accomplished with Epic's Unreal Engine 3 technology," the company said. "It also showcases the myriad benefits that DX11 brings to gaming, including complex environments and detailed character models with lifelike movement and animations."

Nvidia added that the demo is further enhanced by the use of Nvidia's PhysX and APEX technologies including "destruction and clothing modules, which enable realistic character interactions with the environment." Epic has also added support for Nvidia's 3D Vision tech, providing users of the new UDK with a "theater-quality" 3D gaming development platform.

"Thanks to Nvidia's excellent cross-platform physics technologies and DX11 expertise, we have enhanced Unreal Engine 3 to bring unprecedented new levels of realism and demonstrate what the next generation of gaming will be," said Mark Rein, vice president of Epic Games.

For the uninitiated, Epic's Unreal Engine 3 is probably the most licensed game engine used in the industry, powering popular titles like Batman: Arkham Asylum, Mass Effect 2, DC Universe Online, Medal of Honor and the just-released Bulletstorm action-FPS. Unreal Engine 3 will also serve as the backbone for upcoming titles including Batman: Arkham City, BioShock Infinite, Gears of War 3, Mass Effect 3 and Mortal Kombat.

The latest updates to Unreal Engine 3 are available now to all licensees, allowing developers to ship games with "out of the box" support for DX11, APEX, PhysX, and 3D Vision.

Kevin Parrish
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30 Comments Comment from the forums
  • restatement3dofted
    Arkham City, ME3, and the next Bioshock installment with DX11 glory? Color me stoked (except for the fact that I likely won't be able to just max the settings before I start playing and know that my PC will be able to handle them... le sigh).
    Reply
  • LuckyDucky7
    *Hopes this makes it into Mass Effect 3*

    Also, what's Ureal Engine 3?
    Reply
  • belardo
    What about the ability to make a GOOD Unreal Tournament game that is FUN and well made as UT99 and UT2004?

    Epic blew it by including crappy maps in which only 4-5 are playable out of 33. By the time the gamers made GOOD to great maps, the UT3 user base has gone away. What is left is a handful of active servers which play the SAME standard maps - because a typical map is about 20~75mb to download.

    Okay Epic... put the UE3+ engine to use. come out with a FIX UT4 in which there is Vehicle zoom (Like in UT2004 - but even better with the 16k mod that turns it BACK on in UT3). Include 125~150 MAPS (made from fans) to make it interesting and sell it for $30 or so. And you may redeem yourself and get a lot of us playing again.
    Reply
  • belardo
    Oh... and another thing. What about making some of those games for the PC?!

    Hey Microfart... Gears of War 2 and 3... for PC? Hello? (imagine someone knocking on Ballmer's bald head) HELLO? (knock knock) HELLO? (knock knock). Make Gears 2 & 3 for Windows? Remember, "Games for Windows". Some of us WILL never EVER buy an xBox.
    Reply
  • restatement3dofted
    BelardoOh... and another thing. What about making some of those games for the PC?!Hey Microfart... Gears of War 2 and 3... for PC? Hello? (imagine someone knocking on Ballmer's bald head) HELLO? (knock knock) HELLO? (knock knock). Make Gears 2 & 3 for Windows? Remember, "Games for Windows". Some of us WILL never EVER buy an xBox.
    I'm pretty sure Ballmer and the rest of the 360 crew don't care that you won't buy a 360. The whole point of an exclusive is to push a particular system. Even if you won't buy a 360 to play GoW, there are tons of people that will. If they had the alternative of buying it on the PC, they might not bother ever getting a 360. It may be a trade-off, but in this instance, they clearly don't care about how you feel.
    Reply
  • belardo
    Yeah, really? Still, I have a right to tell MS to stick their "Games for Windows" in their ass. Wheres the support for it - which they semi-promote?

    Then as end-users, we really DON'T need a Windows platform either. After all, as long as there is a browser and general tools (Office) - any computer will do.

    Its stupid. How many PC gamers own an Xbox? How many of them prefer the PC over the xbox for certain games? Having a shooter game is best on the PC... but yeah, kids who can't aim worth a crap have to use their auto-aim joysticks.

    I bought Gears 1 for PC and was happy with it.
    Reply
  • JOSHSKORN
    Title fail. Please check for typos.

    I guess we're not gonna ask "Can it play Crysis?" anymore. This will be the new Crysis.
    Reply
  • alchemy69
    Following this announcement 2K games have said that they're scrapping Duke Nukem Forever and rewriting it from scratch on the Unreal 3 engine.
    Reply
  • thor220
    Yay, it sound like an engine optimized to run and consoles and Nvidia cards. So the other half of consumers wont be able to even run the games, especially with PhysX turned on. On the other hand there is always the CryEngine.
    Reply
  • DokkRokken
    Restatement3dofTedArkham City with DX11 glory
    If Arkham City gets DX11, I'll be popping a major batarang.
    Reply