Assassin's Creed II for PC Uses Only DX9 Features

that sucks, having the latest and greatest in graphics apparently doesn't matter

A Steam survey that has 40% of the users using XP; did they read the article saying the MAJOR increase in Windows_7 users?

doesn't really surprise. not even news tbh. it'l be a while before we can expect dx11 to be a standard. i sure as hell didn't expect a console port from last year to support it.

love the game though. already finished it on my xbox, but may have to try the pc version too.

Oh well, time to turn up the AA all the way.

Even with 40% on XP that means the majority are on an OS with DX10+. They should probably wait until 10% are on XP, so as to not offer features that not everybody can use -- I mean, in fairness. Why spur upgrades?

Damn I loved the first AC, I actually thought it was a DX10 gaME....Oh well, Ati may have gotten the advantage of bringing out the first dx11 card but there have been few games that actually utilize it...

Sigh

As a PC gamer I am sick of being treated as a second or third class gamer.
It is not just the games you play or how you play it but what you play them on. Console games are getting more and more crummy, I miss the good old days ware each console had games that justified the existence of the console as well had character like the classic N64 or the PS2. The good old days are long gone now like 3DFX. Software is getting more and more sloppy for all platforms.

DX9 is pseudo cross-platform via WinE.
IIRC, DX10 isn't.
So, to me, this is a good thing.

WTFH .. AC 1 was DX10 and one of rare game who run better and faster under DX10 than DX9. thx so proper coding for SM4 .. but now ... its BS ... AC2 in DX9 .. whats wrong ...

and every time i will kill a Templar, i will imagine it being one of the producers that held it back from Dx10.

wtf!? no ambient occlusion for ac2?

With DX11 it shouldn't matter that people are still on Windows XP, it is backwards compatible down to 9.

"While that piece of news is disappointing for gamers who have purchased a new ATI Radeon HD for DX11 hotness..."

Only disappointing if you weren't alive when DX8, 9 and 10 came out. How good were they 5 months in? Who writes this stuff? Or am I suppose to cut up ATi 5000 series owners for not being able to use DX11 on a card that came to be months into AC II's development? DiRT 2 does have support and it's not great. Visually or performance-wise.

The only other title that performs better in DX10 that I know of is Far Cry 2.

I'm pretty sure that with any ports from consoles to PC, it's going to remain a strictly DX9. I doubt DX11 (let alone DX10) will really matter until the next generation of consoles where it may possibly be supported, since most high-profile titles release on multiple platforms.

Just like how the best Wii titles take advantage of the hardware, the same applies for DX11 GPUs. In the meanwhile, DX11 and DX10 will looks nearly the exact same as DX9 while working the system a whole lot more.

Anyone catch the remarks about the tweaks for multicore processors and thread handling?

WTF why are they just now doing this? Dosnt the 360 have a triple core processor? Wasnt there multi core systems around for AC1?

I dont get it.

I'm willing to bet that there would be more gamers moving on to DX10/DX11 operating systems if a developer would actually give them a reason to... When talking about the masses, who's ganna fork over a few hundred dollars for an OS and video card when developers have this kind of attitude towards breaking away from the same ol same ol they have been using for how many years now?? I mean, one or the other HAS to happen first and apparrently developers feel as though it is the consumers obligation to make the jump first before ever being shown why we need to make the jump in the first place. Personally I do stay fairly current on my hardware. I made the DX10 jump pretty early in anticipation for Crysis and I currently have a 5870 waiting to see some new great titles that use it... But seriously for those that are not enthusiasts or that don't have income to just be throwing around on the newest video cards, exactly why would they make the jump first after the rediculously low DX10 support that we just witnessed last gen? You can count on one hand how many games outside of Crysis really pushed DX10 and showed us what it is capable of. So from a gaming standpoint why WOULD any of those 40% switch from XP?? As an enthusiast that supports the new hardware and OS's as they come out it frustrates my greatly.

eh, a modern PC w/DX9 is still going to kick the shit out a console.

Darn XP.

somehow a sequel does less

I wonder if anyone would have cared if David Champagne didn't say anything.

Seriously, if the game looks and plays great then does it really matter?

So there not supporting it because of an OS that is not or soon to be dropped from Microsoft's support list??? its there loss. I'm looking forward to aliens VS predator that looks like a fun game.

Seriously, the best part of this article is how the game's physics is optimized for being completed by the processor.

Hopefully developers in the future will try and get 100% out of the processor so that consumers don't have to resort to buying extra Nvidia cards just for the PhysX...

PhysX and Physics are two totally different technologies. One runs on dedicated hardware (GPU), the other, physics (Havok), is software driven. PhysX titles are scarce, but it'll be very very very hard for software physics to catch up to PhysX anytime soon. If you want PhysX, you NEED an nVIDIA card to run it. Software physics is NOT a PhysX replacement.

Looks bullshit.
"We spent quite some time improving the performances of the PC version by taking advantage of multi-core processors. The PC version also supports much higher resolutions than the console version and multi-sampling modes up to 8X (as opposed to the console version which only supports 2X)."
Higher resolutions? So what? You don't even had to do anything since theres no higher resolution textures so it's just for the birds.
Multisampling up to 8x? WooooW. Is it a new feature? Well it is, if you lived under a rock for about 20 years. Even AC1 had support for DX10.1 and 4xMSAA. (Which is fair enough I think)
"a Steam survey that has 40 percent of gamers still using Windows XP."
So this means the majority of gamers would use at least DX10 renderer.
So Mr. Champagne do we look like an ass?

Seems like hardware is outpacing software development, they should be pushing the limits instead of the market.

Unlike consoles, PC gamers tend to want more than just flashy and shiny. We want games that stand out, have a story tied in with compelling gameplay as well as decent graphics.

Desides, DX9 still is capable of producing some amazing effects, in fact consoles are limited to DX9 and still have some nice looking games.

Only one so far and it doesn't do a really good job. Dirt 2. Now AVP will do a great job of tesselation at least with the Aliens. They look better than in the movies.

Yet another proof that consoles will stall the PC gaming development years to come!

Of course not. If developers made games for the PC (high resolution textures, high density models etc.) and then ported to the consoles (downsampling the textures, using lower LOD models), games would look their best on both consoles and the PC.

But no, they develop for the consoles and then do a straight port to the PC. Does any console game or port look as good as Crysis? That game was released more than two years ago, and since console hardware doesn't evolve, we're stuck on the PC with whatever the current-gen consoles can handle.

AC 1 was dx10 (actually it's dx10.1)
now dx9?!?!?!