So, Direct3D 11.2 is coming :O

Graphics and GPU Programming Programming

Started by Alessio1989 June 26, 2013 03:22 PM

47 comments, last by Adam Miles 10 years, 9 months ago

Alessio1989

4,648

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June 27, 2013 01:40 PM

Oh, this is interesting: I installed the preview of VS 2013, and in the new windows kits 8.1 I cannot find a new feature level.

Actually the feature level defined in d3dcommon.h are the same of d3d11.1... So, there is no D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_11_2 ?

What will invent AMD and NVIDIA to sell new cards now? xD Maybe, maybe, maybe,... this time we can just have some new feature for free

"Recursion is the first step towards madness." - "Skegg?ld, Skálm?ld, Skildir ro Klofnir!"
Direct3D 12 quick reference: https://github.com/alessiot89/D3D12QuickRef/

_the_phantom_

11,263

June 27, 2013 02:09 PM

What will invent AMD and NVIDIA to sell new cards now? xD Maybe, maybe, maybe,... this time we can just have some new feature for free

Clearly you missed the part where AMD's GCN DX11 GPUs supported DX11.1 from the start with a driver update so lets not go whining about things which aren't true, eh?

If something isn't physically supported in hardware then having to get new hardware to support it makes sense...

Alessio1989

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Author

June 27, 2013 03:03 PM

What will invent AMD and NVIDIA to sell new cards now? xD Maybe, maybe, maybe,... this time we can just have some new feature for free

Clearly you missed the part where AMD's GCN DX11 GPUs supported DX11.1 from the start with a driver update so lets not go whining about things which aren't true, eh?

If something isn't physically supported in hardware then having to get new hardware to support it makes sense...

what feature were "physically unsupported"?

Old dx9/ feature_level_9_x caps bit, format and minimum precision? nope.

3d stereo? nope

UAVs on all shader stage? nope, OpenGL (since version 4.1 if I'm correct) has a similar feature...

the rest is all about shader tracing for debugging purpose, an updated WARP software renderer etc...

I asked many times to AMD what kinda feature where physically unsupported by "old dx11" cards, they never answer.

So please, tell me what VLIW5 and VLIW4 cards cannot support of the feature_level_11_1, because no-one knows that.

On the other hand NVIDIA says that "UAVs in all shader stages is not a "gaming" features, so don't cray for the lack of that"...

The funniest is that in all WDDM 1.3 drivers of AMD leaked and released in this week, only the last two series (HD 7xxx and HD 8xxx) are WDDM 1.3, but only half of them officially support feature_level_11_1, since a lot of them (all HD 76xx, 75xx, 74xx, 85xx, 84xx,and integrated 86xx cards), are all WLIV4 cards without feature_level_11_1 support.

I only see one reason: marketing.

"Recursion is the first step towards madness." - "Skegg?ld, Skálm?ld, Skildir ro Klofnir!"
Direct3D 12 quick reference: https://github.com/alessiot89/D3D12QuickRef/

_the_phantom_

11,263

June 27, 2013 10:53 PM

OK, so having watched the videos.

Tiled Resources are indeed PRT support and it there for Buffers and Texture2D(Array) objects just the docs aren't up to date.

From what I can gather the new features can be queried as part of existing feature levels, thus no D3D_11_2 feature level - just need the correct device interface to query for the new stuff where applicable. The also made a point that Tiled Resources are on hardware out there 'today', demoed something on an NV device and drivers willing I suspect it'll be on AMD's GCN arch. based GPUs. (not older as the hardware physically couldn't support it.)

No one in the videos asked if this would end up on Win7 so I put on my 'bother MS employee' hat and fired off an e-mail earlier - I'll post as/when I have info.

Alessio1989

4,648

Author

June 27, 2013 11:33 PM

many site "says" the demo was running under a GTX 700, which has only feature level 11_0 support (nvidia still doesn't support feature level 11_1)...

edit: the "mars demo" seems to use both 11_0 and 11_1 feature levels... http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/Direct3D-Tiled-Resources-80ee7a6e/sourcecode?fileId=86743&pathId=155120175

"Recursion is the first step towards madness." - "Skegg?ld, Skálm?ld, Skildir ro Klofnir!"
Direct3D 12 quick reference: https://github.com/alessiot89/D3D12QuickRef/

_the_phantom_

11,263

June 27, 2013 11:57 PM

Yes, but the Tile Resources stuff doesn't require D3D11.1; it should work with D3D11 devices IF they support the caps.

Not supporting the D3D11.1 feature level isn't the same as not support the D3D11.1 API - you can have a D3D10 device and still use the D3D11.1 API with it, just not any D3D10.1+ features.

Alessio1989

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Author

June 28, 2013 12:15 PM

I understand, caps again... argh, they should never have come back :\

"Recursion is the first step towards madness." - "Skegg?ld, Skálm?ld, Skildir ro Klofnir!"
Direct3D 12 quick reference: https://github.com/alessiot89/D3D12QuickRef/

backstep

1,313

June 28, 2013 03:30 PM

If anyone is interested in specific nvidia support for wddm 1.3 and the optional features such as tiling, I did some googling and testing today.

It appears 700 series definitely support wddm 1.3 and at least texture tiling, as all three of the tiling demos shown at Build were ran on them - http://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2013/06/26/higher-fidelity-graphics-with-less-memory-at-microsoft-build/

I also personally tested texture tiling and hardware overlays on a 500 series (560ti) over lunch, and at least with the current forceware 326.01 beta for win 8.1 preview the 500 series is unsupported. The driver presents it as a WDDM 1.2 device. I left a post over at nvidia's developer forum seeking clarification - https://devtalk.nvidia.com/default/topic/548766/directx-and-direct-compute/wddm-1-3-win-8-1-support-besides-geforce-700-series/

If anyone else is interested in checking out the current state of feature support for specific devices, it's actually relatively quick to do (<1 hour, excluding iso download time). Download the windows 8.1 preview and the visual studio 2013 preview from microsoft.com, then install 8.1 onto a spare partition and vs2013 in 8.1. Grab the latest drivers for your card (NV via windows update, or AMD from their site - http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/AMDCatalystWIN8-1PreviewDriver.asp ).

There are feature specific sample apps available here - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/bg182880.aspx#three

In my case I only quickly checked out the Tiled Resources and the Foreground Swap Chains (aka hardware overlays) samples. Worth noting you can't just run them to verify support, since they both have fallback methods when support isn't present in hardware, though you'll be sure to notice the resource tiling sample falls back to rendering on a warp device! I didn't note the line, but you'll want to check the tiling sample using a breakpoint at "m_tiledResourcesTier = featureData.TiledResourcesTier; " in DeviceResources.cpp, m_tiledResourcesTier will reveal the support for resource tiling. Similarly for the foreground swap chain sample you'll want to breakpoint "m_overlaySupportExists = dxgiOutput2->SupportsOverlays() ? true : false; " in DeviceResources.cpp.

I'm particularly curious about 600 series nvidia cards since i don't have ready access to one, and my guess is, right now anyway, nvidia's support for wddm 1.3 and optional features is only on kepler based GPUs.

Alessio1989

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Author

June 28, 2013 06:33 PM

same thing about AMD drivers: I have a cayman GPU (VLIW4 arch.) and is still 1.2 WDDM. http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/AMDCatalystWIN8-1PreviewDriver.aspx

Note that not all HD7xx0 and HD8xx0 cards are based on the CGN arch, half of them are still WLIV4 cards (this means with only feature_level_11_0 support).

In particular all the "low-range" cards are VLIW4 GPUs: all the HD76xx and below, dedicated and IGPs, and all HD85xx and below, plus HD86xx IGPs, are all VLIW4 cards.

I should ask some of my friends if they have a VLIW4 card with WDDM 1.3, I need some guinea pigs ..

EDIT:

slides and videos are up:

What's New in Direct3D 11.2 http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2013/3-062
Massive Virtual Textures for Games: Direct3D Tiled Resources http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2013/4-063
Unlocking the Power of DirectX in Apps That Use XAML http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2013/4-065
DirectX Graphics Debugging Tools http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2013/3-141
Innovations in High Performance 2D Graphics with DirectX http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2013/3-191

"Recursion is the first step towards madness." - "Skegg?ld, Skálm?ld, Skildir ro Klofnir!"
Direct3D 12 quick reference: https://github.com/alessiot89/D3D12QuickRef/

backstep

1,313

June 28, 2013 08:38 PM

I had the presentations playing in the background while I worked this morning, the What's New in Direct3D 11.2 and Massive Virtual Textures for Games: Direct3D Tiled Resources both have some decent-ish information on the new api features. DirectX Graphics Debugging Tools is also good in places, with some solid info on the new command list annotations and other improvements to the usability of VS's graphics diagnostic tools (a lot of the rest of it retreads existing debugging features though).

In particular it's worth checking out slide 40 of What's New in Direct3D 11.2, where it summarises most but not all of the new features in 11.2 in terms of hardware support. Essentially it boils down to:

Hardware Overlay = driver dependent for levels 9_1, 10_0, and 11_0.
Runtime Shader Linking = guaranteed at all levels >= 9_1.
Low Latency Presentation API = guaranteed at all levels >= 9_1.
Mappable Default Buffers = driver dependent and then only for 11_0.
Tiled Resources = driver dependent and then only for 11_0.

I also booted back into 8.1 Preview and had a closer look at the samples this evening. Mappable Default Buffers currently aren't supported either with forceware 326.01 on my 500 series GPU. You can check it in the Tiled Resources sample i mentioned before, at the same breakpoint, since MapOnDefaultBuffers is part of the same featureData struct as the TiledResourcesTier value.

Incidentally there appears to be two distinct tiers of tiled resource support for devices (check out d3d11.h in the 8.1 SDK headers, line 7378), so perhaps it isn't so grim for non-GCN non-kepler GPUs:


        D3D11_TILED_RESOURCES_NOT_SUPPORTED	= 0,
        D3D11_TILED_RESOURCES_TIER_1	= 1,
        D3D11_TILED_RESOURCES_TIER_2	= 2

Of course it could just be that tier_2 corresponds to as-yet-unreleased hardware, I'm just speculating until we get better documentation or newer drivers. That said, I'm hopeful some form of wddm 1.3 and tiled resources come to VLIW4 and fermi based GPUs, since it would make it more practical to invest the time in learning to use the new APIs. Looking back on past beta drivers for microsoft OS previews, it's possible, since I remember wddm 1.2 drivers were initially only for the 400 series (spring '12), but by the time windows 8 arrived they had wddm 1.2 drivers for the 200 series also.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see, I personally don't know or understand enough about the hardware details, hopefully the vendors become more specific than "supported by 90 million shipped GPUs" soon.

So, Direct3D 11.2 is coming :O

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So, Direct3D 11.2 is coming :O

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