BoB lighting capabilities. OpenGL and Direct X question. HDR/Caustics supported?

[Urufu_Shinjiro]

Feuerfalke, it is not true about vista and openGL, I get almost the same performance with il2 in vista as I do in xp.

[Feuerfalke]

Originally Posted by Urufu_Shinjiro

Feuerfalke, it is not true about vista and openGL, I get almost the same performance with il2 in vista as I do in xp.

Almost is the key. And IL2 is not as hardware-demanding as BoB will be and it uses very much standard-effects AFAIK.

[Codex]

The current engine in IL-2 1946 only bump-maps water AKAIK. There are no height maps used for the aircraft skins so no bump-mapping there, as for the terrain a lot of review sites have stated bump-mapping is used on the terrain but I fail to see it.

As for OpenGL, it runs fine under Vista its just not supported natively, meaning when you installed NT to XP, DX and OpenGL was installed with it, with Vista only DX is installed. Under Vista the OpenGL API has to be installed as an ICD and this is done with your video card drivers. The disadvantage of OpenGL v DX under Vista is that OpenGL doesn't have access to the memory optimisations that DX has, so to get the same optimisations the programmer needs to code more in an OpenGL game rather than have the OS do it for it aka more work for the programmer.

Almost all of the graphical techniques used in DX10 can be done in OpenGL2.1, it just needs a little more work/coding to do it.

[proton45]

Originally Posted by Codex

The current engine in IL-2 1946 only bump-maps water AKAIK. There are no height maps used for the aircraft skins so no bump-mapping there, as for the terrain a lot of review sites have stated bump-mapping is used on the terrain but I fail to see it.

As for OpenGL, it runs fine under Vista its just not supported natively, meaning when you installed NT to XP, DX and OpenGL was installed with it, with Vista only DX is installed. Under Vista the OpenGL API has to be installed as an ICD and this is done with your video card drivers. The disadvantage of OpenGL v DX under Vista is that OpenGL doesn't have access to the memory optimisations that DX has, so to get the same optimisations the programmer needs to code more in an OpenGL game rather than have the OS do it for it aka more work for the programmer.

Almost all of the graphical techniques used in DX10 can be done in OpenGL2.1, it just needs a little more work/coding to do it.

one place you can see bump-mapping is on the frozen rivers of any winter map...

[WTE_Tigger]

Frankly the more thats possible to be enabled the better, as long as you can dissable a setting for lower end PC's the more dynamic effects supported the better, think the long term folks, the SoW engine will be around a few years and PC tech will continue to advance.

Me I would like to see support for PhysiX by Ageia. Now that would really set SoW apart from any other similair product.

My 2c.

S!

Tiggs

[Chivas]

I know nothing about opengl or dx9 or 10, but its interesting that water in IL-2's opengl seems alot better than anything I've seen in DX9 FSX. I haven't upgraded FSX to DX10, but know it has been improved, but not sure by how much.

[Feuerfalke]

Originally Posted by Chivas

I know nothing about opengl or dx9 or 10, but its interesting that water in IL-2's opengl seems alot better than anything I've seen in DX9 FSX. I haven't upgraded FSX to DX10, but know it has been improved, but not sure by how much.

Well, FS9 or FSX is not really a good example for realistic water with DX.

[Bulau]

Originally Posted by Codex

The current engine in IL-2 1946 only bump-maps water AKAIK. There are no height maps used for the aircraft skins so no bump-mapping there, as for the terrain a lot of review sites have stated bump-mapping is used on the terrain but I fail to see it.

It's quite noticeable on terrain if you set a late afternoon time, so the sun is low. It's not necessary to use a separate height map...you can bump-map a texture using itself as the bump-map, interpreting light/dark transitions in the texture as changes in height or angle. Or am I using wrong terminology?

I may have to revise my comment about caustics...I was recently testing some maps for SEOW, and noticed a line about caustics flash by in the console as the mission was loading, so perhaps there is already some support for it in the existing game. Perhaps to do with water in shallow areas?

[Codex]

Originally Posted by Bulau

It's quite noticeable on terrain if you set a late afternoon time, so the sun is low. It's not necessary to use a separate height map...you can bump-map a texture using itself as the bump-map, interpreting light/dark transitions in the texture as changes in height or angle. Or am I using wrong terminology?

Might be, but I haven't seen an example of bump mapping that doesn't use a height map. You might be thinking of Parallax mapping.


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