• Meet or exceed the console player experience in terms of visual quality, stability, and framerate in both singleplayer and CO-OP play while supporting a range of hardware/software configurations
• Take advantage of DirectX® 10/11 features and allow users the ability to control display options settings via in-game menus and the display.ini file
• Ensure the game has solid mouse and keyboard controls paired with appropriate UI messaging while also maintaining gamepad support

In this development blog, we will outline some of the features we support in Saints Row: The Third and share some of the things we learned along the way.

Part 1 – Visual Features
Part 2 – Solid Controls
Part 3 – AMD Eyefinity

Part 3 – Eyefinity

When we were initially planning additional PC features, we were somewhat wary of including Eyefinity in our primary list of stuff to do.  None of us had ever tried Eyefinity before.  We were under the impression that it’s only a feature for the ultra-hardcore audience and that it would be very difficult to support.  We discovered this definitely wasn’t the case.

Throughout production, we had been keeping Eyefinity in the back of our minds.  Whenever we worked on features relating to aspect ratio, field of view, and UI layout we deliberately tried to make decisions that wouldn’t break Eyefinity if we could avoid it.  However, we weren’t testing it at all.  Near the end of the project it became clear to us how important it would be to support this feature.  So we tried it out, and to our surprise it worked almost perfectly!  AMD ran it through its own internal testing and identified any minor problems that remained.  We were able to clean up the last few issues in just about a week.

Here are a few of the things we adjusted:

• UI will no longer render on the side monitors when using a 3×1 setup.  Everything is constrained to the center monitor, so it is easy for the player to see it.
• While in menus and during loading screens, the side monitors fade to black instead of letting the world show through behind the UI.  This gives the game a polished look.
• Intro videos and cutscenes scale to maintain aspect ratio and fit the center monitor, ensuring players will see cutscenes cleanly.  Cutscenes also can optionally be scaled-to-fit across all three monitors for those users that are okay with the bezel correction possibly cutting through some of the action.
• In-game screenshots for our community upload feature are now able to handle larger resolutions.

When we did decide to set up Eyefinity in our office, we looked into what hardware we would need. We discovered we already had what we needed to set up several workstations!  AMD provided us with even more hardware, so that we were able to provide Eyefinity to anyone in the office who asked for it. The fact that Eyefinity can be run with just a single video card makes it easily accessible.  In addition, although it looks best with three widescreen monitors, it also supports using three monitors in 4:3 aspect ratio. We had stacks of these older monitors available.  Saints Row: The Third supports this mode, and you get all that delicious peripheral vision from monitors that people otherwise might not want to use.

Once several of us had Eyefinity at our desks, we realized what we had been missing.  The additional playability and situational awareness is essential.  And the immersion of seeing the whole world in your peripheral vision is hard to imagine until you’ve tried it.  It’s hard to go back to playing games without it. We set up three of our largest monitors in a public area for everyone in the office to try, and it drew a large crowd.

Contributors:

Pictured: John Buckley, Jim Brennen, JT Hooker, Ben Truwe, Kate Nelson

JT Hooker, Senior Programmer
Jim Brennan, Principal Programmer
John Buckley, Principal Programmer
Kate Nelson, Associate Producer
David Bianchi, Systems Designer

The contents of this blog were provided by these employees of Volition Inc. The information and opinions presented in this presentation may not represents AMD’s position, strategies or opinions. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the content herein and no endorsements are implied.

Refusing to kneel to the Syndicate, you take the fight to Steelport, a once-proud metropolis reduced to a struggling city of sin under Syndicate control. Take a tank skydiving, call in a satellite-targeted airstrike on a Mexican wrestling gang, and defend yourself against a highly-trained military force in the most outlandish gameplay scenarios ever seen, igniting a city-wide war that will set Steelport on fire.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=K97u5usT9WY

Saints Row®: The Third™ gives you control of the Saints at the height of their power, and you live the life to show for it. Now Steelport is ripe for the taking, and it’s up to you to make the city your own. Mold the skyline based on your choices, outfit your crew in classy gangster gear or furry costumes, and make life-or-death decisions that will change Steelport, and the Saints, forever. This is now your city. These are now your rules. Strap it on.

• Impressive PC tech: With support for AMD Eyefinity technology and DirectX® 11, Saint’s Row: The Third is an over the top experience for all of your senses.
• Over The Top, the action is fun, and better than anything you can imagine.
• City of Sin: Disrupt and dismantle the Syndicate stranglehold on weapons and cybercrime. Discover the secrets of Steelport, where there is action on every street corner, for better or, more likely, worse.
• Weapons of Mass Destruction
• Initiation Station: Create, share, and download the most outlandish characters every seen, from washed-up celebrities to naked ninja pirates. Inside every sinner, there is a Saint.

Developed by: Volition Inc.
Published by: THQ

© 2011 THQ Inc. Developed by Volition, Inc. THQ, Saints Row: The Third, Volition, Inc. and their respective logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of THQ Inc. All Rights Reserved. All other trademarks, logos and copyrights are property of their respective owners.

• Meet or exceed the console player experience in terms of visual quality, stability, and framerate in both singleplayer and CO-OP play while supporting a range of hardware/software configurations
• Take advantage of DirectX® 10/11 features and allow users the ability to control display options settings via in-game menus and the display.ini file
• Ensure the game has solid mouse and keyboard controls paired with appropriate UI messaging while also maintaining gamepad support

In this development blog, we will outline some of the features we support in Saints Row: The Third and share some of the things we learned along the way.

Part 1 – Visual Features
Part 2 – Solid Controls
Part 3 – AMD Eyefinity

Part 1 – Visual Features

When we began work on the PC version of the game, our first order of business was to support at least the same set of features that the consoles had. We brought over every one of the features as they were being added to console, and converted them to DirectX® 11. But, we also started planning from the beginning to add additional features to take advantage of DirectX® 11.

Several obvious features that we felt any respectable PC game should support were CrossFire, additional resolutions, and an in-depth display options menu.  But, we also wanted to add a set of special rendering features that could only be done on PC.  Many options, like full SSAO and high resolution lighting and shadows, were obvious extensions of our existing engine features that we were able to improve thanks to the sheer power available on mid and high-end PC’s. Additionally, god rays and diffusion depth of field are expensive effects that can only be done in addition to everything else in Saints Row: The Third if you have the power of a PC.

The first new feature we wanted to take advantage of was DirectX® 10’s geometry shader support.  In RFA we did this by adding support for point-light shadows.  The shadows from a point light are rendered to all faces of a cube map simultaneously using a geometry shader.  In SR:TT we took this one step further by using a similar set of geometry shaders to render cube-map reflections for vehicles.

The vehicles on console do have real-time reflections, but they use a distorted low-res map that has to be rendered in two separate passes.  Thanks to the new technique, reflections are much higher resolution, completely undistorted, and can render with half the work by the GPU.  This required integration of geometry shaders into our material pipeline, which puts us on the road to supporting further DX10 features in the future.

The next new feature to take advantage of for us was compute shader support in DirectX® 11.  AMD had already assisted us in implementing a high quality diffusion depth of field effect that could run on any card with sufficient power.  The obvious addition to this was bokeh, which is what results in the little hexagonal shapes in stuff that is out of focus.

We used a compute shader to do real time image processing on the scene that took the depth of field into account.  From this we were able to generate thousands of little sprites which replace the bright highlights in the image with their bokeh shape counterpart.  Combined with the improved quality of diffusion depth of field using shader model 5, we ended up with a very cinematic look.

Overall, we are very happy with the visual direction for PC and think our players will be too.

Contributors:

Pictured: John Buckley, Jim Brennen, JT Hooker, Ben Truwe, Kate Nelson

JT Hooker, Senior Programmer
Jim Brennan, Principal Programmer
John Buckley, Principal Programmer
Kate Nelson, Associate Producer
David Bianchi, Systems Designer

The contents of this blog were provided by these employees of Volition Inc. The information and opinions presented in this presentation may not represents AMD’s position, strategies or opinions. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the content herein and no endorsements are implied.

Now let’s take a look at some of the performance gains you can expect to see this month.

• Improves performance up to 14% in Call of Duty: Black Ops at 1920×1080 resolution and 0x Anti-Aliasing and 0xAF on the AMD Radeon™ HD 6790 GPU
• Improves performance up to 10% in Crysis 2 at 1920×1200 resolution and 0x Anti-Aliasing and 0xAF on the AMD Radeon™ HD 6790 GPU
• Improves performance up to 19% in Left 4 Dead 2 at 1680×1050 resolution and 0x Anti-Aliasing and 0xAF on the AMD Radeon™ HD 6790 GPU
• Improves performance up to 28% in Lost Planet 2 at 1920×1200 resolution and 8x Anti-Aliasing and 16xAF on the AMD Radeon™ HD 6790 GPU
• Improves performance up to 44% in DiRT 2 at 2560×1600 resolution and 8x Anti-Aliasing and 16xAF on the AMD Radeon™ HD 6790 GPU
• Improves performance up to 45% in Metro 2033 at 1920×1200 resolution and 4x Anti-Aliasing and 16xAF on the AMD Radeon™ HD 6790 GPU



Last but not least, I want to thank everyone for the feedback and comments we have been receiving from the community.  Please continue to send us your feedback as we do review them all.**

*AMD’s product warranty does not cover damages caused by overclocking, even when overclocking is enabled via AMD software.

**IF you are having technical issues with the AMD Catalyst™ driver or your graphics card, please report those issues here.

To download the AMD Catalyst™ 11.8 driver, click here.

Until Next Time,

Chris Bell

Chris Bell is a Product Marketing Manager at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links sites and no endorsement is implied.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRqfFfuVuNE

Battlefield 3’s new technology allows you to experience superior animation, unparalleled lighting and special effects, epic scale and incredible sound design. With support for AMD Eyefinity and DirectX® 11, Battlefield 3 leaps ahead of its time with the power of Frostbite 2, DICE’s new cutting-edge game engine. This state-of-the-art technology is the foundation on which Battlefield 3 is built, delivering enhanced visual quality, a grand sense of scale, massive destruction, dynamic audio and character animation utilizing ANT technology as seen in the latest EA SPORTS games.

The DICE team set out to bring animation to the next level. ANT technology lets them create more believable behavior than ever seen before in shooters. Simply put, in Battlefield 3 you will be able to engage in some of the largest maps ever created. Destruction is enhanced on both a macro and micro level. Chips fly off blocks of concrete used for cover, while whole facades and buildings collapse in screeching clouds of dust and debris. Frostbite 2 now enables deferred shading, dynamic global illumination and new streaming architecture. Play the game and experience the difference! Building on acclaimed high dynamic range (HDR) audio from previous Battlefield games, Battlefield 3 builds on the best-in-class legacy with a brutally realistic soundscape.

Developed by: DICE
Published by: EA

© 2011 EA Digital Illusions CE AB. Battlefield is a trademark or registered trademark of EA Digital Illusions CE AB in the U.S. and/or other countries. All rights reserved. EA and the EA logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Electronic Arts Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries.

Battlefield 3 and the DICE logo are trademarks of EA Digital Illusions CE AB. EA and the EA logo are trademarks of Electronic Arts Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zhGQqJu7BQ

AMD Eyefinity support -- Play the game across multiple monitors and completely immerse yourself in the Warhammer universe.

Storm Into Battle -- Step fearlessly into the heart of combat as an unstoppable Space Marine. Never hide, never cower, just purge all that stand in your way.

Unleash Visible Violent Death -- Using an innovative new combat system, switch seamlessly from high-caliber ranged weapons to devastating close-combat strikes. Taking out an enemy has never been so satisfying.

Experience the dark future of Warhammer 40,000 -- Jump into a rich universe of awe-inspiring landscapes, deadly enemies, immense battles and ruthless annihilation.

Take the Battle Online -- Form your own Space Marine squad or Chaos Space Marine warband and face off in 8 vs 8 online matches.  Gain experience and unlock new weapons and armor to customize the Devastator, Assault, and Tactical Marine classes.

Developed By: Relic Entertainment
Published By: THQ

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine — Copyright © Games Workshop Limited 2011.  Space Marine, the Space Marine logo, GW, Games Workshop, the Games Workshop logo, 40K, Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000, Warhammer 40,000 Device, 40,000, the Double-headed Eagle device and all associated marks, logos, places, names, creatures, races and race insignia/devices/logos/symbols, vehicles, locations, weapons, units and unit insignia, characters, products, illustrations and images from the Space Marine game and the Warhammer 40,000 universe are either ®, TM and/or © Games Workshop Ltd 2000-2011, variably registered in the UK and other countries around the world, and used under license. All Rights Reserved.  Developed by Relic Entertainment.

With a story set years before the original, gameplay based around player choice, and a technology backing that includes the first use of native AMD HD3D technology, Deus Ex: Human Revolution is one of the year’s most anticipated releases.

We had the chance to interview the team over at Eidos Montreal to give us more insight into what players should expect from the game and its supported technologies like AMD Eyefinity technology.

If you like what you see you should visit our bundle page, where, if you qualify, you’ll receive a complimentary copy of Deus Ex: Human Revolution with your purchase of select AMD hardware.

Deus Ex has quite a storied history, where does Deus Ex: Human Revolution fall on the timeline?

Deus EX: Human Revolution is set in 2027 approximately 25 years before the original game set in 2052; J.C. Denton, the hero of the first game, is not even born yet!

Give me an overview of the story. Who do you play as and what are we up against?

Deus Ex: Human Revolution takes place during a time of tremendous technological advancement that also brings with it some very serious concerns. In the world, technology is increasing at an exponential rate and humanity is faced with the challenge of how to deal with these advancements. One of the significant breakthroughs in our game is human augmentation, and specifically, mechanical augmentations. For the first time in history, humans are able to literally merge with technology to increase everything from brain power and problem solving ability to brute strength. Predictably, there are people in society who are for and against these kinds of changes and that undercurrent of struggle and the fear of the unknown hangs over the entire game. Humanity is at a tipping point in its evolution and the actions you take and the decisions you make will have significant consequences for humanity. The main character is Adam Jensen, and he is the character you play throughout the game. Adam is a security specialist who has been handpicked to oversee the defensive needs of one of America’s most experimental biotechnology firms. Adam has a rich back-story and will soon become one of the key ingredients in a vast global conspiracy. Adam is nearly killed and must rely upon augmentation to save his life. In the world of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, mechanical augmentations are commonplace and can take the form of everything from microchips implanted in the brain to limb replacements. In Adam’s case, he has a host of new augmentations received from a generous donor, some of which are military-grade. The circumstances of Adam being critically wounded, and the impetus for his life-saving operation, are suspect. Is becoming augmented something Adam was ready for? Or wanted at all? And who supplied him with his military-grade augmentations? Obviously, we don’t want to say too much because it’s central to the game experience. The unraveling of the conspiracy should feel like reading a great graphic novel.

Augmentations have always been an integral part of Deus Ex. How have augmentations changed and what parts of our character will we be able to augment?

Augmentations are varied; Cybernetic limbs, small computer chips, etc. they are implanted in human bodies. The mechanical/computer parts are graphed to the flesh giving one the ability to take advantage of them. In the game world, a lot of the augmentations are cybernetics limbs for those who have lost something through (accident, war, etc.) or need them for more physical jobs. However, more and more people get sophisticated augmentations like brain chips, etc., that make them mentally more efficient, eventually getting the best jobs, which leads to wealth etc. Thus, creating tension between those who can afford them and those who can’t. Also, some factions are able to get the more military-oriented ones making for dangerous foes. Adam Jensen, the main character, will have access to a variety of the special augmentations not available to the population.

From a gameplay perspective, using mechanical augmentations helped us emphasize the trans-humanism themes because they’re visible, unlike nano-augmentations. It also allowed us to show some uncanny stuff that, again, emphasize the not-so natural aspect of augmentations. In terms of upgrading, players will be able to trade XP points for “augmentation slots” to unlock new abilities or simply go in clinics to buy augmentation slots. So, it’s a hybrid economy where you can level up on the fly if you have enough XP points or convert your money for more augments if you visit clinics. Augmentations cover cranium, arms, legs, torso and eyes. Basically, they’re there to support the 4 gameplay pillars (combat, stealth, hacking & social).

How does this affect the gameplay when it comes to approaching a scenario in the game?

It will definitely open or close different options depending on your choices. Some alternate paths will be available or not, some secrets areas too, and so on. The replay value is quite high since you can’t have all augmentations in one play through. Starting a new game with different augmentations will let you experience what you missed the first time around.

Tell me a bit about the soundtrack and audio in Deus Ex Human Revolution and how that is helping add to the experience.

We worked with a very talented composer named Michael McCann. He managed to give life and vision to our Audio Director, Steve Szczepkowski. The goal was to create an ambient soundtrack filled with subtle textures that would enhance the emotions of the various scenes without stealing the show. In the end, I think it’s a beautiful soundtrack that really gets into your spine.

With Deus Ex Human Revolution you’re pioneering native AMD HD3D technology support. Tell me a bit about that and how are you taking advantage of this technology to benefit the player?

It was a very good opportunity for us to make use of AMD HD3D technology considering immersion is really a key aspect of the game. For instance, when we designed the UI for the game, we wanted to have as much of it within the game environment as opposed to have it tacked on the screen as one usually sees in many games. In that sense we leverage AMD HD3D technology to give a real sense of depth to the player, and that shows in the HUD as much as it does for the environment.

Talk a bit about DirectX 11 support. How are you capitalizing on the platform?

When we assembled the team for PC and thought about the experience we wanted for this platform, one of the major goals we identified was to create a new renderer that could leverage the feature set made available with DirectX® 11. When that was done we started implementing new post effects such as a more realistic depth of field. One of the key DirectX 11 features for enhancing the post filter effects, including the depth of field, but also SSAO, has been the use of Compute Shaders. Compute Shaders are really a great tool to avoid redundant calculations for each pixel, allowing for faster and higher quality effects. New SM5 instructions like Gather are great tools to optimize the shaders as well. It allowed us to add a much smoother shadow filter for use on Direct X 11 hardware, improving the visuals.

We also heavily rely on the real-time tessellation on DirectX 11 compatible hardware to add many polygons in the frame and have much smoother curves.

Are there any other AMD technologies that you’re supporting with Deus Ex Human Revolution?

We implemented AMD Eyefinity technology support fairly early in the development cycle. Basically one can play Deus EX: Human Revolution with multiple monitors and the game will adapt, adjusting aspect ratio and UI placement in specific monitors. We have had a number of people playing with this setup along the way and it garnered positive feedback, particularly, people felt it really drove an immersive gaming experience. AMD has also worked with us on adding MLAA support to the game, which provides very high quality anti-aliasing. We offer various anti-aliasing options in the game, but we believe MLAA certainly provides the highest quality.

We’d like to thank the team over at Eidos Montreal for their time. Go here for more information on the AMD hardware/Deus Ex: Human Revolution bundle and make sure to check out this latest entry into the franchise when it releases on PC tomorrow!

Peter Ross is a senior marketing manager at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links sites and no endorsement is implied.

This year, we have a special treat set up at the Eidos booth where you’ll have a chance to experience Deus Ex: Human Revolution™ before it is released on PCs featuring AMD Eyefinity technology! Deus Ex: Human Revolution had an incredible showing at E3 2011 and we anticipate it will be a hit at Gamescom. Set to launch on August 23rd in North America and August 26th in Europe, Deus Ex: Human Revolution is one of the most technically impressive games and the first to handle native AMD HD3D technology.

We’re also looking forward to the release of BATTLEFIELD 3 later this year and will be dropping by the Dice booth to see the demo, set up on PCs featuring  AMD Eyefinity technology. From the demos I’ve seen so far, the FrostBite™ engine looks fantastic and I can only imagine how brilliant it’ll look running on systems with AMD Radeon™ graphics cards.

If you’ll be at Gamescom please drop by and say hello at any of the four booths. If you can’t make it out to Cologne, then get your updates and follow us @AMDRadeon, Casey Gotcher, Director of Graphics Marketing @supgladiator and me @nCharms on Twitter for more from Gamescom.

Required Bio / Disclaimer:

Peter Ross is a senior marketing manager at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links sites and no endorsement is implied.

As many of you know, some months we focus on performance improvements much like you will see with the AMD Catalyst 11.8 Preview driver. Other months we focus on adding exciting features such as AMD Steady Video like you saw with the AMD Catalyst™ 11.6 driver.  However, this month we took a slightly different approach. Thanks to feedback from our community, we’ve focused on resolving some minor issues that have been reported.  We work tirelessly to continually improve our drivers, and here’s a look at the issues we’ve resolved in AMD Catalyst 11.7.

• Issues experienced with mouse cursor lag
• Log event (Event ID 62464) issues when playing video content
• System hangs seen in the AMD Catalyst™ 11.6 driver on specific HDMI and DP displays
• Blu-ray playback using PowerDVD 10 under High Performance mode no longer randomly displays a blank screen.
• Some Divx format files no longer display video corruption using WinDVD.
• AMD SteadyVideo is now applied to Home Video clips using WinDVD 10.
• Chequerboard corruption is no longer displayed intermittently when playing DirectX 10 titles in an AMD CrossFire™ technology configuration and AMD Eyefinity technology-enabled.
• Shogun II now renders the cinematics correctly when run in various Eyefinity configurations.
• Video playback now works correctly when Hardware acceleration is enabled with VLC Player version 1.1.9.
• AMD CrossFire technology now functions correctly when playing Hamilton’s Great Adventure.
• PowerDVD now correctly handles 3D Blu-ray content.

Now let’s talk about the AMD Catalyst™ 11.8 Preview Driver which most of you are probably excited to learn about.  With this preview of next month’s driver you are going to see some amazing performance improvements which are highlighted below.  You will also see how we are further enabling the 3D ecosystem by offering AMD HD3D technology support on some of the latest and greatest DisplayPort panels on the market.  

Here a few quick highlights of what you can expect to see with the AMD Catalyst™ 11.8 Preview driver.

• Enables AMD HD3D technology support on DisplayPort panels, such as Samsung 750 and 950 series 3D displays.
• Improves performance up to 13% in Crysis 2 DirectX 11 version  at 2560×1600 resolution and 4X Anti-Aliasing on the AMD Radeon™ HD 6870 GPU
• Improves performance up to 7% in Shotgun 2 – Total War at 2560×1600 resolution and 4X Anti-Aliasing on the AMD Radeon™ HD 6770 GPU
• Improves performance up to 13% in Call of Duty: Black Ops at 2560×1600 resolution and 4X Anti-Aliasing on the AMD Radeon™ HD 6770 GPU

Last but not least I want to thank everyone for the feedback and comments we have been receiving from the community.  Please continue to send us your feedback as we do review them all*. 

*IF you are having technical issues with the AMD Catalyst™ driver, or your graphics card please report your issues here.

To download the AMD Catalyst™ 11.7 driver, click here.

The AMD Catalyst™ 11.8 Preview driver can be found here: http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/Catalyst118DriverPreview.aspx

Until Next Time,

Chris Bell

Chris Bell is a Product Marketing Manager at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links sites and no endorsement is implied.

In light of the incredibly positive critical and commercial success, we had the chance to ask Codemasters a few questions about the game and AMD technologies, including how DiRT 3 performs on our new A-Series APUS.

What is your focus with DiRT 3 and how has it changed in comparison to the last game?

We have moved away from the festival vibe that we had in DiRT2 as we wanted to create a more professional motorsport vibe for the player in DiRT3. We have kept the race disciplines that worked and refined those that didn’t.

We’ve also introduced Gymkhana which will give players a new discipline to master. The style of the game is cleaner and more stylized and the player no longer lives in their battered old RV. DiRT3 will encourage players to focus more on their racing and events rather than hanging out in the menus.

How are you taking advantage of DirectX 11 graphics and in what way have you improved support over DiRT 2?

DirectX 11 is our preferred rendering path over DirectX 9. It offers better performance and allows us to get the most out of the feature set of modern GPUs. For example we use tessellation extensively around the tracks for the water, cloth, deformable snow and the in car drivers. We’ve optimized the tessellation algorithm to offer an 80% speed up compared to DiRT2. DirectX 11 allows resource creation on multiple cores. We have taken advantage of this to give us noticeably faster loading times compared to DirectX 9. Our DirectX11 path features HDAO which is a technique implemented using DirectCompute11 and uses the depth of the scene to compute each pixel’s ambient occlusion. The ambient occlusion term is then used in our lighting model to darken areas which should receive less ambient light; areas, for example, like the wheel arches of the cars and in the crevices in buildings, piles of logs or whatever else is down the sides of our tracks.  The effect really helps to glue the scene together in a way that a game’s lighting model cannot normally achieve. We had HDAO in DiRT2, but since then we have worked with AMD to improve the effect making it faster and removing many of the artifacts normally associated with this technique. We now provide two versions: one at full resolution and one at a reduced resolution for a compromise between performance and image quality.

In what ways have you taken advantage of AMD technologies?

DiRT3 supports AMD Eyefinity technology which allows gamers to play games at incredibly high resolutions over several monitors. We also support AMD HD3D native 3D stereoscopic rendering which literally adds another dimension to the visuals.

Go into a little detail about how  DiRT 3 supports AMD Eyefinity technology, and how it affects the gameplay experience.

We support several configurations of monitor such as 3×1 and 3×2 landscape modes as well as 5×1 portrait mode. This has enabled us to display the game at insane resolutions like 7680×1600 (3×1 mode) or even higher for 3×2 mode. We keep the horizon line, OSD and menus all on the middle monitor so all the important information is straight in front of you. However, we widen the field of view to fill the other monitors giving a really panoramic view of the track. This fills your peripheral vision giving you a sense of really being there.

What are some of the visual effects that we’ll be treated to?

Rain and snow feature for the first time in the DiRT series as well as multiple times of day. This gives us a huge range of different driving conditions for each location. High end PC gamers can enjoy contact hardening shadows. This technique uses a filter kernel that produces soft shadows that tighten the closer the shadow is to the shadow caster. The post process system has been improved with better lens flares, smoother motion blur, star filters and color grading. We also have a great digital interference effect for when you crash.

How has your physics model evolved since DiRT 2 and what sort of impact has that had on the feel of the cars?

The game’s handling model has been improved and refined since DiRT 2. We were happy with the foundation we had built but we wanted to give players a greater sensation of weight in the car.

Rally drivers use the weight of the car to help them slide around corners so we added a series of systems that allow us to model the suspension and tyre physics more accurately. This means that the weight of the car moves around more realistically and allows the player to unsettle the car and throw it into corners.

What are the different racing events that we’ll be able to participate in?

We have a great variety of Off Road racing disciplines in DiRT 3, including the all new Gymkhana as well as DiRT favorites, Rallycross, Landrush, Trailblazer, head 2 head and of course Rally. Numbers wise we have over 100 events across six disciplines.

Disciplines such as rally have multiple vehicle classes available so you can race the same event in cars from the 1960s all the way through to the present day. Each vehicle class has its own handling characteristics and each vehicle within those classes has its own character. This creates a huge variety of challenges and which allows the player to customize their experience to suit their ability.

Tell me a bit about the new gymkhana mode.

Gymkhana is our new discipline for DiRT3 and we are really excited to be the first game to represent it. Having Ken Block help us develop the handling of the Gymkhana cars has really given us an insight into how these cars behave and the types of maneuvers they are capable of. Once we set out those basics we were then able to create Gymkhana environments in which the player can hoon these cars around.

We are going to guide the player into the experience as they progress through the DiRT Tour. At the end of their first season they will be invited to the Gymkhana Academy where Ken Block will give them a selection of tutorials on each of the trick types the player will need to master. Once they have proved competence in these maneuvers the player will get to compete in their first competitive Gymkhana Event.

Away from the competition spotlight we also have the Compound at Battersea, London where the player can practice their Gymkhana driving. This is a more industrial setting, similar to the environments in which Ken films his Gymkhana videos. It is here that the player can hang out with friends online and create runs which they can then upload to YouTube direct from within DiRT3.

How many different cars will we be able to take control of and what are some stand-outs in terms of rally cars from the past and present?

DiRT 3 has the largest number of racing vehicles that have ever appeared in a Codemasters off road racing title. An extensive Rally car contingent is mixed with the ever exciting Rallycross, Raid and Trailblazer car classes. And new for DiRT, high powered gymkhana cars, stadium trucks and super buggies join the fold for a complete off road racing package.

For rally we have every major rally car from the past 50 years of motorsport history, from the iconic 60’s Mini Cooper S, through the 70’s and 80’s with RWD classics such as the Fiat 131 Abarth. We have also included Group B the deadliest rally cars of all time as well as rally cars from the 90’s and all modern rally cars such as Ken Blocks Ford Fiesta RS Rally Car and the brand new Mini Countryman Rally Edition which are battling out on the world stage this year in the WRC.

Tell me a bit about the different tracks on which we’ll be competing . What locations do they cover and what sort of terrain will we be faced with?

We have over 100 routes in DiRT 3; Our Rally and Trailblazer events will take place in Finland, Kenya, Norway & Michigan in the USA. Rallycross, Head to Head and Landrush events will take place in Aspen, Monaco, and an abandoned smelting plant.

These environments allow the player to experience a multitude of surfaces including Gravel, Asphalt, Mud, Dirt, Snow, Ice and many more. They will be tackling all kinds of environments from the forests in Finland, to the mountains in Aspen and the safari landscapes of Kenya.

How well does DiRT 3 scale between different systems? For example, a PC using a discreet AMD Radeon™ graphics card versus one using the discrete-class graphics in the AMD Fusion APU?

We’ve made the DiRT3 graphics scale from ultra-low all the way up to ultra-high so the game is playable on AMD’s A-Series APUs right through to the AMD Radeon™ HD 6990 and beyond. To give you an idea of the settings, the medium preset is roughly equivalent to the detail settings of the console version. Everything above medium adds more resolution and detail, and everything below medium will scale back the expensive effects – which can give you an improved framerate, especially on lower end systems. The ultra-high settings are designed to tax even the best GPUs; this mode enables the full resolution HDAO and contact hardening shadows.  Games using AMD  CrossFire™ technology will scale nicely – especially on systems with some of the faster CPUs that have been a popular choice for hardcore gamers.

We thank Codemasters for their time. DiRT 3 is out now and if you’re in the market for a new graphics card or APU head on over to our DiRT 3 bundle page to see how to qualify for a complementary download of the game.