• Will there be support for DirectX 11/12 or Vulkan?
    6 replies, posted
This question goes directly to Garry's Mod developers (Rubat, Willox..): Will Garry's Mod provide support for fancier graphics rendering such as using DirectX 11/12, or perhaps Vulkan? It is possible to force Source engine to run at DirectX 11 ("mat_dxlevel 110" from console, or "-dxlevel 110" from launch options). But, Source engine is not utilizing it, means it will drain more CPU/GPU (energy) usage for no reason. It would be an interesting patch if this would ever happen. I'm seeking out for some change in renderer quality, because DirectX 9 feels old even when tuned to very high configuration/settings (using console variables). Regards, wixyer ;)
No, no, and no. Some of the benefits of the Source engine such as its performance come from not using newer APIs like DX11. Source is not for you if you really want to use that.
Well, I'm running at "ultra" quality settings (custom configuration), and I am seeking for more, because I am running at over 1000+ FPS (of course removed FPS cap with fps_limit convar). I'm pretty sure I am not the only one around. So, for those of who wish to have better graphics, why not please us? I'm not asking to drop DirectX 9 support...
No.
Thank you for your informative post. So, I guess we will never even have a chance.
What information do you want? It is not planned. Its not a simple flick of a switch. I highly doubt that just switching to DX12/Vulkan will make the graphics better, it will require all new shaders at the very least, if not substantial render engine rewrite to take advantage of any new features they bring, especially for Vulkan, while also keeping support for old shit. Not to mention GMod is not GPU bound, faster graphics API will not massively improve FPS if at all, and again, taking advantage of that will most likely require significant changes to the render engine.
If you want any Source game to support Vulkan or DX12 you have to go and change everything in the Source engine that has anything to do with rendering so that it uses either the Vulkan or DX12 API. It's a hell of a lot of work, and on something as close to the end of its life as Source, especially with Valve working on Source 2, doing that massive amount of work just is not worth it for the relatively tiny benefits it would provide. I think it would probably be less work recreating GMod in a different engine that already has DX12/Vulkan support, assuming the props and other assets could be imported straight across. That would still be a lot of work but probably less work than going back and rewriting the Source engine to use DX12. You know that the big deal with DX12 and Vulkan isn't shinier graphics but faster processing, yeah? DX12 doesn't add too many new eyecandy features that you don't have in DX11, it's just written to be faster and more efficient than DX11. So your 1000+ FPS would become something like 1200+ FPS and everything would look the same. So what's the point of even doing it?
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