Rise of the Tomb Raider has had a steady stream of updates since it hit Steam in February, with the fifth patch released just yesterday. However, along with the expected packet of fixes and tweaks, it introduced DirectX 12 support for the rather gorgeous title.
Microsoft stated a while back that games featuring DirectX / Direct3D 12 support would start trickling out from the end of 2015 onwards — and it wasn’t wrong. Rise of the Tomb Raider is among the first off the rink and according to the update notes, should improve performance on systems with hardware and OS support:
Added support for DirectX 12
– DirectX 12 is a new advanced graphics API that on the right hardware can offer far better performance.
– For the best DX12 performance and stability please install the latest drivers for your GPU.
– For NVIDIA: http://www.nvidia.com/download/driverResults.aspx/99512/en-us
– For AMD: http://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-articles/Pages/AMD_Radeon_Software_Crimson_Edition_16.3.aspxAdds NVIDIA VXAO Ambient Occlusion technology. This is the world’s most advanced real-time AO solution, specifically developed for NVIDIA Maxwell hardware. (Steam Only)
Added a new benchmark feature to allow easy comparison of performance on different systems, as well as at different graphics settings.
Fixed some HBAO+ and other Ambient Occlusion issues.
Fixed motion blur problems in Stereoscopic 3D mode.
A variety of other smaller optimizations, bug-fixes, and tweaks.
For those after more technical details, there’s a developer post available just for you. Essentially, DirectX 12 allows the game’s rendering engine to better utilise CPU resources, which should equate to a framerate boost in situations where the processor can’t keep up with the GPU demands.
In one test (shown in the post), an Intel i7-2600 paired with an NVIDIA GTX 970 went from 46 frames per sound to 60.
Of course, there are caveats. You should expect your experience to differ based on your hardware configuration and Nixxes Software, the studio handling the implementation, is still experimenting, tweaking and optimising the pipeline.
[03-11-2016] PC Patch notes for patch 1.0.638.6 (Patch #5) [Steam]
Comments
14 responses to “Rise Of The Tomb Raider Get DirectX 12 Support In Latest Patch”
Yeah I downloaded this patch yesterday. The only extra thing it gave me was the upgraded VXAO, which I appreciate since the HBAO+ was messing up on me.
But I experienced no additional FPS unfortunately, and I’m running an EVGA 980ti FTW. So it’s still sitting on 41 FPS at everything maxed out.
41fps? What CPU do you have?
Only asking as I have a reference 980ti with an i7 6700k (no overclock) and I was sitting at an average 53 with everything maxed.
It’s an i7-4710HQ 2.50 GHz.
Yeah I have an Alienware 17 R2 with the external graphics amplifier. I heard you lose about 10% of performance from the GPU when in the amplifier, and it doesn’t help that the CPU isn’t the best out either.
When you pay for Alienware stuff the terrorists win.
I don’t know anything about if external amplifiers have a loss or not, but I’d definitely wager that your CPU is causing a bottleneck.
Yeah I was afraid of that. If that’s the case, do you think that when Pascal comes around, that I wouldn’t see any additional performance gains?
Also what CPU do you have?
I have an i7 6700k 4.0ghz.
If you got the new Pascal card when it comes out it may run a bit better, but you are limited to your slowest component.
If you want to see if your cpu is causing a bottleneck and by how much, an easy method I’d suggest would be to run the VR performance test on Steam. If you score less than a 10.5 I’d deduce your CPU is the issue.
It came up at: 11 (Very High) – Frames Tested: 11242 – Frames Below 90fps: 0 – Frames CPU Bound: 0.
Is it always supposed to run in that tiny little 720p window though? I feel like it should be a large window.
Hmm. Ok then I’m not sure why your frame rate seemed lower on Tomb Raider. Seems your system is running fine.
Yes the vr test runs in a window at a lower resolution. Not sure why, but that’s how it works.
Interesting, I thought I heard people saying this actually lowered the framerate.
Yer don’t expect any real gains from dx12 unless the game is built from the ground up to support it (where it can take advantage of async compute). Otherwise its mostly just visual gimmicks so PR can use it.
The peak framerate absolutely drops, there aren’t any driver optimizations from the DX12 render path. However minimum framerate is given a healthy bump resulting in a much more even experience.
Yeah, not much of a change in fps with my 390 and Ivy Bridge. But it hasn’t lowered fps too
Hmm. Finished it on Friday… never mind.