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Gears of War PC
Author: Joe MartinPublished: 8th November 2007
Polygons of Phwoar!
So, next up we’ll look at some of the more subtle optional effects available in Gears of War PC.Before we start though, there’s one thing to bear in mind. For a while now there’s been a string of games using the Unreal Engine 3 and for each of those games it has been customary to mention how the engine cannot achieve any anti-aliasing. BioShock and Medal of Honor: Airborne are prime examples.
Now, Gears of War uses the Unreal Engine 3 but it’s different from all the previous games. Why? Because it has support for DirectX 10 and, unlike the games before it, manages to use DX10 to get some rudiementary AA going down. This is because DX10 can support multiple render targets and AA at the same time, unlike DX9. However, we're told that Nvidia is working on a driver that will enable AA for DX9 gamers - it shouldn't have to be the hardware vendors doing this though, which makes us a little disappointed.
So, before we get hate mail from some of our more tech-inclined readers saying things along the lines of “OMG! UE3 NO DOES AA, FOOL!” bear that in mind. DX10 UE3 can do AA, kind of... And DX9-based UE3 games will be able to do AA when Nvidia releases its so-called wonder driver.
DirectX 10
DirectX 10 isn’t as advanced in Gears PC as you might think though and, just because it can enable anti-aliasing in the Unreal Engine 3, doesn’t mean it can do anything else.In fact, in Gears of War PC, that’s all it can do; DirectX 10 Anti-aliasing. Screens below!
DirectX 9 (left) and DirectX 10 (right), click to enlarge
Can you spot a difference? Take a moment, try your best. Still no? Good, us neither.
Of course, DX10 mode supports anti-aliasing in game, which is supposed to reduce the amount of jagged lines forming the edges of in-game objects but after enabling this, we couldn't see much benefit from it - it didn't seem to make much difference in some scenarios, but did in others. Here's a scenario where it didn't make much difference.
DirectX 10 Anti-aliasing on (left) and off (right), click to enlarge
Now, if you’ve got a DX10 card and you’re running under Vista then you may want to put this setting on anyway just for the sake of using that otherwise wasted potential. However, if you want our opinion then you may as well not bother. There’s a pretty big performance hit and the differences are small, even for 4xAA (which is what it is supposed to apply).
Shadow Detail
Shadows play a fairly important part in some areas of Gears of War and can be handy for spotting any enemy grunts in hiding. Most of the time though it’s there for sheer drama and helps makes certain parts of the game incredibly creepy – especially when you’re low on ammo.
Shadow Detail High (left), Medium (center) and Low (right), click to enlarge
One thing I really hate in games is when there is a shadow quality listed as ‘low’ but it turns out to actually be ‘shadows off’ – why not just call it ‘Shadows off’?!
Either way, that’s definitely what’s happening in these screenshots and if you switch the setting to low then you’ll end up just not seeing any shadows at all. You’d be surprised how much this actually detracts from the game. With the higher settings it’s pretty tough to tell the difference and although there may be some soft shadowing going on around the edges on the High settings, the difference is still actually pretty difficult to spot.