DX11 Overview

Introduction

DirectX 11 set of nodes allows to use latest features introduced in new graphics card. Beside new shader stages (tesselation been advertised more than enough), a lot of new interesting features are also now accessible (compute shaders/indirect drawing/stream out...)

This totally replaces the DirectX 9 rendering, as it's a brand new set of nodes.

Please note that there is still some features/nodes missing, but the beauty of it is... it's open source!!! So you are more than welcomed to contribute missing nodes ;)

Comparison over DX9 rendering

From DirectX10 the pipeline has changed drastically, a lot of obsolete features have been removed, and a set of new features has been introduced.

Here is a small list of removed features:

• No more fixed function, the pipeline is fully Shader based.
• AlphaTest has disappeared , now you need to do it in shader
• No more built in Mesh, you need to handle geometry yourself.

New list of interesting features:

• Compute shaders, fully integrated to the pipeline
• Geometry instancing, allows to replicate the same geometry several times.
• Indirect Draws: Allows the graphics card to command a draw call
• Buffers: Allows to use more generic usage set of data
• Lot of new ways to sample textures.
• Texture Gather: Allows to save lot of sampling in some cases.
• Many Many more... ))

Structural Changes

Those changes are more vvvv related, but moving to a new pipeline implies a few different things patching wise.

• Default Blend mode is now Disabled, So Alpha will NOT work by default. Blend has a cost so you should enable it when you need it.
• No more old fixed DX9 nodes (Sphere/Segment...)
• System is very shader centric, so it's more than recommended to learn some HLSL ))