Mobile DirectX 11 Arrives… Where Are the Games?

Just as ATI was the first out of the gate with DirectX 11 hardware on the desktop, they are now the first mobile DX11 solution. That's good, but we still need gaming support, and that is at best a work in progress. So far there are three games that have shipped with DX11 features: Battleforge, DiRT 2, and STALKER: Call of Pripyat (well, it's available if you speak Ukrainian at least; we're still waiting for the English version, although a public benchmark is available). Here's a list of some other titles that are on the way:


Not convinced that DirectX 11 will arrive anytime soon? Perhaps this slide will change your opinion:


Okay, we remain skeptical as well, no offense to Mercury Research. In truth, it's only in the past year that DirectX 10 has really arrived, with most new games supporting DX10 features, but there were a few early DX10 titles not long after Vista launched. Unless adding DX11 features is very easy, or someone is footing the bill for developers (i.e. ATI), DX11 isn't likely to become dominant until the majority of graphics cards have DX11 support. Considering the installed user base for DX10 hardware, that could be several years away.

Speaking of DX11, here are some more slides showing what is possible with the new hardware:





The big one in that list is obviously tessellation… but haven't we heard that before? Why yes we have! And it was only just under three years ago. Okay, you can read more about DX11 and tessellation in our DX11 article. The good news is that DX11 finally makes tessellation a required element, so we're more likely to see it utilized. Unigine is used in the above images, and you can see the complete list of Unigine projects for potential early tessellation candidates. We do like the idea, but until it becomes reality it's just a checkbox on your GPU hardware, which is what we've had since the HD 2900.

ATI 5000 Series Specifications Performance Preview
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  • Hauk - Thursday, January 7, 2010 - link

    That's exactly what I got. Here's what it does with Win 7 Index: http://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q62/steelsix/De...">http://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q62/steelsix/De...

    Games run okay but with this res, medium settings at best on demanding titles. It needs a bit more and the 58xx card would do it me thinks.

    I plan to investigate and will post any good details in the forum
  • SlyNine - Friday, January 8, 2010 - link

    Are you aware of the throttling issues when plugged in with the 90watt AC power. Apparently it throttles down to very low clock speeds when using AC power and the laptop screen.

    The Battery runs at full speed though. But Dell promises a fix.


    Huge 250 page thread here, very helpfull as well.
  • Hauk - Friday, January 8, 2010 - link

    Mine works fine. On delivery I flashed to the latest bios, installed an Intel SSD, and reinstalled OS. Idles at 931 core, runs well.
  • SlyNine - Saturday, January 9, 2010 - link

    Glad to hear it, supposedly mine is on the way, but dell keeps switching from shipped to delivery preparation. But I've been reading plugged in to the 90 watt adapter that it throttles, have you checked it running prime 95 and some sort of video intensive task ( stay away from FurMark, that is potentially dangerous to your card) maybe a Windows game so you can eye your clock speeds.
  • SlyNine - Saturday, January 9, 2010 - link

    Sorry meant to say a windowed game, not windows game
  • SlyNine - Friday, January 8, 2010 - link

    http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=4...">http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=4...
  • R3MF - Thursday, January 7, 2010 - link

    is the midrange 56xx series a native 400 shader part, or is it cut down from ~480 original die?

    keeping the low end 54xx series at 80 shaders is deeply disappointing.
  • AlB80 - Thursday, January 7, 2010 - link

    1. Rumors say that 56xx or 55xx desktop parts will have 400sp.
    2. RS880 (785G) have 40sp, thus 80sp with DX11 is not bad start for discrete card.
  • R3MF - Thursday, January 7, 2010 - link

    1. cheers for the info

    2. but we have had forty shaders in integrated from AMD for years now, and it has long since been surpassed by the nVidia 9300/Ion, and even surpassed by intels new clarksdale iGPU's

    given that high end mobile gpu's have 800 shaders, and mid-range cards have 400, i should have hoped that the low end would at least have advanced to 160 shaders.
  • zicoz - Thursday, January 7, 2010 - link

    Does this support bitstreamning like it's desktop brother?

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