IT News HeadLines (Elite Bastards) 2/21/2010

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 - New technical details revealed

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 was announced as a forthcoming DirectX 11 title a little while ago, but just what functionality available to this new version of the API will it use?آ What's more, how will it handle features like anti-aliasing and AMD's Eyefinity technology?آ Producer of the PC version of the game, Anders Gyllenberg, reveals all.

PCGH: We also know that Bad Company 2 is featured by Frostbite Engine 1.x. Can you tell us the technical highlights of Frostbite Engine (for example SSAO, Depth of Field, Deferred Lighting or Global Illumination)? If yes can you please give examples how this rendering techniques are utilized in Battlefield Bad Company 2 (DoF while aiming for example)?

Anders Gyllenberg: The base renderer is a forward renderer. Some feature highlights would be an advanced SSAO technique called HBAO (Horizon-based Ambient Occlusion), DOF during cutscenes, particle systems optimized for huge amounts of particles, soft particle blending, and soft shadowmap filtering (DX11 only).

PCGH: Can you confirm that the PC version utilizes DirectX 11 (at GDC 2009, Johan Andersson showed some cool rendering features)? If yes, what were the deciding technical advantages of the DX11 API? In what way does it allow you to optimize or simplify the rendering process (we’ve heard you’re using Direct Compute for deferred shading)?

Anders Gyllenberg: Yes we can confirm that we support Dx11. The main benefits for us are efficient soft shadowmap filtering, and some smaller performance optimizations.

PC Games Hardware have the full interview.

View or post comments.

Read More ...

---

Shattered Horizon's free weekend on Steam

If you haven't played Futuremark Game Studio's zero gravity first-person shooter Shattered Horizon yet, then this weekend gives you an opportunity to give it a try on Steam absolutely free!آ Even better, if you like the game, you can buy it complete with a 50% discount for the duration of the weekend.

Futuremarkآ® Games Studio today announced that Shattered Horizonâ„¢, their PC exclusive multiplayer first-person shooter, will be free to play and 50 percent off to buy on Steam this weekend. Shattered Horizon’s innovative zero gravity gameplay has recently been enhanced by the Moonrise content pack which added four new levels and a major update which included many features requested by players.

"This weekend PC gamers everywhere can play Shattered Horizon for free," said Jaakko Haapasalo, producer at Futuremark Games Studio. "And for the duration of the weekend, even though we recently doubled the size of the game by adding new levels, we are offering it to players for half the price, just $9.95 / €9.95."

Read the full press release at the Futuremark web site.

View or post comments.

Read More ...

---