| Mars CodePlex project landscape (NASA/JPL-Caltech/Arizona State University) |
As part of Windows 8.1, the latest version of Direct3D (part of DirectX 11.2) introduces a powerful new feature for games: tiled resources, which allows games to be more efficient with memory and stream data.
As the Extreme Windows Blog explains, “This means better frame rates and more immersive game worlds. And the best part? Many of you will already have a PC that supports it!”
Tiled resources eliminates the need for most loading screens. As you can see from the image above, the Mars CodePlex project landscape requires 16MB of texture data for a frame, but with tiled resources that can be streamed in a fraction of a second.
Much finer granularity texture streaming means “open-world games will feel much smoother and have less pop-in.” And if your games have already achieve smooth loading-screen-free gameplay, Tiled Resources still eliminates unnecessary bandwidth and memory consumption (which leaves more juice available for producing better visuals at higher frame rates).
Head over to the Extreme Windows Blog to find out more about tiled resources and check out the deep dive about it from BUILD 2013.
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Athima Chansanchai
Microsoft News Center Staff