BattleForge becomes first DirectX11-enabled game

Posted Sep 30th 2009 11:00AM by John Callaham
Filed under: Downloads, Hardware, Patches, RTS

Even though the official release of Windows 7 is still three weeks away or so, the very first PC game with support for the OS's new DirectX11 3D graphics API is already out there right now. And believe it or not it's BattleForge, the free-to-play fantasy RTS game from Electronic Arts and its developer EA Phenomic.

The patch to enable DirectX11 support was in fact released last week to its users and according to BattleForge's official web site the patch will allow the game to "have a higher frame rate and new ways of creating graphical effects, such as shadows and lighting" on DirectX11 based PCs. Of course, most players of the game won't notice the difference at all. That's because the DirectX11 support requires both Windows 7 to be installed (Windows Vista will also support DirectX11 but that support has yet to be enabled) and a DirectX11-based video card be a part of the gaming rig. At the moment only two video graphics chips support DirectX11 and they both come from AMD. Graphics cards based on the company's ATI Radeon HD 5870 chip went on sale just last week and cards based on the the ATI Radeon HD 5850 goon sale today.

Gallery: Battleforge

Tags: amd, ati, ati-radeon-5850, ati-radeon-5870, ati-radeon-hd-5850, ati-radeon-hd-5870, battleforge, breaking, directx11, ea, ea-phenomic, electronic-arts, radeon-5800, radeon-hd-4800

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

wait, what happened to Microsoft saying they won't be asses and require a new OS for dx11?Posted at 11:21AM on Sep 30th 2009 by Sam

MS hasn't yet released DX11 support for Vista, but it is definitely on the way sir. MS has stated this clearly, so if it comes to pass that Vista users (poor us) are left hanging out to dry, there will be no one to blame but Microsoft.Posted at 12:49PM on Sep 30th 2009 by Jose

I'm on Windows 7, so I already got DirectX 11 :DPosted at 9:44AM on Oct 19th 2009 by bi0h4z4rd

directx 11? is it a joke? is directx11 published?Posted at 2:16PM on Oct 4th 2009 by bilgi

You can go to the MS website and search for "vista platform update". Follow the instructions and get the actual DX11 beta for Vista SP2.Posted at 10:57PM on Oct 7th 2009 by Aaron

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