Crysis 3 to run DX11 effects on consoles

Game developer Crytek announced the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 editions of Crysis 3 will receive DirectX 11 graphics. Rasmus Højengaard, director of creative development at Crytek, revealed the game maker is working on translating the DirectX 11 effects into DirectX 9, because they want the experience to be the same acros all platforms. However, Crytek also stressed that the DX11 graphics features will not be included if they impact performance. Full details at Eurogamer.

"It is very, very difficult, but it is possible. It just requires a lot of effort. Some of the stuff these guys are making work on consoles now is absolutely amazing. It's render features that shouldn't theoretically work on consoles, but they've managed to construct code that can emulate a similar thing from a… hack and slash sounds wrong, but they don't have the same streamlined pipeline you would have with a DX11 structure, but they can get to a similar result just by experimenting and using tips and tricks."

Højengaard provided a concrete example of this: parallax occlusion mapping, while pointing out that it was not a feature confirmed to be in the console version of Crysis 3.

"I'm not saying this will be in the game, but they managed to make parallax occlusion mapping work, which is an advanced form of bump mapping where you get silhouettes as well, and you have self-shadowing even though you have absolutely no polygons," he explained.

"That's a very advanced feature, and it shouldn't theoretically run on a 360, but they made it run on a 360."