What exactly is this Direct X 11 and what will it do?

[Nutz]

Last I heard (which was I think the most recent live letter) they're going to be showing a side by side demonstration of the current [PC] version of the game up against what should be the nearly complete DX11 client at the upcoming Tokyo Fan Fest. People can then finally see how much (or little) the upgrade will encompass. At this point it's mostly speculation. Moving from DX9 to DX11 essentially just adds to the potential of what they can do. It could technically just be a stability improvement -- something that I'm not sure this game really needs badly as I've heard fairly little about client side problems.

More likely, it will include performance benefits to most systems built this decade, and provide slight to moderate graphics tweaks. I'd say graphics improvements, and they probably will be, but some of the stuff might be a bit subjective. They've said specifically that they intend to improve shading and lighting, which could be a more substantial improvement than people imagine, or it could just be some barely noticeable tweaks. v 1.x had some very nice ambient occlusion that I'd like to see return (it was nothing like the pale substitute we have now) and obviously the shadows in this (or any) game could be improved upon.

That they've specifically said they want to show off the new client side by side with the old could mean one of two things. Either they're really excited to show you just how much better it looks, or the difference isn't readily observable without the old client right there for reference. I'm hoping for the former.

[Skyl1n3]

If the updated client includes features that are process-intensive then GOOD, finally my monster PC will be able to flex its muslces a bit in this game, at the moment it's just sitting here reading a book.

[Freyt]

Basically, the implementation of DX11 decides on how much of an improvement there is. If it's true that we're currently on DX9, then a good amount of us will probably notice a slight jump. It'll be little improvements here and there, for enthusiasts. It likely won't matter much to most people.

[Riardon]

In 2 weeks we will know how DX11 client will look like. There will be graphic improvements for sure but to what degree nobody knows. They will also release a benchmark with the DX11 client (probably Heavensward content glimpse) before Heavensward release so you will know how DX11 runs on your pc and how it looks like cause YouTube compresses everything and graphics cannot show their potential from a YouTube video so don't expect to impressed from a YouTube video taken by a camera inside the fan festival except if SE uploads an official one on their channel. The benchmark is what I'm waiting to see more but a video will help too ofc. With DX11 they can improve a lot of things but do not expect it will be "lighter" than DX9 version. They usually add more effects so it always ends up heavier than 9.
I also wish for a 64bit client beside DX11.

[SpookyGhost]

Basically, the implementation of DX11 decides on how much of an improvement there is. If it's true that we're currently on DX9, then a good amount of us will probably notice a slight jump. It'll be little improvements here and there, for enthusiasts. It likely won't matter much to most people.

It really depends on what they do with it. They could change a lot or they could change next to nothing. Either way, DX11 is a good thing.

[Skyl1n3]

*in before PS3 limitations of DX11*

[coldreactive]

It has support for multi-core. DirectX 9 doesn't (And if it does, it's a hack, much like PAE was for 32-Bit OSes that can see more than 4 GB of Memory.)

[xnonamex]

Should improve performance on newer graphics cards. As dx11 is more efficient than dx9 taking the same conditions. so most pc users should see at least slight framerate increase. The actual increase of the looks of the game is up to SE. If they just boost everything to dx11 and actually not put any effort into it it will look pretty much the same. if they actually do put some effort into it it will looks slightly better. I doubt that they will actually change textures etc looking at the updates that they are doing/releasing up to this point. It will def not be a "game changer" type of thing.

[Raist]

Mileage will vary on the visual improvements... depends on whether we will be dealing with the same textures or not I guess. But even with the same texture maps, things like the better shading/bumpmapping, AA and filtering should make some visual improvements. But we should be seeing performance improvements on the quad cores systems and DX11 compliant cards. Here's some side-by-side comparisons to help demonstrate the potential:

Videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rPtdnmib8A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSfN7OTUOTA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9qho5P-cWY

Pics:

[Bishop81]

...

Don't know about the use of tessellation. Looks tacky in most cases - not to mention the performance hit.

Probably OK if they use it to do Q3A style LoD on curved surfaces. But the bricks and mud tracks look kind of ugly.