DX10 support

Lost Planet: Extreme Condition is the first retail title with DX10 support out of the box. We tried really hard to spot differences, but visually the versions look almost identical. The shadows do look a bit better, and some of the motion blur and depth of field blurring is improved. In any case, nothing presented by the game gives a compelling case for running the DX10 version, considering the performance hit you take.

Lost Planet, DX9 version (HD2900XT)

Same in DX10. Lighting is slightly darker, some surface shaders differ a bit and the shadows are softer. (HD2900XT)

When the demo was released, ATI immediately cried foul as they were not consulted - and it didn't work on the Get it! Radeon HD 2900 XT with the drivers available at that time. ATI has since released special "hotfix" drivers that fix the visual problems. However, performance on ATI hardware is still far from acceptable. After testing Lost Planet: Extreme Condition on different DX10 offerings from ATI and NVIDIA, our conclusion is that unless you have at least a Get it! GeForce 8800 GTS, you can't enable all features in the DX10 mode, and in any case same hardware will run same settings in DX9 at least 10-20% faster.

Let's look at some numbers, as examples: with all settings maximized in DX10 mode (no anti-aliasing, 4x anisotropic filtering, shadow quality at "High"), beyond what's possible in the DX9 build, our GeForce 8800 GTX managed 20-30fps at 1600x1200, depending a bit on the amount of action. On the Radeon HD 2900 XT the frame rate plummets to an unplayable 9-10fps - most likely due to driver issues. It should be noted that the HD 2900 is currently not officially supported for the Lost Planet - using DX10 or DX9. A GeForce 8600 GT fares even worse with DX10, putting out 6-7fps at these same settings.

Shadow Quality at "Medium" (HD2900XT, DX10)

Shadow Quality at "High", much more natural and softer. (HD2900XT, DX10)

The biggest performance eater is the shadow quality setting. When it is dropped to "Medium" in DX10, the frame rate is almost tripled on the ATI Radeon HD 2900XT and almost doubled on the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS. However, this also removes the only truly noticeable visual difference when compared to the DX9 version.

Even with this shadow setting, a switch from DX10 to DX9 saw frame rates immediately jump on all tested cards. For example, the Radeon HD 2900 XT can comfortably push 40-50fps at 1600x1200 with everything maximized for the DX9 version (no AA, 4x AF) and the same goes for midrange NVIDIA cards - a Get it! GeForce 8600 GT can run the game comfortably at around 30fps at the 1280x720 resolution with maximized visuals. The same settings with the DX10 version drop frame rates to sub-20fps. Different CPU speeds didn't seem to matter while testing with maximized or high settings, and although Lost Planet: Extreme Condition supports multi-core CPUs, you will probably need a GeForce 8800 SLI setup to see noticeable benefits at high graphical settings.

All in all, while Lost Planet: Extreme Condition does support DX10, it's mostly a nice tech demo for GeForce 8800 users - you lose almost nothing visually by switching to DX9, and the frame rate improves considerably even if you discount the performance hit due to shadow quality setting differences.

The YouGamers minimum system described is what you need for reasonable DX9 gameplay, and our recommended system is what you need if you truly want to see some difference and play in DX10 mode. While it's true that you could run in DX10 mode with, for example, a GeForce 8600 GT, all you would really get is a choice between lower visual details or lower frame rate when compared to the DX9 version.