Epic: DirectX 11 Coming to Unreal Engine 3

Unreal Engine 3 has received a huge injection of DirectX 11, Nvidia PhysX, APEX and 3D Vision support. No, PC gaming is NOT dead.

Tuesday Nvidia announced that Epic Games has finally added DirectX 11 support to its Big Mac of the gaming industry, Unreal Engine 3. Currently both Nvidia and Epic are teaming up at Game Developers Conference this week to present an exclusive demo showcasing the brain-hemorrhaging eye candy brought on by DirectX 11 including tessellation, multithreaded rendering and DirectCompute.

According to Nvidia, the real-time demo was developed using GeForce GTX 500 Series GPUs. "It represents Epic's proposal for what the next generation of gaming will look like and sets a new bar for what can be accomplished with Epic's Unreal Engine 3 technology," the company said. "It also showcases the myriad benefits that DX11 brings to gaming, including complex environments and detailed character models with lifelike movement and animations."

Nvidia added that the demo is further enhanced by the use of Nvidia's PhysX and APEX technologies including "destruction and clothing modules, which enable realistic character interactions with the environment." Epic has also added support for Nvidia's 3D Vision tech, providing users of the new UDK with a "theater-quality" 3D gaming development platform.

"Thanks to Nvidia's excellent cross-platform physics technologies and DX11 expertise, we have enhanced Unreal Engine 3 to bring unprecedented new levels of realism and demonstrate what the next generation of gaming will be," said Mark Rein, vice president of Epic Games.

For the uninitiated, Epic's Unreal Engine 3 is probably the most licensed game engine used in the industry, powering popular titles like Batman: Arkham Asylum, Mass Effect 2, DC Universe Online, Medal of Honor and the just-released Bulletstorm action-FPS. Unreal Engine 3 will also serve as the backbone for upcoming titles including Batman: Arkham City, BioShock Infinite, Gears of War 3, Mass Effect 3 and Mortal Kombat.

The latest updates to Unreal Engine 3 are available now to all licensees, allowing developers to ship games with "out of the box" support for DX11, APEX, PhysX, and 3D Vision.