Gothic 2 D3D11 Renderer

Pretty graphics! We all love them (some of us more than others), but we can’t deny the fact that the graphical look of games, as shallow as it may be, determines some level of our enjoyment of a game. Personally, I can handle any style or look of graphics, from games played in MS-DOS, to more modern titles that look graphically impressive, such as a modded version of Skyrim. All good games can be further enhanced by quality graphics, and what we have today is an impressive undertaking by a modder who wishes to breathe some new, graphical life into one of our beloved RPGs from yesteryear.

That modder’s name is Andre, aka Degenerated. The game – Gothic II. Interested yet? You should be!

Andre has singlehandedly taken a game that, in my view, already looks beautiful, and has attempted, with much success, to ‘port’ this game to modern hardware, in the modern graphical framework known as DirectX11. In other words, he’s taken the base game of Gothic 2 and given it a graphical upgrade that is only capable by using DirectX11, rather than the older, more dated DirectX version that Gothic II used.

In short? The game looked good, it looks even better now. Best of all? It runs flawlessly on modern hardware once again, as though the game were just released in 2015! This is a large achievement, and one that I certainly wanted to cover a bit here on the ‘Watch.

So, what exactly does this mod add to the game? Well, for one, it adds dynamic lighting and shadows. It also adds Horizon-Based Ambient Occlusion, which in layman’s terms, gives objects better shadows, realism and depth. It also adds Normal Mapping, which is used to add a lot of details to the scene without adding more polygons. More details, less impact on performance. Sounds perfect, right?

Directx11 water is in, and it looks beautiful. There are also other features as well, such as filtered shadows and SMAA (a shader-based form anti-aliasing that makes the game’s rough edges look a bit smoother. Again, with less impact on the game’s performance). Also, some particle effects plan to be implemented for the magic system, but these aren’t ready yet in the build I previewed.

As I stated earlier, the performance here is through the roof, even with all the features enabled. If you were having technical problems running Gothic 2 on your modern rig, or perhaps had some framerate drops, you are in luck, because when this project is finished it guarantees a much higher performance rate on modern equipment. In the build I tested (version Pre-X8), the performance was mostly a nice 60 FPS, and while it did have some loading hiccups here or there, and a bit of frame drop when the draw distance was vastly increased, it shows a ton of promise. Hopefully, the builds get more and more optimized and the end result is excellent performance from an older, truly classic game in modern hardware.

So, with all the technical jargon aside, I can easily state to you that this beautiful game has been indeed beautified to an all new level, only reachable by bringing the game into the modern era. The mod isn’t completed yet, but Andre is hard at work to finish it, and he’s done a fine job thus far.

You can watch the attached video to see the mod in action. Keep in mind, it’s not finished, so you will see some rough edges, but it’s in a state that is at least able to be observed and commented upon.

If you’d like to follow the project, go here > http://forum.worldofplayers.de/forum/threads/1415847-D3D11-Renderer-f%C3%BCr-Gothic-2-(alpha)-7/page4?p=24020023&viewfull=1#post24020023

If you want to donate to Andre and show him that you care about this great undertaking, you can donate directly to him by sending a payment to this Paypal button - https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=5XB2X2G6R76SS

You can also check out the Public Pad which lists the new changes in each update, as well as various ideas from those who have tested the game, by going here > https://titanpad.com/uoe54x6JaZ. You can also leave your own ideas there, as it’s a public way to get heard directly by the person behind the mod.

Now, check out the video and see what you think.

Looks pretty good, right?

Bravo, Andre, aka Degenerated! You’re doing fine work and I, for one, can’t wait to see this project continue towards completion. Well done, and continued success! I will be keeping a close eye on this one.