DayZ’s lead producer Brian Hicks has just given us our first proper look at the upcoming Enfusion engine update for the zombie survival game, which will add DirectX 11 support and a whole host of rendering improvements.
Why not check out our list of the best zombie games on PC while you wait.
While the video isn’t final – and according to Hicks’ it was recorded at a weird resolution – you can definitely make out an improvement on the textures, lighting, shadows, character models and in particular the rain effects.
In its current state DayZ doesn’t utilise the GPU to its full potential, with a lot of rendering processes tied to the actual simulation, leading to the massive FPS drops you may have experienced when entering built-up areas.
The new update should improve this massively, as well as adding in the aforementioned visual improvements, because the renderer will be separated from the simulation.
In the future this should lead to better particle effects – blood, muzzle flash, bullet splash, explosions, etc – and we should also see the introduction of new postprocessing effects some time in the future.
While we don’t have an exact date for the update, it’s expected to arrive imminently. In the meantime, let Brian Hicks talk you through some of the improvements in the video below: