Tessellation and additional geometry details
Tessellation is a major feature of the DirectX 11 API. Dragon Age 2 uses tessellation on the terrain to smooth out shillouette terrain edges that can occationally look sharp on DirectX 9. In addition the Dragon Age 2 engine supports displacement mapping techniques to increase the detail of certain surfaces like walls, floors and pillars. This feature adds microscopic details and makes those surfaces look much more detailed and textured.
Screen space ambient occlusion
Screen space ambient occlusion adds self shadow details to all objects in a scene and is a great complement to the base lighting system. It looks particularly good when combined with varying city architecture, and because Dragon Age 2 is focusing on the city of Kirkwall, there are a large number of areas that take advantage of this effect throughout the game.
Diffusion Depth of Field
An optional visual feature for players with DirectX 11 hardware is our new diffusion depth of field effect. This effect is active during normal gameplay and it is used to blur objects very close to the camera, as well as put objects in the distance slightly out of focus. Visually this works great with distance fog, and gives vista shots a more convincing look.
