Psyonix releases its experimental DirectX 11 client for Rocket League

Psyonix has announced that its DirectX 11 client for Rocket League is now available to PC gamers in an experimental form, offering players no gameplay of graphical changes, just an upgrade over the game’s original DirectX 9 API. 

With DirectX 11 being experimental, the API will only be available to those who enable it manually. Psyonix posted the following instructions on Reddit to garner feedback from interested players. 

Here’s how to enable Rocket League’s experimental DirectX 11 support. 

– Open Steam
– Right-click Rocket League, select Properties
– Choose Select Launch Options under the General tab
– Paste in -dx11, select OK
– Start Rocket League
– To opt back out, remove -dx11 from the Select Launch Options window, and select OK

Sadly, Psyonix hasn’t revealed how DirectX 11 is set to improve Rocket League’s PC version, with the company stating that the game’s DirectX 11 version features no graphical advantages. DirectX 11 could offer players higher framerates on modern hardware but this has not been confirmed.

Psyonix has noted issues with the game which include graphical corruption when booting the game with AMD graphics cards under DirectX 11 and broken V-Sync support. These bugs will be ironed out before Rocket League’s DirectX 11 mode moves out of its experimental phase. 

Why is Psyonix upgrading to DirectX 11?

Moving forward, Psyonix plans to continue supporting Rocket League with new content and additional features. On PC, Psyonix believes that they can do this better under a newer graphical API than DirectX 9. DirectX 11 will soon become Rocket League’s only supported API, and that API will become the basis for Rocket League’s upgrade plans. 

At this time it is unknown how Psyonix plans to upgrade Rocket League, though a graphical overhaul is possible, especially as the release of Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 approaches.