DX12 Features To Be Announced At GDC 2015, New GPUs Required For DX12’s Full Set Of Instructions


By now, most of you are aware of Windows 10’s exclusivity for Microsoft’s new API, DirectX 12. And while NVIDIA was quick to announce the GPUs that will support it, it seems – as expected basically – that new GPUs will be required in order to take advantage of DX12’s full set of instructions.

Mike Ybarra, partner director of program management who leads engineering efforts for console and PC, told Polygon that while a number of DX11 and DX11.1 GPUs will support some of the features of DX12, new GPUs will be required for full support.

To get the full support of DX12 will users need to get a new graphics card.” said Ybarra and continued:

“The power and frame rate wins we demonstrated come from improvements in CPU usage in the OS runtime and device drivers.  And this was on DX11 devices.”

In short, those – theoretical – 50% performance boosts that Microsoft claimed will be enjoyed by gamers that own a Kepler or a Fermi or a Maxwell NVIDIA GPU.

But what will be the new graphical features that will be only supported by DX12 cards? Ybarra did not reveal any additional details but claimed that Microsoft will outline them at this year’s GDC.