Stardock’s CEO, Brad Wardell, shared some interesting details about the upcoming new DirectX API from Microsoft. As we all know by now, DirectX 12 will be coming alongside Windows 10, and will be the first version of DirectX that really uses multiple cores effectively.

Truth be told, we already knew that. However, Wardell kept hyping DX12 in his latest blogpost, and even claimed that parts of the Battle of Helms Deep from LOTR can be done in real-time with DX12.

As Wardell wrote:

“What we basically do today in games is render a frame and then apply a bunch of post-process effects to it.  In a DirectX 12 / Mantle world we’ll render images the same way they did CGI in the past.  With a modern CPU + GPU combo with DirectX 12 you could do parts of the Battle of Helms Deep from LOTR in real-time. “

Of course, this all sounds too good to be true. In fact, it all sounds like mere hyping and nothing more. After all, Microsoft or Stardock could release a tech demo to back up such claims. And while Stardock’s Mantle tech demo shows the benefits of Mantle, it’s a far cry from being a “real-time demo with CGI visuals.”

Wardell has also shared the following images, showing off the benefits of DX12 in multi-core scenarios.

It remains to be seen whether developers will be able to take advantage of low-level APIs on the PC like Mantle and DX12 (for increasing a game’s visuals instead of providing a significant performance boost).

So far, Nitrous, Unreal Engine 4, CRYENGINE and Frostbite will support DX12.

Enjoy!