Since its initial announcement, a lot of PC gamers wondered whether DX12 would be exclusive to Microsoft’s new operating system or not. Well, it seems that this new API will be indeed exclusive to Windows 10, as the official Twitter account of DX12 basically confirmed it.
As the official Twitter account of DX12 tweeted:
>50% of gamers today have DX12-capable hardware. We’re super excited to bring them all to Win10 and DX12 – 1 yr free upgrade for Win7, 8.1!
— DirectX 12 (@DirectX12) January 21, 2015
The fact that: a) Microsoft has never mentioned DX12 coming to Windows 7/8.1, that b) the DX12 Twitter account mentions only Win10 for DX12 and that c) DX12 is always mentioned alongside Win10 this far in every official report basically confirms our fears that this new API won’t appear on older operating systems. Not only that, but RPS was also told that DX12 will be exclusive to Windows 10.
But which graphics cards will support DX12? Although AMD has not commented yet, NVIDIA has listed the GPUs that are compatible with this new API. According to the green team, all Fermi, Kepler and Maxwell cards will be compatible with it.
When a fan asked whether his Titan card is compatible with DX12, NVIDIA replied and said:
@charles_6835 DirectX 12 is coming to all Fermi, Kepler, and Maxwell GPUs – so your GTX Titan is compatible! http://t.co/riSGD1oSwG — NVIDIA (@nvidia) January 21, 2015
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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AMD better get their sh*t right and include DX12 in R9 series, im not buying a new graphic card damn it!
Well, hell it’s free so it can’t be that bad… right?
nope. if u know anything about how windows versions work, then you would know that this is the good version. win 3.1 was great, 95 sucked, 98 was amazing, 2000 failed, XP incredible, vista sucked, 7 amazing, 8 sucked ass. it is now windows’ 10 time to shine baby.
With the way they have worded it it is unclear. With rumores the Windows 10 will be subscription based, are you getting a year to upgrade or one year of the subscription?
If I understand, the “subscription” rumor was debunkered and stated that Microsoft will not do that. Also, if they keep their word, this is a completely free upgrade no string attached.
Of course it is lol.
So it looks like DX12 features really are mostly software then with only a few DX12 features being hardware based.
It is said many times that there will be features only for Maxwell/New AMD cards(Full DX12 support).
only AMD cards with full support is the R9 285 as of right now till AMD’s 300 series comes out. As for Nvidia it’s the 970, 980, and soon to be out 960.
The all GCN GPU’s have full Hardware DX12 😀 That’s True
nV and Latest Fermi 😉 have only API Support not the Hardware like AMD GCN 😀
Wait for Pascal HBM then will be FH DX12 now nV have only DX11.
AMD GCN’s have DX11.2 + Upcoming later Q2 2015 DX11.3 that’s the Bridge to DX12
nV not have Defferded DX11.2 Renderer. Look at specs GCN and nV 😉 not commercials 😉
Yes but some of the spec is optional and not required, AMD GPUs have more optional features, it’s down to them to pick which one they can use.
your and my 970 has all the hardware full feature set of DX12. The only thing we are waiting for is Windows 10 to be done.
AFAIK DX12 spec has not been finalized. If m$ decides to add more features to the DX12 subset then Maxwell will only be 11.3 on a hardware level.
sorry not true… Nvidia beat AMD this time for full hardware feature set support. DX12 is ready it’s all about Windows10 now. And it has been confirmed Intel 4th gen igpu’s have full hardware feature set as well. Boom AMD needs to hurry up with that 300 series because only the 285 from AMD has the same hardware feature set support
4th Gen iGPUs as in 4000 series?
No iGPUs from Haswell (HD4600)
So you are telling me my HD4600 in my i5-4670k has FULL DirectX12 support?
Wow, just wow. I didn’t even know that.
Well, sad thing is they have new chips ready for some time and yet again we are waiting for manufacturing process. I think they redesign some chips back to 28nm or simply wait when 20 nm will be ready enough.
20nm is not happening… AMD will go from 28 too 14 nm/ff glo/fo Just like Nvidia is said to go from 28nm to 16nm ff TSMC
why do you smile face after each statement…
only AMD gpu that has full feature hardware set on the market it the R9 285. And Nvidia is the 980, 970, and Future 960.
All other cards under the R9 series under AMD or Nvidia 700 series all the way to 500 series will be able to use it’s API software features.
That is what I was pointing out. Not trying to say AMD or Nvidia is better BS. Just stating how it is right now for current hardware.
285 has feature set 12.0??? Compatible will be all GCN so I do not really mind, though I do not think you are right at this one (285 is GCN 1.2 like 290 and only has 11.2 feature set as far as I know)
no look at techpowerup. 285 is the only card in the 200 series that offer’s full DX12 feature support
thx for info, didnt know that 🙂
Very true. But it’s nice to have the hardware feature set as well. Well that’s if it’s used by developers.
probably be like DX12 and then like DX12.1 for the newest features, but with those able to fall back to DX12.0 if you have a DX11.2 card
No it might also just be that Nvidia is playing silly again. I don’t know if you remember the whole DX11 feature support mess where they said they supported it when they actually didn’t support it all but this is part of the problem. I think they missed the question on purpose because the answer will be no existing hardware will support it, from AMD or Nvidia or there genuinely aren’t any new features.
lol, here we go again.
microsoft, forcing people to upgrade to a new os.
i remember windows live messenger: * this new WLM and its amazing new features needs the new windows 7 and .net 4.x to work.*
without competition, that’s what happens.
because apple, they don’t give a fuuck about gamers. they don’t want people spending 100 hours on a call of duty game, on a mac. no, they prefer seeing this guy playing on a 800$ ipad, downloading 2 or 3 free2play games, for free, and then, seeing him spending 300$ in one month, on IAP, microtransactions, booosters, upgrades,, etc etc, on these 3 games.
so, without competition, all microsoft needs to do is grabbing one or two apps most people use, in a daily basis, upgrade those apps with 2 or 3 windows components, components that only exist on the new windows OS. and there they have, another 100-200 million users that will be forced to pay another 100-200$, just to be able to run their favorite apps. yeahh.
Well capitalism model leads to monopolism in every field, only significant inventions disrupt this model. Get used to it.
Though Microsoft is a different company now than was years ago, they realize that and they also realize that only because they take it PC for granted for so many years it get them into this mess. Lets hope they will learn a lot from that same as this will help other companies create needed competition.
How is Project Cars leading the most anticipated game of 2015 poll? Something is not right here. Anyway it will be a great game but no way a driving sim is more anticipated than The Witcher 3 and Batman Arkham Knight, it is just not possible. The poll is definitely rigged.
Originally, the poll was meant to run until February 1st. It has been extended to February 7th (because of a spike in pCars). Truth be told, there weren’t any duplicate votes so yes; 178 different people have voted for pCars
That doesn’t mean there couldn’t be something shady going on, someone may post the link to the poll somewhere and get 1000 votes for it. I’m not sure why anyone would do it for this poll but still, I don’t understand how PCARS could be a clear winner. Not that much people play car games on PC seriously and prefer this over something like the witcher. And PCARS has been playable(for some people) for like 2 years, my friend had it then.
I woudn’t say that it is rigged. but definitely Project Cards is not fit for most anticipated title of 2015. For me it is Metal Gear Solid V Phantom Pain
I was wondering that, too. Maybe it was 4Chan users or some other organized group that skewed the results.
Either that or there are a lot of car enthusiasts out there that aren’t satisfied with the other 120 car games out there that all play exactly the same.
What did you expect? it’s obvious that Microsoft wil not miss such a big opportunity to eliminate Windows fragmentation.
All I care about is this help future PC game performance. I just worry about the fact that the majority of dev’s don’t know how to optimize for High lvl API’s such as DX9/DX11 so how the heck are they going to program for a Low lvl API?
The only low lvl API on the market right now is AMD’s Mantle but so far out of all the Mantle supported games the only dev team that shows great performance gains is Firaxis Games and let’s face it Civ BE is such a dull game lol….
So I am only hope Dev’s start learning how to use a low lvl API or we will not see better performance for years….
nobody uses past dx 11.1 so .2 and .3 are useless. The next jump for Dev’s will be DX12 period
But dx11.3 will not have the massive drawcall amount. DX12 is needed.
oh I get what you mean but DX12 can improve on games like MMO’s like Guild Wars 2 that uses DX9 because of all the in game animations.
Most indy Dev’s use DX9 for that same reason since DX11 is very taxing. But if they want their games to have a better look for visuals then that DX9 can offer they will go with DX12 since it will not be taxing and will draw more attention since it’s DX12
dude.. thats it… DirectX 12 actually, DirectX 9 Next Gen edition. i miss the old time when low end vga can play any Dx9 game flawlessly.
nonono, increasing of draw calls limit will help to everyone not to mention much better multithreading in new APIs. Consider new games from ubisoft all of those could run much better on much wider HW. So much more potential customers could buy them! This is the main reason of new approach.
Problem is DX12 and MANTLE should be tested on mainstream – low end CPUs not best High end nobody really have anyway
dude it will use the drawcalls with multi threaded core overall making lag and fps drop a thing of the past for games like MMO’s in huge 250 player map events
anet has money man. I only live 5 hours away from them. And I am sure they will make a update for DX12 no problem. And they will be at PAX south to kick off the GW2 expansion. I would not be shocked if they talked about DX12
11.2 is used in alien isolation, so NOBODY isn’t correct statement. Main reason why only few used above DX11.0 is because nvidia never supported them! fermi and kepler are 11.0 only.
Wrong again… I would post dx11 wiki link but it clearly shows alien isolation as dx11. While games like BF4 only use up to 11.1
Rodney could you tell me features from DX11.1 and DX11.2 which are connected with game development and are not supported by Fermi GPUs and above? NVIDIA is not supporting whole feature sets from 11.1 and .2, but part of them are supported. And I don’t know if somebody even use those features. It’s not NV fault that developers don’t want to use features from DX11.1 and DX11.2 which are HW supported by both GPU developers.
The feature set he’s talking about some of those feature are optional to the GPU make, both NVIDIA and AMD fully support the full spec requirements of DX11.1/11.2.
I read some months ago that these optional features are mainly for debug and that they are not for direct usage in games. But I can’t confirm that information so it could be wrong. Because of that I wanted from Rodney to write features witch could be used directly in games and NV don’t support them.
I posted the spec features and optional features a while ago here for NVIDIA and AMD GPUs.
Yes that’s why they call it feature set vs. compatible / compliant.
Features of every DX you’ll find on Microsoft website. As far as I know alien isolation used BC7 texture compression scheme (part os 11.2 if im not mistaken) and for that reason Fermi/Keplers run that game significantly worse, game is very well optimized though so I don’t think most mainstream gamers did even recognize that.
Which feature set supports your HW you find on vendor website or contacting them. There were minor DX updates, like 10.1 which hasn’t been used much same as DX11.1/11.2, surprisingly in all three cases because NVidia haven’t really supported them and when it started there were already new API version out or close to release.
EDIT: my bad, just check it out BF7 is DX11.0 spec, sorry for misinfo
I think DX12 will have features of DX11.3 + low level with all the benefits. But Im not sure about that, though it wouldn’t make any sense to have 2 APIs with different features other than that low level access.
Developers are using low level API for consoles. Initial problem for DX12 will be write new renderer and tune it. In that way has Mantle step forward because this API has already implemented and developers are learning how to use it. While this is not connected with the most of the work but when you will want to implement new graphical features, you will have to deal with it.
The whole point why mantle is used atm is because developers is learning how to use low level access and AMD encourage them in that, DX12 wont be different. AMD never made MANTLE their thing, they gave beta to kronos, they offer final to all vendors, they trying to move industry forward and as product of that to make sure their AMD FX will be after 3 years used as intended. That is biggest benefit for AMD because it will boost performance of their CPU on the same line with comparable intels cores.
Now you sound really like a marketing guy from AMD. 🙂 AMD is the only one company who benefit from Mantle and it doesn’t seem that it will change in near future. And even after that if they release Mantle interface, it will take time to make support for it. So it is big advantage for AMD. And I personally think this will be the same for next versions of Mantle too. They are don’t do it mainly for push industry forward. They are doing it for their own benefit. And not only because they will have access to new Mantle features first, but for their lower performance CPUs.
“it will boost performance of their CPU on the same line with comparable intels cores”
No they don’t. Their CPUs have the same performance with or without Mantle. The benefit is that CPU doesn’t have to spend so much time for rendering issues like with actual DX you get more FPS. But if you challenge them with better physics or AI computations, they will have performance problems again according to their Intel equivalents. But that’s ok. This is not criticism. Mantle shows everybody how is DX inefficient right now and that it should be cleared (I mean clean the inefficient ballast in source code) and tuned.
so this wont fix Ebolasoft?
yeah but I like 8.1 for gaming. Always in DEsktop XD
Does that mean my 560 Ti, 670, 760/770 will all get the support too? I don’t know what Maxwell is, and even if i do ill forget in 1 hour anyway. 😛
Fermi is 500 series, Kepler is 600/700 series, Maxwell is 900 series and 750/ti so yes
First let’s if win 10 gonna be better than win 8 then we decide
Win 8 is ridiculous, I do not have high expectation, at the end its Microsoft we talking about!
Difference between those 2 OS are measurable but still very small, There are optimizations for AMD FX (for instance) but it help much more with core parking and power consumption than with performance (turbo core). Performance optimization is something that has to be done within the game, OS cant help you when game is badly optimized.
Agree and i’m waiting W10.
my 290x is probably only going to have software dx12 features, not hardware. Oh well, time to upgrade to a faster HBM 390x.
R9 285 is the only AMD card to support DX12 hardware features so far.
Yeah, it’s probably only going to be GCN 1.2 and upward I’m afraid. But I’ll probably upgrade to 390x when more games implement DX12
We are aware of that trend, thank you 🙂 …still, given how much “attention and love” M$ has for PC gamers in general I’d still wait. I’d also read carefully the terms and conditions before pressing the “I Agree” button…
Gonna be amaze!
Please moder port it to Windows 7. i love lastest windows speed but i cant stand the ugly touch looking interface in my old rooten 720p monitor.
There is no touch interface
All those cards are going to be outdated by the time any game using DX12 is released.
What is the problem with dx12 being windows 10 only? Microsoft stated that windows 10 is a free upgrade for anyone with windows 7 and 8. I imagine most gamers interested in this is at lease using windows 7.
Yeah, “free” for a “year”
The upgrade option remains free for a year. After a year, your upgraded windows 10 will remain active. If you don’t upgrade after a year, you have to pay. It’s as free as it gets.
Is that the option ? I thought it’s free for a year and then you have to pay. Hmm …. I’ll look into it again
Edit : Yeah, it’s free for a year and if you didn’t upgrade within a year you have to pay. The sentencing is confusing XD
It really is confusing, most of people don’t seem to have an idea what it means and assume it’s something bad. No, it’s free.
Confusing on purpose.
We have no idea what “free for a year” really means. It could be that they’re planning Cloud Integration with Win 10, & “free for a year” means your first year is free, then you’re paying a Sub fee, like Office 365.
It could be your first year with Win 10 is free, then once your 365 days are over, it locks you out & invites you to bend over & take that license where the sun don’t shine.
Besides, I still haven’t seen a single reason to upgrade from my Aero-themed Windows 7 to the same flat dull colours we had in the ’90s, as well as more Ribbon UIs on every Window. I never used Paper Clip in MS Word either, I don’t see why I’d be interested in Cortana, or Microsoft’s butchering of the Halo Franchise.
P.S. – Gotta love PR hype – “>50% of gamers today have DX12-capable hardware. We’re super excited to bring them all to Win10 and DX12 – 1 yr free upgrade for Win7, 8.1!” – Note how they didn’t mention the PC specifically, just that “more than 50% of Gamers today” – which could mean anything, from XBONE + PC, to just XBONE, to XBONE + PS4, to XBONE + PS4 + PC, to whatever. Also note how they’re phrasing it as “You see, we’re expecting more than 50% of our Windows-based Gamers to move to Win 10 immediately in order to get their hands on DX12! Invest, invest, invest!”
In summary: Yes, I don’t trust Microsoft. Yes, neither should you. Nobody should. Everything they do is fueled by their absurd desire for endless profit, & their moronic belief that they’re some kind of “God’s Gift to Humanity” which the ignoramus masses are dissing upon because “it’s cool to hate the popular shtick these days.”
It means exactly what it sounds like. If you have windows 7 or 8 then you can upgrade to 10 for free, if you want to give it some time to mature then you can wait 11 months and then upgrade for free. If you don’t upgrade within a year then you will have to pay for the upgrade like you would have any other time windows released a new os. There will be no licensing fees after a year, as long as you upgrade within a year you will not have to pay a dime. The software landscape has changed, microsofts old business model no longer works for them, 10% of all windows users are on windows 8 and that’s a failure in their eyes. They want windows to succeed, therefore they have decided to move in a new direction with their pricing strategy. I think most people like to bash microsoft because it’s the cool thing to do, but this is exciting news to me and I’ll be upgrading unless it’s a total disaster.
Because Microsoft doesn’t dream of a Subscription-based OS with which they can milk us all to death with?
Because Microsoft isn’t stupid enough to make something like that into a reality? Just like they’re not stupid enough to CoD-ify Halo, remove the Start Menu from Windows, & basically make what could easily be titled “Windows-100-Ways-Not-To-Merge-Mobile-&-Desktop-Features-Together-8”? The list just goes on & on.
TL;DR – Microsoft doesn’t do anything for nothing. They have no reason to release this for free, & there is really no reason to trust anything coming out of their mouths right now.
Like I said, it might be the “cool” thing to do, bashing major corps like Ebolasoft, Empire Arts, Bethtards, etc. but they get what they deserve, nothing more, nothing less, & Microsoft deserves this mistrust, from every single one of us. Seriously, Cortana & Project Spartan, ffs.
Microsoft should have seen Windows 8 was going to be a failure the moment they first saw the concepts, they should never have released Windows 8 as it is right now, period. New CEO might have a different face, but so far there’s little reason to believe he’s really any different. His predecessor was a moron appointed by morons, now those morons may have changed, but there’s still little reason to believe they didn’t get replaced by other morons either.
Then go buy a Mac
I wonder which DX12 game will be able any fermi chip run well. When 480 has same performance as new 750.
if I remember right Femi was 470, 480 and I am sure they will have performance gains even on dual core CPU’s because if you have a gpu that old you are most likely on a dual core.
Well i’ll be definitely getting my hands on new Windows 10 coz I never used Win 8 due to many problems and never liked the interface so would be a good decision to invest in this new OS. Thought I will not rush and wait for at least 6 months so Microsoft might be able to stable it a bit more after the final Release coz we all know nothing comes out perfect from Microsoft 😛
Dont dissapoint
oh I am sure it won’t. MS going as far as making a Fable online game work for both PC and Xbox1 with cross play all to promo DX12 and Windows 10? I think they have everything in order.
Holy crap, I know this Charles dude, lol.
Progress must move forward, I guess.
Looks like I’ll need to set up a dual-boot configuration again. Windows 7 works beautifully for me – I even have it all themed up the way I want it.
I just hope the upgrade they are talking about will be proper upgrade.So that i can download an iso file and burn it in a DVD.
Oh god read TB’s twitter on windows 10 i am laughing my a*s off
Can’t wait for DX12 games built from the ground up on XBOX ONE!!!
The upgrade to Windows 10 is free.
There is a free upgrade to Windows 10 from Windows 7 on up. So I see no reason for BC in this case. I mean you get to upgrade to Windows 10 and DX12 for free!!
https://twitter.com/Rajio/status/558373496813002752/photo/1
Tweeted by the Xbox Canada community manager.
World at War II pretty much confirmed, the tweeted picture has morse code saying the same date and time as the recent World at War II poster found here https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B7FQQ9vIEAEwyup.jpg:large
AMD got betrayed by microsoft, SO WHAT MICROSOFT YOU STILL CAN’T WIN AGAINST OPENGL 5.0 and ES4 also MANTLE 2.0
LONG LIVED UNIX CLONES
ANDROID
FrEEBSD
LINUX
MAC OSX
Mantle 2.0? please I don’t see support anymore for Mantle 2.0… oh sure a few games under EA’s flag but guess what EA games that use mantle are garbage performance over DX11 and soon everything will just be under DX12 and mantle will be a thing of the past known as AMD’s PR stunt to sell AMD hardware since they are close to going bankrupt…
That’s how it is… AMD knew of DX12 before they even talked about Mantle… And DX12 is the real PC gaming Future.
AMD already confirmed that all GCN (Graphics Core Next) cards will support DX12.
Sorry but am not moving am not happy with this being forced to move. There aint nothing wrong with my win 7. Hell some of the programs I use dont like win 8 or above because of compat issues and changes in the base insides that certain programs use cant use anymore. Plus I really do not like how they have made win 10. taking out certain things like the control pannel how you move around it how it looks. DX12 should be made avialible to all even those who. Dont have the money to buy what I class as monster computers for gaming like me and many others!