News - DirectX 12 to launch with Windows 10

[HEXUS]

Early Access members will be able to develop with the Windows 10 Technical Preview.

Read more.

[azrael-]

I'm fairly certain they're encouraging *game developers* and not *gamers* to become Windows Insiders in order to refine DX12, although there's probably an overlap to some extent.

[Corky34]

Still no word on whether it will be a Windows 10 exclusive.

[shaithis]

Interesting that the DX12 runtime is available but not bundled in 10TP.

Seems rather odd.

[MrJim]

Still no word on whether it will be a Windows 10 exclusive.

I'd be very surprised if it wasn't. Ever since Vista, MS have been using each new major version of DirectX as a carrot to encourage adoption of Windows.

[Tunnah]

Will this be just a code thing so won't need hardware updates for it ?

[shaithis]

Supposedly anything from nvidia 400 series and newer will be DX12 compatible...last I looked AMD hadn't made a firm statement but I think we can assume all GCN-based cards will be and possibly some earlier cards.

[Primey0]

Will this be just a code thing so won't need hardware updates for it ?

I believe so. Nvidia said that "all Fermi, Kepler, and Maxwell GPUs will support the API" so anything from the 400 series and newer will support directx 12.

AMD have said nothing about directx 12

[.havoc]

AMD have said nothing about directx 12

http://www.amd.com/en-us/press-relea...2014mar20.aspx

[zaph0d]

From the AMD side I'd quite happily believe anything that can run Mantle ie GCN based GPU's of 7xxx/R series and higher will support DX12 as most of the design philosophies of Mantle and DX12 are the same.

As to DX12 being Win 10 Exclusive, I can quite believe that too, Win 7 will be in EOL support only by the time Win 10 comes out so no backports, Win 8/8.1 adoption is so low that any complaintss from that camp will be ignored and then only if they don't get a free Win 10 upgrade.

[shaithis]

Wow, so GCN only.

That's a bit of a cop-out....

[.havoc]

Thats quite an old post so the scope may of changed since

[Primey0]

http://www.amd.com/en-us/press-relea...2014mar20.aspx

My bad.

[.havoc]

My bad.

Didn't link to shame or anything, just sharing the knowledge

[DanceswithUnix]

I'd be very surprised if it wasn't. Ever since Vista, MS have been using each new major version of DirectX as a carrot to encourage adoption of Windows.

And I would say that so far it hasn't worked.

I went to Win 7 years ago because I hit the 32 bit limit and XP didn't work well for me any more. My mum moved from XP because she was forced to by it being no longer supported.

Sometimes people buy a new system and put whatever is the latest Windows on there. I honestly can't think of a single person I know who chose their Windows version because of the Direct X version that it supported. Would be nice if they gave up on this nonsense.

[Tunnah]

And I would say that so far it hasn't worked.

I went to Win 7 years ago because I hit the 32 bit limit and XP didn't work well for me any more. My mum moved from XP because she was forced to by it being no longer supported.

Sometimes people buy a new system and put whatever is the latest Windows on there. I honestly can't think of a single person I know who chose their Windows version because of the Direct X version that it supported. Would be nice if they gave up on this nonsense.

I moved to windows 7 precisely because of the DX11 support. I didn't want to move off of XP because of it's stability and just how perfect it was...as far as a Windows OS could be.

I use my PC obviously like everyone else, but it is also a gaming machine, and that means being able to run games as well as possible, and that meant moving to Windows 7. Also a lot of people who I did PCs for (friends that are interested in PC gaming but without the time or inclination to learn all the ins and outs) followed my recommendation of Windows 7 for the better gaming environment.

It helped that Windows 7 is actually pretty decent, and while I hate Windows 8/8.1 because they tried too much to make it a touch-centric OS, I'm hoping with Windows 10 they'll make it more like Windows 7. MS seem to always screw up once, do well once (98, XP, 7 are good whilst ME, Vista and 8 have been terrible...although I thought 95 was good too, it was my first PC experience so really had no benchmark)