DirectX 12 benchmark slides imply significant frame rate boost

[edzieba]

This. Has it been confirmed what OS's are getting DX12? Obviously W10, but what about W8 or (the real question!) W7?

Windows 7 is right out. Support for Win 7 ends this January (13th). No way in hell will Microsoft put in the effort to port an entire new driver model to an OS that is out of support.

DX12 requires WDDM 2.0. Currently, Vista is WDDM 1.0, W7 is WDDM 1.1, Win 8 is WDDM 1.2, Win 8.1 is WDDM 1.3, and Win 10 is WDDM 2.0. Whether Windows 8.1 will receive an update for a new driver model is unknown, but unlikely. AFAIK, no version of Windows has had a driver model upgrade.

[DanceswithUnix]

TL;DR, doesn't this really bat into AMD's many core, poor single thread performance field for gamers? And will we see a shift away from the i5 gaming dominance?

i5 will still be the preferred choice to people who must have the best because there will be times when you want to run an old game where it is faster.

However, "poor single thread performance" isn't really what I see from the FX 8350. For the price I still think it is a bit of a bargain.

[Corky34]

Only a subset, so not full 11.1. Windows 8.1 then added 11.2 with none of it being back-ported.

Isn't that what i said, kind of
The point i was trying to make but obviously failed to, was i thought the differences between DX 11.x on Windows 7, and DX 11.x on Windows 8.x was minimal in terms of performance and/or quality, wasn't most of the differences aimed at saving battery power, where as DX 12 seems to be aimed firmly at improving performance.

[Jowsey]

i5 will still be the preferred choice to people who must have the best because there will be times when you want to run an old game where it is faster.

However, "poor single thread performance" isn't really what I see from the FX 8350. For the price I still think it is a bit of a bargain.

Oh, I'm not arguing that! I completely agree with you. And with the single threaded performance comment as well, that is with comparison to core i5's of recent.

My thoughts were just that the current premium you pay for an i5 is valued by a combination of a couple things. These things (in my head are): 1) incremental gaming benefits, 2) superior single threaded performance on day to day tasks, 3) lower power usage.

(People can disagree but these are my opinions so...)

If going forward DX12 plays to AMD's strengths then point 1 is mute for new comes being released. The back catalogue of unoptimised games will remain but they will soon fade and just become a reminder of 'old' times. Our community as a whole is for more interested in games that are going to be released in a year as opposed to games released a year ago.

Point 2 has always been debatable. I'm a 'gamer' and the key demographic for i5's. I would have one of my wallet was a bit larger! But all I do on my computer is general day to day gumph (youtube, word editor, web browsing) and game. I don't spend all day zipping and unzipping huge documents or rendering HD footage. So when I do do these things I don't mind the whatever % it takes longer because I don't notice it. So the premium paid for an i5 in this regard becomes an even larger debatable point!

My point being the FX 8350 is more than 'good enough' for day to day operation in regards to point 2. If however you spend all day on photoshop or rendering things out or the such I think that's a different set of requirements.

Point 3, well, we can chat about this all day can't we. Yes, they are more energy effecient but how quickly will you make your money back ... having to by more expensive motherbords... not requiring super cooling if you overclock... this can go back and forth all day. I'm 21, live out and pay my own electricity by working a full time job. I'm 'average', do a couple hours of gaming every other night and maybe 6 hours across a empty weekend. The rest of the time my computer is on maybe 4 hours a night just web browsing and playing youtube, not demanding stuff. In short, I don't think my wallet would feel the benefit! People can prove me wrong but I don't care about £2.35 a year. I probably lose more change than that a year!

So, the price difference between some 8 core FX's and current i5's starts to become unquantifiable in my opinion.

I'll still be getting one though, like you say, for older games. But it's the long term prospects that intrigue me. Will we see a reshuffle of how intel prices processors? Who knows what kind of effect this could have in the enthusiast market.

(Now if only AMD would release something on the CPU side! Even a new chipset for current processors!)

((Also, I've never been quoted so many times!))

[shaithis]

Isn't that what i said, kind of
The point i was trying to make but obviously failed to, was i thought the differences between DX 11.x on Windows 7, and DX 11.x on Windows 8.x was minimal in terms of performance and/or quality, wasn't most of the differences aimed at saving battery power, where as DX 12 seems to be aimed firmly at improving performance.

11.2 added much faster codepaths. Running BF4 (the only 11.2 game I know of unfortunately) in 11.1 vs 11.2 mode can show significant gains.

[spacein_vader]

Lots of people saying variations on "Remember when they made DX10 exclusive to Vista for marketing reasons?" Microsoft claimed it couldn't be backported as it used a whole different driver model and just plain wouldn't work under XP. People claimed this was rubbish and that some bright spark would produce and 'unofficial' workaround within weeks and get it on XP. Years on, this never happened as it turned out MS was telling the truth.

So lets not yet slate Microsoft for doing something they haven't actually said they will do, and may even have sound technical reasons for doing if they do go that route.

[Corky34]

Porting DX 10 to XP did happen, well at least to some extent. There was the Alky Project in 2007'ish, then there was LWGame's attempt in 2008, then KM-Software continued the work of LWGame with DirectX 10 NYV (New Year Version), although i have no clue how well they worked as i abandoned XP around 4-5 years ago.

[DanceswithUnix]

Porting DX 10 to XP did happen, well at least to some extent. There was the Alky Project in 2007'ish, then there was LWGame's attempt in 2008, then KM-Software continued the work of LWGame with DirectX 10 NYV (New Year Version), although i have no clue how well they worked as i abandoned XP around 4-5 years ago.

I think the main point here was that most people didn't much care for DX10, there wasn't much software around for it at the time.

So yes it did happen, ISTR because the initial work for DX10 was done in XP and only moved to Vista late on so part of it was digging out those old Microsoft DLLs and packaging them up. It is that availability of developer previews for XP that generates the accusation that MS moved it to Vista as marketing. However I remember looking at the download, looking at the games I was playing, and deciding not to bother. By the time it mattered, I was running Windows 7.

[go4brendon]

"And you too can be the proud user of a DirectX 12 Equipped Experience Exclusively with a Brand New copy of Windows 10!"

ha, nailed it.