DX12 is not coming to Windows 7

[KeyboardDemon]

Nothing like forcing people over I suppose

Do you think that if enough people decide not upgrading to upgrade to Windows 10 that Microsoft will be forced to go back and update Windows 7 so that DirectX 12 will be able to run on it?

[kalniel]

Do you think that if enough people decide not upgrading to upgrade to Windows 10 that Microsoft will be forced to go back and update Windows 7 so that DirectX 12 will be able to run on it?

No - there's no reason to unless they start charging for DirectX 12.

But either way, there are so few people who care about DX12 in the grand scheme of things (compared to the number of PC users who don't need it).

[scaryjim]

... I am baffled as to how MS are still getting away with charging for this tripe.

Compatibility and corporate inertia. Two huge forces that will see Windows remain the dominant OS regardless of what MS do to it. And yes, I specify corporate inertia because if everyone started working 9 - 5 on some flavour of Linux, or Mac OS, or something else (Haiku, maybe? ) I suspect it wouldn't take a very long time before they started looking to use the same thing at home.

Of course, gaming is an intertial force - there are people who keep windows around just for gaming. But as Kalniel says, the majority of the market dn't care about DX12, and they're the ones who buy Windows because it's familiar and comfortable....

[imdabossou]

There are only a very limited number of games that even run on Direct x 11.2, surely it will take a long time for Direct x 12 to be used.

[scaryjim]

There are only a very limited number of games that even run on Direct x 11.2, surely it will take a long time for Direct x 12 to be used.

That depends entirely on the developers, who will ant to know what DX12 brings to the equation before they decide. If DX12 on Windows 10 can offer them the opportunity to make 7x as many draw calls (which is a figure 3DMark have been touting recently), then there might be a significant advantage in using it over older technologies (particularly if you can build in DX11 fall backs fairly easily). Or if, as AMD claim, building on Mantle makes porting to both DX11 and DX12 relatively easy, you might see a lot more studios producing games that support all three APIs. Ultimately, it has to come down to whether the developer thinks the extra effort of targetting DX12 is worthwhile. One of the reasons DX10 adoption was very slow was because Vista was an unpopular OS. If Windows 10 ends up being a good one, and people migrate relatively quickly, then you might find DX12 adoption is much quicker.

OTOH, you also have to consider development inertia and timing; the AAA games for the next couple of years will already be in development, and those developers will not be using DX12 now because it's not available yet (AFAIK, if anyone's got an inside loop on DX12 development please correct me ). So they'd have to completely retool their games to include DX12 - that could be a lot of work. They'll only do that if DX12 offers some noticable advantage, and they think there will be a large enough customer base wanting DX12 to make it worthwhile. It's guesswork to a certain extent -you don't want to be the only game developer still stuck on DX11 if everyone else is creating much more graphically rich games because they're using DX12, but you also don't want to spend lots of time and money developing on DX12 only to find that you're targetting a market of a few hundred early adopters.

TL;DR? Basically there's a lot more to consider than it looks on the surface, and the adoption of previous APIs should not be used to predict the adoption of future APIs.

[imdabossou]

Hmm yeah that's true, guess we just have to wait to see really! In a way I really want to see the new tech used, but then I kind of don't as I will have to upgrade my OS ahah

[yamangman]

For people who are concerned about this stuff, there is a glimmer of hope - OGL.

It's extremely easy to overlook OGL for various complicated historical reasons. OGL must follow others unfortunately, but pray for success this time around and we might be getting something truly great in the 'next-gen' version of OGL, with mantle as its basis, which for all intents and purposes has already guaranteed hardware support from the big two.

There are several reasons to be hopeful and even excited about the future.

- First up is OGL's relevance. It has even more industry backing in so many different spheres now than it had when it was fudged backed in the day.
- Currently and historically OGL permitted access to new hardware features on all platforms, unlike the DX system of exposing new more modern features on newer platforms. Hardware tesselation has already been mentioned in this thread. It is a hardware feature, and thusly supported via OGL on ancient platforms (XP for instance).

I'd suggest if you have genuine concerns, ensure you buy OGL supported titles.

[yamangman]

Misinformation. Support ends in 2020 I believe. This means support longevity is over 10 years (if you include RTM that's even longer).

With W7 losing Microsoft support soon, is it any wonder they are not bothering to code the backwards compatibility for a newer version of DX?

That is their choice in gouging us.

Compare that to a free OS like Centos which is supported for 10 years (and frankly the support is better) and I am baffled as to how MS are still getting away with charging for this tripe.

[DanceswithUnix]

Misinformation. Support ends in 2020 I believe. This means support longevity is over 10 years (if you include RTM that's even longer).

Security patch support ends in 2020. Mainstream support ends next month.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/windows/lifecycle