I hope you didn’t get too comfortable with DirectX 11, because DirectX 12 is right around the corner.
Microsoft has released a teaser image, showing that more info will be revealed at GDC (on March 20).
That gives you just under two weeks to get the fear, paranoia and Windows 8 jokes out of your system until some actual details arrive.
DirectX [Microsoft]
Comments
41 responses to “A New DirectX Is Coming”
Oh great, Microsoft can release another inefficient API… awesome.
Why all the downvotes? DX is actually really inefficient, and there were some cool advances in openGL (open source too) before it died down.
This is why AMD’s Mantle API is such a good thing – it’s almost down to metal, so performance gains over DX11 are good.
Mantle’s API has an opposing philosophy to DirectX. DX10 upwards isn’t inefficient, but DirectX’s objective is to to provide an abstraction layer between the software and hardware so that all hardware looks the same to the application. Mantle is the opposite, it differentiates hardware at the low level. Better performance, but much harder to develop cross-hardware support.
Despite what Richard Huddy from AMD asserts, most developers don’t want to reinvent the wheel every time. Hardware abstraction is a necessary component of modern game design.
Yeah I’m not to keen on mamtle either, one API to rule them all. Not hardware specific APIs where games look different in different brands and developers having to make games compatable with multiple APIs.
Completely agree. I know people like to bag on Microsoft, but they have from time to time contributed projects and tools that have made an enormously positive impact on our preferred hobby (gaming). Heck, you can probably even state that the open nature of the operating system is what brought the PC gaming industry to market. Contrast the plethora of titles available over the last 20-30 years for the PC to the closed platform Mac.
“I hope you didn’t get too comfortable with DirectX 11”
It came out like 5 years ago, didn’t it?
Yeah I don’t know exact dates, but it certainly feels like DX11 has been out for ages! I felt the transition from DX10 to 11 was quite short, and was wondering why DX12 took so long to rear its head.
I’m looking forward to it. Honestly I feel that console generations hold most PC graphics ‘back’ so to speak as they are mostly ports these days. Hopefully this combined with a new console generation will finally usher in a new generation of graphically awesome games – until it slowly becomes the norm over the next 4-8 years and we have to wait until the next gen of console again 😛
Yeah it was like 2009 DirectX 11 got released so i did get comfortable, actually forgot about it.
As long as it supports Windows 7, I’ll be happy
Dx 11.2 isnt so i doubt dx12 will be.
I kind of assumed it must be up to a much higher number by now.
Is this their way of forcing gamers to Windows8?
Yes.
Why should they need to be forced? Modern UI aside, windows 8 has some nice performance boosts that make upgrading worth it. Anyone who stays on 7 is just stubborn.
Not stubborn, there was just no incentive to switch to 8 over 7. Obviously that’s changing now, though.
Better perfomance a much more horrible user-experience (unless you have a touch-screen). My laptop is Windows 8 and honestly I’d trade the faster loading times in a second for a desktop that doesn’t feel like it was designed purely to look pretty, without a seconds thought for usability.
I’m holding out for Windows 9 on my PC and seriously hoping Microsoft stick to their recent pattern of crap OS, good OS 😛
Really the start menu is the only thing that is different. Are you unable to adapt to that? I don’t think technology is for you if that is the case.
Really? If I want to turn off my PC I can do this crazy thing called press the start->Shut down.
Shutting down my laptop usually involves hovering the mouse in the corner for 5 minutes waiting for a window to slide open so I can press a button that lets me press another button to shut it down, assuming the window doesn’t slide closed the second I move the mouse causing more waiting…
Clearly the way of the future…
Adapting has nothing to do with it, why is it whenever people mention Windows 8 is horrible the fanboys all rush in with ‘NAH MAN YOU JUST NEED TO LEARN AND ADAPT!?’ Can you honestly list me any benefits of Windows 8 over 7 for non-touchscreen devices? Better still can you give me any disadvantages of Windows 7?
Performance enhancements doesn’t count as an answer because 99% of that is back-end which would still be there anyway if Windows 8 had been an improved Windows 7 experience not to mention any new OS ‘should’ function faster and better then an older version unless we’re talking about something like Vista lol.
WOW, ever heard of start 8 or like the 10 other start menu fixes
Win+X > Shut down or sign out > Shut down
Maybe people are rushing in to tell you to learn the new interface because you really do need to learn the new interface. This stuff is super simple, yet you’re trying to do it the hard way because you haven’t learned the easy way.
Or you can right click on the Start/Metro icon, wait no time at all for a menu to pop up and hit shutdown in two clicks like you’re used to doing.
Update to 8.1 (for free), set it to go straight to the desktop when you log in, pin the stuff you care about to your taskbar and you should only see the Start Screen once or twice a session, if at all.
Also, use Win+S instead of just the Win key to open just the search panel on the right side. You literally never need to go into the full start screen if you don’t want to.
Benchmark testing shows that Windows 7 is still, very marginally, better for graphically intensive gaming
Source? All the data I’ve seen says the opposite.
This may have changed with 8.1, but here are some benchmarks between 7 and 8
http://www.techspot.com/review/561-windows8-vs-windows7/
Interesting. Seems to be the opposite of what Toms Hardware found here: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/windows-8-gaming-performance,3331.html
Except for Borderlands 2, all games they tested had a slight edge on Windows 8 over Windows 7. Test platforms are almost the same, except for the graphics card.
Personally I find Toms to be top quality for benchmarking, I don’t know how reliable Techspot is. Since I do video capture a lot and have the framerate indicator on the screen almost all the time, my personal experience is closer to Toms than Techspot – I’ve seen 5-10 FPS improvements pretty much across the board in Win8 over Win7.
I have found Techspot to be quite reliable
I think the main thing to take away from this is the value of personal preference.
Windows 7 or Windows 8, you can actually have you preference without penalty….. for now :o)
The performance improvements are minimal in gaming, agreed. Windows 8 shines outside of gaming in just about everything else, I think even the Techspot review agrees on that.
As do I
Ive found issues with stuttering on videos on my gtx580 disapeared in win8.
unfortunately depends on the game….. bf4 runs far better on windows 8 but im stuck on win 7 due to other programs that aren’t yet released on 8
Aren’t we currently sitting on DirectX 11.2?
Versions don’t need to climb much before jumping to the next version. I remember sitting on 9.0c for years before 10 arrived.
I can’t wait to see what new fancy lighting and water effects this will allow
If this is windows 8 “only”, I know who’s door i’ll be knocking on!
My neighbors doors! (since they have windows 8)
XD
Mantle..
Sweet!
Gee AMD must have spooked Microsoft with their Mantle API, otherwise they’d continue to let DirectX stagnate like they have since focusing instead on the 2nd and 3rd gen Xbox consoles. Microsoft only wants to maintain market share on the PC gaming market they threw under the bus back in 2005. Another obvious thing about this is that it’ll be incorporated into the next Xbox thus beginning a new stagnation cycle for Microsoft’s PC gaming development.
Personally I hope SteamOS, the new OpenGL and Mantle takes off and then chews a majority PC gaming market share off Microsoft. Even I still doubt they’d realise that it was their own choices that lead to that situation.
The recent long gap with DirectX has little to do with Microsoft letting it stagnate and much more to do with developers doing cross-platform support for the lowest common denominator, consoles. There’s been very little demand for API enhancements when the cards in decade-old hardware can’t support new features. It’s always been this way – software requirements drive platform development, and both collectively drive hardware development.
What’s unusual this time was the abnormally long lifespan of the last console generation. But now that a new generation has finally been released, software requirements should shoot up and drive improvements to DirectX and OpenGL.
That’s the exact point I was making, back when they didn’t have a console (and even with the original xbox) we had huge jumps in the improvements of the API both graphically and performance. I remember going from the dim dark days of DirectX 5 up to 9c and seeing these steady improvements, then about the time 360 pops onto the scene DirectX innovation slows to a crawl. They contributed to this environment and put their efforts into the console market and not pc, it’s business I realise and they have to go were the money is.
I see what you mean now. Yes, same company, but different divisions. Microsoft’s hardware and software divisions might as well be separate companies, they’re that far removed from each other. And it’s not just Microsoft’s fault, it’s also Sony’s, and the various developers for still using the last generation of consoles as a baseline instead of moving on with the PC Master Race 😉
I heard that DirectX 12 will run a little better on Windows 8 compared to Windows 7, so I’m hoping that means it will run on Win7 and not just 8 and up…
What I’m more worried about is if current video cards can support DX12. I would love a good excuse to upgrade to a Geforce 800 series card, but I just aint got the dosh!
Will people seriously get the fuck over paying out Microsoft, they are a company, they release products. If you don’t like them, don’t use them, They have made computers what they are today, you might not like what they do all the time, but they are still pushing technology forward, can anyone here honestly say that they have never made a mistake ? Microsoft doesn’t always get it right. But at least they are always trying to improve the way computers work. I am not a Microsoft fan boy, I actually mostly use Linux for my servers, and use a MacBook air, with parallels mind you, as Microsoft office for Mac, well it sucks.
But they do make some great software. Office 2013 is great, except for the stupid cursor issue which annoys me.
Anyway rant over.