Microsoft has added DirectX 12 with the latest Windows 10 Technical Preview that was released today. Until today, DXDIAG reported DirectX 11 in the Windows 10 Technical Preview. At the moment, there has not been any drivers or software released for it, and the SDK is also no-where to be found. Really, all this means is that one barrier has been lifted, leaving the burden on hardware and software partners (except to release the SDK, that's still Microsoft's responsibility).
No-one needs to know how old my motherboard is…
Note: I have already experienced some issues with Build 9926. Within a half hour of using it, I suffered an instant power-down. There was not even enough time for a bluescreen. When it came back, my Intel GPU (which worked for a few minutes after the update) refused to be activated, along with the monitor it is attached to. My point? Not for production machines.
Update: Looks like a stick of RAM (or some other hardware) blew, coincidentally, about 30 minutes after the update finished, while the computer was running, which also confused my UEFI settings. I haven't got around to troubleshooting much, but it seems like a weirdly-timed, abrupt hardware failure (BIOS is only reporting half of the RAM installed, iGPU is "enabled" but without RAM associated to it, etc.).
The interesting part, to me, is how Microsoft pushed DX12 into this release without, you know, telling anyone. It is not on any changelog that I can see, and it was not mentioned anywhere in the briefing as potentially being in an upcoming preview build. Before the keynote, I had a theory that it would be included but, after the announcement, figured that it might be pushed until GDC or BUILD (but I kept an open mind). The only evidence that it might come this month was an editorial on Forbes that referenced a conversation with Futuremark, who allegedly wanted to release an update to 3DMark (they hoped) when Microsoft released the new build. I could not find anything else, so I didn't report on it — you would think that there would be a second source for that somewhere. It turns out that he might be right.
The new Windows 10 Technical Preview, containing DirectX 12, is available now from the preview build panel. It looks like Futuremark (and maybe others) will soon release software for it, but no hardware vendor has released a driver… yet.
In before Performance
In before Performance Optimization with Enhanced Reduced Instruction Set Computing.
That was fast, just finished
That was fast, just finished download and read some feedbacks first before installing, personally the upcoming 3dmark API Overhead feature test is the only reason wanna try and see, seems gonna wait for a little bit longer
Im confused i thought just
Im confused i thought just having this new API would improve CPU overhead regardless of drivers in any games/benchmark
Having a new API does
Having a new API does absolutely nothing if nothing is written to work with that API yet.
Think of it as a new interface: just having a PCI-E slot does nothing if all you have are AGP cards.
The API can’t help if you
The API can't help if you never call it.
Nothing to be ashamed of im
Nothing to be ashamed of im still running a x58 rampage extreme with extreme westmere. Looking forward to this.
How long until DX12 only
How long until DX12 only games?
I believe Just Cause 2 was the first DX10 (8800 series) only game, while Lost Planet being one of the first DX10 titles.
Crysis 3 being the first DX11 only one.
If you feel like being snarky
If you feel like being snarky then you could argue Assassin's Creed: Unity was a DX12-only game. :p
This is just another attempt
This is just another attempt to drive up the sales of graphics cards and OSes. Vote for your wallet and don’t fall for this marketing bull. Barely any games will use direct x12 and by the time we end up knowing it all, another OS will be around the corner.
Except that Microsoft
Except that Microsoft announced that Windows 10 is freeware, which didn’t do wonders for their stock price.
They did not announce that it
They did not announce that it will be freeware. They announced a timed, free upgrade promotion for most existing devices. You're sort-of correct in this case though.
A lot of older games would
A lot of older games would benefit so much with this too bad they will never get the support.
So now we get to look forward to even more unoptimized games built around DX12
edit
A lot of older games
edit
A lot of older games would benefit so much with this too bad they will never get the support.
So now we get to look forward to even more complex unoptimized games built around DX12
That’s actually one of the
That's actually one of the expected benefits of DX12: certain types of optimizations are less necessary. Depending on how effective it is as an API, some DX9/DX11 tricks might even make the problems worse.