Microsoft has just announced that they ported the DirectX 12 runtime to Windows 7 for World of Warcraft and other, unannounced games. This allows those games to run the new graphics API with its more-efficient framework of queuing work on GPUs, with support from Microsoft. I should note that the benchmarks for DirectX 12 in WoW are hit or miss, so I’m not sure whether it’s better to select DX11 or DX12 for any given PC, but you are free to try.

This does not port other graphics features, like the updated driver model, which leads to this excerpt from the DirectX blog post:

How are DirectX 12 games different between Windows 10 and Windows 7?
Windows 10 has critical OS improvements which make modern low-level graphics APIs (including DirectX 12) run more efficiently. If you enjoy your favorite games running with DirectX 12 on Windows 7, you should check how those games run even better on Windows 10!

Just make sure you don’t install KB4482887? Trollolololol. Such unfortunate timing.

Of course, Vulkan also exists, and has supported Windows 7 since its creation. Further, both DirectX 12 and Vulkan have forked away from Mantle, which, of course, supported Windows 7. (AMD’s Mantle API pre-dates Windows 10.) The biggest surprise is that Microsoft released such a big API onto Windows 7 even though it is in extended support. I am curious what lead to this exception, such as cyber cafés or other international trends, because I really have no idea.

As for graphics drivers? I am guessing that we will see it pop up in new releases. The latest GeForce release notes claim that DirectX 12 is only available on Windows 10, although undocumented features are not exactly uncommon in the software and hardware industry. Speaking of undocumented features, World of Warcraft 8.1.5 is required for DirectX 12 on Windows 7, although this is not listed anywhere in the release notes on their blog.