Microsoft Confirms DirectX 12 Is Alive and Well, Demo Coming At GDC 127
MojoKid writes "Buzz has been building for the last week that Microsoft would soon unveil the next version of DirectX at the upcoming Games Developer Conference (GDC). Microsoft has now confirmed that its discussion forums at the show won't just be to discuss updates to DX11, but that the company is putting a full court press behind DirectX 12. The company responded sharply over a year ago, when an AMD executive claimed that future versions of the API were essentially dead, but it has been over four years since DX11 debuted. To date, Microsoft has only revealed a few details of the next-generation API. Like AMD's Mantle, it will focus on giving developers "close-to-metal" GPU resource access and reducing CPU overhead. Like Mantle, the goal of DirectX 12 is to give programmers more control over performance tuning, with an eye towards better multi-threading and multi-GPU scaling. Unlike Mantle, DirectX 12 will undoubtedly support a full range of GPUs from AMD, Intel, Nvidia and Qualcomm. Qualcomm's presence is interesting. With Windows RT all but moribund, Qualcomm's interest in that market may have seemed incidental. However, the fact that the company is involved with the DX12 standard could mean that the handset and tablet developer is serious about the Windows market in the long term."
Re:Better be for Windows 7 (Score:5, Informative)
LOL! You must be new here....
Every release of DirectX has been used as a tool to try to get people to upgrade their version of Windows. This will be no different.
Re:Jerks (Score:5, Informative)
Nice (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Better be for Windows 7 (Score:5, Informative)
Better be for Windows 7 or devs will not use it
Perhaps you missed the announcements that have been coming from Redmond for nearly a decade. The core components, such as Direct3D and DirectInput, are considered part of the operating system [microsoft.com] .
Starting with Vista the version of DirectX is incremented with the version of the Windows SDK, and no back porting will take place. [microsoft.com] (powerpoint)
Since many people didn't catch it, they re-announced it with the platform update for WIndows 7: If you want DX11.1, you must get the service pack update [microsoft.com] .
The have already said announcement at GDC will not deviate their course; DirectX 12 is being announced late March as part of a series of press releases right before the new Windows SDK for the 8.1 Update is released in April. All of the updates are part of the Windows SDK for 8.1 Update. [microsoft.com] , much like the Windows 7 Update where they released a new Windows SDK to accompany it..
And a fifth time, just in case you missed it: Effective 2006, Microsoft has stopped distributing individual DirectX packages. It is now a core operating system component. They have not backported the drivers for nearly a decade, and they have repeatedly told people that the backports are gone. It will not be on Windows 7. [microsoft.com]
Got it? Can it be made more clear?
XP = DX9c. Vista = DX10. Vista SP1 = DX10.1. Vista SP2 = DX10.2. Win7 = DX11. WIn 7 SP1 = DX11.1. Win 8 = DX11.1. Win 8.1 = DX11.2. And now it looks like Win 8.1 SP1 = DX12. It really shouldn't be that difficult to grasp.
Re:Better be for Windows 7 (Score:5, Informative)
XP = DX9c. Vista = DX10. Vista SP1 = DX10.1. Vista SP2 = DX10.2. Win7 = DX11. WIn 7 SP1 = DX11.1. Win 8 = DX11.1. Win 8.1 = DX11.2. And now it looks like Win 8.1 SP1 = DX12. It really shouldn't be that difficult to grasp.
Perhaps it shouldn't, but considering that you got it wrong, as Microsoft added DX11 support to Vista [wikipedia.org], obviously it's slightly more difficult to grasp than you seem to think it is.
Re:Better be for Windows 7 (Score:5, Informative)
DirectX11 was back ported to Vista.
The reason DirectX 10/11 was not backported to XP was not because of mean old bad microsoft but rather WinXP is such an obsolete archaic OS that is fundamentally different.
The driver model of NT (pre Vista) does not include WDDM (Windows Device Display Manager) which includes composition and GPU based threading and schedule control etc. One of the strongest reasons to ditch Xorg in the Unix world is because of features like this that Wayland promises to integrate because it is fundamentally different.
Also explains why XP is stuck at IE 8 due to no hardware acceleration ... in addition to no kernel level sandboxing either for security.
Microsoft can't play the old 1990's game where we buy which ever version and hang out at CompUSA at 12am to get it anymore. MS found out the shocking way developers resistant to technology in IE 6 last decade. MBA's look at marketshare now so if I were a betting man my guess would be DirectX 12 will be ported. If not then it will be suicide as XBoxONE won't use it and developers want to target both for maximum profit generation which is why DirectX 9 stayed for so long too.
Windows 9 will be very similar to Windows 7 as there is no reason for radical changes other than perhaps power management. It wont be that much of hassle as MS easily backported many IE 10/11 features to Windows 7 in just a month or two after the Windows 8 releases. Windows 7 at least has a WDDM unlike XP.
Re:Better be for Windows 7 (Score:4, Informative)
Later on...guess what? Microsoft decided to allow DX11 to run as well: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us... [microsoft.com]
Wrong... the update you linked only installs the latest updates to DX9.0c when installed on XP. It does not add DX10 or DX11 to XP. When installed on Vista or 7 it includes DX10 and DX11.