Microsoft Announces DirectX 12, Availability Targeting Holiday 2015 Games
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Microsoft today officially announced DirectX 12 gaming platform at GDC. DirectX 12 will feature the next version of Direct3D, that is faster and more efficient than ever before. Direct3D 12 works across all the Microsoft devices, from phones and tablets, to laptops and desktops, and, Xbox One. Microsoft worked closely with all the leading GPU vendors like AMD, Nvidia, Qualcomm and Intel.
What makes Direct3D 12 better?
First and foremost, it provides a lower level of hardware abstraction than ever before, allowing games to significantly improve multithread scaling and CPU utilization. In addition, games will benefit from reduced GPU overhead via features such as descriptor tables and concise pipeline state objects. And that’s not all – Direct3D 12 also introduces a set of new rendering pipeline features that will dramatically improve the efficiency of algorithms such as order-independent transparency, collision detection, and geometry culling. Of course, an API is only as good as the tools that help you use it. DirectX 12 will contain great tools for Direct3D, available immediately when Direct3D 12 is released.
Read the FAQ below for more details,
Q: Should I wait to buy a new PC or GPU? A: No – if you buy a PC with supported graphics hardware (over 80% of gamer PCs currently being sold), you’ll be able to enjoy all the power of DirectX 12 games as soon as they are available.
Q: Does DirectX 12 include anything besides Direct3D 12? A: Also new is a set of cutting-edge graphics tools for developers. Since this is a preview of DirectX 12 focused on Direct3D 12, other technologies may be previewed at a later date.
Q: When will I be able to get my hands on DirectX 12? A: We are targeting Holiday 2015 games.
Q: What hardware will support Direct3D 12 / will my existing hardware support Direct3D 12? A: We will link to our hardware partners’ websites as they announce their hardware support for Direct3D 12.
Read more from Microsoft’s blog.
