Microsoft unveiled DirectX 12

We told you few weeks ago that Microsoft will be releasing its next major version of Microsoft DirectX , DirectX 12. Microsoft DirectX is graphics API that is used in PC gaming industry. Microsoft announced DirectX 12 at annual Game Developer Conference (GDC) today.

Microsoft Xbox One will take full advantage of DirectX 12. “Xbox One games will see improved performance and we’ll bring the same API to all Microsoft platforms,” said Microsoft’s Anuj Gosalia during today’s GDC presentation. It will help developers to work with higher consistency because Microsoft wants DirectX 12 to exist as a “console-like” API. It will spread performance across multiple cores so your GPU will give better performance handling high end games.

Intel vice president Eric Mintzer said 4th-gen Core processors will be ready for DirectX 12 at launch. DirectX 12 will be supported on Fermi, Kepler, Maxwell, and future Nvidia architectures, said Nvidia’s senior vice president Tony Tomasi.

AMD said that their cards will take full advantage of Direct3D 12 and its existing customers will also benefit. Chris Tector of Turn 10 Studios presented a demo of Forza Motorsport 5 running through Direct3D 12 on PC.

forza5directx12

Epic Games’ Tim Sweeney said that “Epic will be working closely with NVIDIA and Microsoft to create a world-class implementation of DX12 in Unreal Engine 4,” “DirectX12 is a great step forward, exposing low-level hardware functionality through an industry standard API to give developers more control and efficiency than ever before.”

dx12mobile

Microsoft said that 50 percent of all PC game rigs will be DirectX 12 compatible at launch. A preview of DirectX 12 will be shown later this year. Microsoft Windows XP and Windows Vista are not supported and even support for Windows 7 is still unclear as Microsoft said that they weren’t “discussing Windows 7 support today.”

dx12mobile

Talking about mobiles, Qualcomm was also there to give a presentation. According to company vice president of engineering Eric Demers, “DirectX 12 can be the missing link between console and mobile.”. “We’re excited to see Xbox and PC titles move into mobile,” said Demers.

Source: Nvidia