For Now, DirectX 11.1 Will Only Be for Windows 8
For now, DirectX 11.1 will be a Windows 8 exclusive.
Microsoft's Daniel Moth revealed a few months back that DirectX 11.1 will be a Windows 8 exclusive – at least initially. The revelation arrived by way of the Microsoft Answers forum in response to questions about using the WARP accelerator and understanding the software stack C++ AMP is built upon.
"With DirectX 11.1, WARP was enhanced with (among other things) support for DirectCompute and hence it is one of the accelerators for C++ AMP. DirectX 11.1 is part of Windows 8, just like DirectX 11 was part of Windows 7," Moth answered.
Originally DirectX 11 was eventually made available on Windows Vista too, but for now Microsoft has no plans of doing the same and bringing DirectX 11.1 to Windows 7. "Should the plan change and either DirectX 11.1 as a whole, or WARP on its own, was made available on Windows 7, then you would have this available to target from C++ AMP," he added.
According to the post, WARP is a high speed, fully conformant software rasterizer. It's a component of the DirectX graphics technology that was introduced by the Direct3D 11 runtime. Moth describes it as a component of Windows 8 that can be shipped on other platforms, but currently there are no plans to do so.
One of Microsoft's big push with Windows 8 is in the platform's gaming capabilities. The Games app brings to the user front and center seemingly everything Xbox Live gamers have enjoyed for years. Games can be purchased for either platform, and achievements can be shared with friends and family spanning simple games like Solitaire to Call of Duty: Black Ops 2.
Making DirectX 11.1 exclusive to Windows 8 seemingly pushes PC game developers into embracing the updated platform if they want to utilize those features. Various developers have expressed their distaste for the built-in storefront, but now that we're weeks into the platform's release, there really doesn't appear to be anything to stress over. Gamers can still purchase their games from Steam, GameFly, GameStop and more as if they've never left the Windows 7 desktop.
To show what Windows 8 can do, we can only dream that Microsoft would green light a version of Halo 4 that takes advantage of DirectX 11.1 and the new Metro UI design.
Give me a break win 7 is far from obsolete this is simply MS trying to shove people into updating to windows 8. Which won't work anyways, and they'll soon get enough backlash to make work for windows 7 also.
And if they're gonna be like this I have no problems getting a windows 8 for free. Of course I don't see dx 11.1 becoming mainstream for awhile anyways, so Ill stick with a perfectly good windows and laugh at all the idiots like yourself.
If anything, it will have the opposite effect.
Give me a break win 7 is far from obsolete this is simply MS trying to shove people into updating to windows 8. Which won't work anyways, and they'll soon get enough backlash to make work for windows 7 also.
And if they're gonna be like this I have no problems getting a windows 8 for free. Of course I don't see dx 11.1 becoming mainstream for awhile anyways, so Ill stick with a perfectly good windows and laugh at all the idiots like yourself.
@Bryon, Windows 7 is far from irrelevant. Windows 8 is widely viewed as a sidestep and not an upgrade in any way except for their tablets and phone (what Windows 8 is obviously designed for anyway). Not to mention, most businesses will continue to run Windows 7, Vista, and even XP for several years to come as most will not touch an OS until at least SP1 comes out . When an OS does what it is designed to do and works well for the user's need (something MS lost an understanding in), then they are not apt to upgrade nor should they feel they have to for that reason alone.
DX9.0? Why not DX9.0C which is better and still fully supported even by XP?
i have an Intel i5 2500k oced to 4ghz, ati 5870 oc, 8gb ram ddr3 1866mhz, samsung 830 128gb..
and i was really happy with my windows 7..
then i installed windows 8 and i have to admit, apart from metro likeness or not, that they are way faster. What do i mean? i didn't expect to see a difference in performance on the OS by jumping to windows 8 and when i prepared everything i must say! you can see a huge difference in speed, on loading programs games and switching to desktop/metro etc.
At least the memory management is way way better, couldn't believe it was possible for example,
when you right click "my computer" and select "manage" ..how long does it take to load the management console?
At windows 7 it takes some noticeable time (compared to other tasks) however at windows 8 its almost instant!
I had some strange freezes on various games (more like lagspike feels ) and i knew it was from overclocking (some games don't like OC ). At windows 8 it is almost unnoticeable.
Now DX11.1 , is most welcome, not because it will make people upgrade blablabla but because of the
"With DirectX 11.1, WARP was enhanced with (among other things) support for DirectCompute and hence it is one of the accelerators for C++ AMP"
Meaning , smaller PCs with just onboard intel or amd apu will perform way way better than on windows 7! for example netbooks and now that i think about it, it's time to test win8 on our netbook ^^
As much as I like Windows 8, your experience seems more founded in that your Windows 8 installation is a fresh installation and your Windows 7 installation is not. Well ,that's what it seems like to me based on the difference on performance supposedly being huge. They should be very close.
I was on a fresh Win 7 and now I am on a fresh Win 8. I can mirror his statements. While raw FPS didn't change much other things such as the general responsiveness of Windows and the speed at which things launch is far better it also stays more solid and fluid with a lot of crap opened. Sure I had to push it to the extreme in Win 7 to get it to bog down a bit but I run a setup with 4 monitors and do a lot of work and crap from my PC. Having a shit ton of programs and games open at any given time is the norm for me. As for the stability I personally no longer overclock so I cannot comment.
I mean, everytime microsoft does something new, it seems it is a bad thing...