Sign in with
Sign up | Sign in

Windows 10 Will Ship With DirectX 12

By - Source: MSDN Blog | B 37 comments

Unsurprisingly, Windows 10 will be shipping with DirectX 12.

In a blog post, Bryan Langley from Microsoft has written that the final version of the just-announced Windows 10 will come with DirectX 12. To be clear, the current technical preview that's available does not come with DirectX 12.

In the blog post, Langley points out that Microsoft has also been working with Epic to create a DirectX 12 branch in the Unreal Engine 4 GitHub repository. If you've been granted a pass to the DirectX 12 Early Access program, you can already kick off your development for the new API on Windows 10.

The screenshot provided above is of Epic's UE4.4 Landscape Mountains demo running on Intel Haswell graphics hardware. (Yes, we would have liked a higher-resolution image too.)

What makes DirectX 12 so interesting is that it allows developers to code much closer to the hardware, resulting in reduced overhead and therefore improved performance. This is similar to AMD's already-available Mantle API, which was designed from the ground up to deliver better performance than DirectX 11.

Of course, it's all jolly good that Windows 10 will support DirectX 12, but that doesn't really matter if the hardware support isn't there. Well, the good news is that back in March at GDC, both Nvidia and AMD confirmed that DirectX 12 will be supported on all of the current hardware, which for Nvidia are Fermi-, Kepler- and Maxwell-based GPUs and for AMD is its GCN hardware. Whether the two companies will live up to their promises remains to be seen, but we're going to remain hopeful.

Follow Niels Broekhuijsen @NBroekhuijsen. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

Discuss
Add a comment
Ask a Category Expert
React To This Article

Create a new thread in the News comments forum about this subject

Example: Notebook, Android, SSD hard drive

  • 2 Hide
    therogerwilco , October 3, 2014 8:55 AM
    YAY!!!!!!
  • 3 Hide
    Innocent_Bystander , October 3, 2014 9:26 AM
    You'd hope so.
    That aside, Windows 10 is shaping up to be something really good. I hope they pull it off.
  • 9 Hide
    MumblinBerk , October 3, 2014 10:58 AM
    Sounds great. Looks exciting. Closer access to the hardware layer would be great. But, will MS now deny Win7 users access to DX12, to force migration to 9? Oh, sorry, Win 10?
  • Add your comment Display all 37 comments.
  • 2 Hide
    red77star , October 3, 2014 11:26 AM
    What about Windows 7?
  • 6 Hide
    RCguitarist , October 3, 2014 11:28 AM
    You know they will not allow 7 to run DX12. Just like they did with not letting XP run DX10 or 11.
  • 1 Hide
    voreo , October 3, 2014 11:32 AM
    Heres to hoping the pricing rumors of 10 are true, then it wont matter, everyone should be able to move on a lot smoother , provided the final product is also a relief to businesses.

    I loved the transition to 8/8.1 but i would like to see all the flack ms received from 8 vanish
  • 2 Hide
    MumblinBerk , October 3, 2014 12:19 PM
    Quote:
    I loved the transition to 8/8.1 but i would like to see all the flack ms received from 8 vanish

    That is very, very unlikely.

    I'm hoping the whole event can be used to bring MS and it's CUSTOMERS closer.
    It is a learning opportunity. A direction change would be good for everyone.

    Distribution of DirectX 12 to existing Win7 users would be an EXCELLENT place to start,
    by engendering good will, and begin to re-establish trust with it's loyal customer base.

    Again... very, very unlikely.
  • 0 Hide
    IndignantSkeptic , October 3, 2014 12:23 PM
    WTF happened to Windows 9?
  • 8 Hide
    dstarr3 , October 3, 2014 12:34 PM
    Quote:
    WTF happened to Windows 9?


    Windows 7 ate 9.
  • 2 Hide
    The_Icon , October 3, 2014 12:52 PM
    I just hope for a free upgrade to Windows 10 from 8.1.
  • 0 Hide
    sparkyman215 , October 3, 2014 1:21 PM
    @The_Icon windows 10 will be a free upgrade for windows 8 users
  • 1 Hide
    hannibal , October 3, 2014 2:21 PM
    I would not be so sure about free update. If you buy win8.1 machine two months before the release of win10 you will get free update. That is what MS normally do.
  • -6 Hide
    anxiousinfusion , October 3, 2014 2:57 PM
    Quote:
    Sounds great. Looks exciting. Closer access to the hardware layer would be great. But, will MS now deny Win7 users access to DX12, to force migration to 9? Oh, sorry, Win 10?


    I feel that Windows 7 users are slowly but surely becoming the next generation of stubborn, entitled XP users who never move forward.
  • 4 Hide
    Brainaic , October 3, 2014 3:42 PM
    DirectX12.....great, I'm happy, but PC gamers are forever held back by the consoles, which most games are made for, and you won't see 4K or DX12 games on those crap-boxes
  • -1 Hide
    belardo , October 3, 2014 4:09 PM
    So...? Doesn't matter unless DX12 comes out for Windows 7... Otherwise, I'll simply stick with a PS4.
  • 2 Hide
    tomc100 , October 3, 2014 6:44 PM
    Windows 10 looks like a step in the right direction. I guess businesses refusing to upgrade to 8 forced them to bring back the desktop and start menu. Also, is there a reason other than monetary why dx 12 is exclusive to windows 10?!!!
  • 1 Hide
    dimar , October 3, 2014 7:21 PM
    By the time DX12 will be used in games, Win10 will be at the end of it's life. Let's hope I'm wrong.
  • -3 Hide
    Christopher1 , October 3, 2014 10:34 PM
    Quote:
    Windows 10 looks like a step in the right direction. I guess businesses refusing to upgrade to 8 forced them to bring back the desktop and start menu. Also, is there a reason other than monetary why dx 12 is exclusive to windows 10?!!!

    Businesses who were refusing to do that were stupid nitwits.
    The ONLY thing that Windows 8 had different than Windows 7 was that they went with a full-screen start menu, which was what they should have done YEARS ago.
    No more 'fumbling with folders' in order to find something, just punch in the first few letters of the applications name, if the app was not already pinned to Start... BOOM! Done.
  • -1 Hide
    mahdiameri28 , October 3, 2014 11:37 PM
    Hi thank you is very good Only Best
  • 2 Hide
    SteelCity1981 , October 4, 2014 4:19 AM
    I think it will be exclusive to Windows 10 as their pain selling point for gamers to switch from windows 8/7. Windows 8 is like the new Vista in rep and Windows 7 is like the new XP in rep. MS's main competitor to Windows 10 will be their own Windows 7. I mean business just upgraded within the past year to Windows 7 to xp, so you know they aren't going to upgrade to Windows 10 anytime soon and the vast majority of offices won't even use DirectX in their line of work so upgrading for that purpose alone won't mean anything to them.
Display more comments
React To This Article