A Microsoft blog posting confirms: "The final version of Windows 10 will ship with DirectX 12". To me, this seems like a fairly obvious statement. The loose dates provided for both the OS and the availability of retail games suggest that the two would be launching at roughly the same time. The article also claims that DirectX 12 "Early Access" members will be able to develop with the Windows 10 Technical Preview. Apart from Unreal Engine 4 (for Epic Games subscribers), Intel will also provide source access to their Asteroids demo, shown at Siggraph 2014, to all accepted early access developers.
Our readers might find this information slightly disappointing as it could be interpreted that DirectX 12 would not be coming to Windows 7 (or even 8.x). While it does not look as hopeful as before, they never, at any point, explicitly say that it will not come to older operating systems. It still might.
Not that they haven’t pulled
Not that they haven’t pulled that shit before, but I get the sense that new management wants to be different and be perceived as being different, in a good way.
It makes sense from a forced
It makes sense from a forced adoption way to limit DX12 to Windows 10. For those who just have to have it and the features it brings, they’ll have only one option.
Lets hope it makes it to Windows 7 & 8 after a small period of exclusivity.
You can hope all you want but
You can hope all you want but facts are clear. Windows 7 will no longer receive mainstream support when DX12/Win10 come out. So there is no reason why should Microsoft bring new DX to old OSs as they never done it before in the past!
They will use DX12 as brand new feature of new OS to make sure its wide acceptance.
It would be more than naïve to think otherwise!
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/lifecycle
Yup.
Yup.
Yep. Haxorz support.
I’m
Yep. Haxorz support.
I’m wondering which will take more and be worth it: hacking out MS BS or hacking in DX12 somewhere else.
TBD
There was (and is) a large
There was (and is) a large pressure from game developers to do so, though. One advantage of reduced draw call overhead is that, if significant enough, it can change the content creation pipeline by diminishing the time spent "being clever" to fit artistic vision X in render time Y with hardware Z. They can only do that if their potential market is big enough to justify ignoring the legacy paths.
But that all depends on whether DirectX 12 (and OpenGL Next, Mantle, etc.) are good enough. Would definitely like to ask some game developers about this whenever they're allowed to talk.
The main thing to keep in
The main thing to keep in mind is how old Windows 7 will be by the time 10 comes out. It will be a 6 year old OS that Microsoft will be trying to get everyone to upgrade from, so it wouldn’t make sense to add new features to something they most likely want everyone to move off of.
Looking up History that is basically the same gap as Windows 95 and XP. Also it’s a larger gap than between XP and Vista. 95 got DX8 but it didn’t get the 8.1 version that XP shipped with. Same story for XP and not receiving DX10 which shipped with Vista.
good point. I was having an
good point. I was having an argument about this with a friend a few years ago. him:”Fucking asseholes not releasing DirectX 11 for XP!” me:”You do realize that you are using a 8 year old system that can’t even handle halo pc, right? AAAAAAND your version of xp is an illegal copy, RIGHT?”
You really think 6 years is
You really think 6 years is old, with more people still using XP, than 8, and M$ just adding a crappy TIFKAM UI to the NT kernel and calling it new! 7 is a fine OS, and is without any of that crappy snoopware UI that is TIFKAM, and its crAPP store useless apps. WIN 7 is the new XP, and 10 still has all that TIFKAM/TILE runtime/APIs/and now more BING snooping. GTFO, 10 is still not worth any real under the hood improvements, until that TIFKAM/tiles, and now BING crap is completely removed from the OS build. Let the kiddies download that stuff, as an optional install, but do not integrate that crap into the OS, meant for the productivity/professional users. Just remember 7, is good until 2020, and even after, if enough enterprises say so, M$ is still offering paid support for XP, and making money doing so, 7 is the OS of the enterprise, and will continue to be, even after 2020, M$ will not dare piss the enterprise customers off, that TIFKAM baggage need to go, and not be swept under the UI rug, its API/Services/assemblies need to be stripped out. You want it you download that crap and install it yourself, but do not expect the enterprise/professional customers to take any of that TIFKAM/App store/BING snooping crap, or WIN 7 will be around longer than XP.
The Gaming companies will target the API/APIs that have enough market share to make it worthwhile for them to make a profit, the DX version on 7, will get supported, as will the Steam OS graphics APIs, Mantle, and Khronos’ APIs. DX 12 is not even RTM, but until then, expect 7’s graphics API to receive the most DX targeting, and this is good news for AMD and MANTLE, and good news for STEAM OS.
If M$ wants to continue to keep the TIFKAM/TILE/BING anchor around win 10’s neck expect the same results as 8, its a long way down to the bottom and that anchor just speeds the descent! Keep it up M$, and they will wait for 11, and beyond! 7 is not going away until its costs are fully amortized by the businesses that use it, and the ones that have just now switched to 7, from XP, their amortization clock on 7 has just started.
Almost everything you said is
Almost everything you said is true, however while the majority of games will be aimed at the biggest market, the flagship games will always push the newest and best technology to stand out in the market as “the best ever.”
There was a long time don’t forget that most games gave you the option of which directX ver to use, 9 to just play and enjoy the story/action or 11 to make it look and feel as good as possible. I have no idea if that will be a option with the updated api but who knows.
Also, yes, microsoft wants to make as much money as possible. Why does that piss people off so much? Like it or not (and don’t get me wrong, I like it not) that’s the way capitalism works.
One more thing, you do know that you have the option to use a different search engine other than Bing, even if you have the “Windows 8.1 with Bing” OEM version, right? Just like you can decide to use bing as the default search in chrome if ya want to. Microsoft didn’t create “Windows 8.1 with Bing” because they care what search you use, they wanted a way to give free licenses to cheap devices without losing face.
Everything else I couldn’t agree more.
And the game development
And the game development companies will look at each API with the most/sufficient market share, installed base of the most used Direct X API, and other APIs, and target those APIs, and any other new APIs with enough installed base. So 7’s, version of the Direct X API, Mantle, and Steam OS’s graphics APIs! AMD now is the time for you to give Mantle even more attention, especially on 7, and those platforms that will have the Mantle API, to counter M$’s carrot and stick approach to gaming. Steam OS should be around, and Khronos is also reworking OpenGL, and its other APIs. At least AMD’s customers will not have to change their OS, and can game on windows until 2020, or dual boot with Steam OS and try things out, you know the game companies, and independent small game producers will be wanting a way around that 30% off of the top, so expect more support for a true industry standard gaming OS/gaming APIs.
For fun I installed Windows
For fun I installed Windows 10 Preview on my ol’ reliable test laptop:
Asus J51
Pentium T4400 (2.2GHz dual core)
Nvidia GT 320M (1GB)
8GB (2x4GB) RAM
320GB 5400 RPM HDD
At first the new Windows logo appeared for 3 minutes without moving or indicating that anything was happening, then it started into the normal installation stuff (time zone, etc.) and took about 15 minutes total. Two-step verification to log into Microsoft account (5 minutes). Basically identical setup to Windows 8/8.1.
So far, so good. Having a native start menu and familiar Windows options back is quite excellent. Unfortunately, Windows doesn’t see my GPU and the latest driver (340.52) can’t find the GPU either so I can’t select any resolution other than 1024×768 or play games. 🙁
EDIT: After messing around loading other applications and such, it rebooted about 3 times and now the GPU is recognized and drivers loaded. XD
Well windows 10 looks pretty
Well windows 10 looks pretty good. The only actual problem with windows 8/8.1 is the interface, under the hood it is a big improvement over 7. So if 10 is clean/bug free than alot of us are probably gonna upgrade anyways. I just hope there is a cheap upgrade from 7 option.
right, there should be
right, there should be upgrade path for win7 as win8 was screwed up but I doubt it .
As for Dx12 making big difference, I don’t think so in large scale of things , meaning most games .It will be long time (many yrs) before OS supporting Dx12 will be over 50-60% which you would need at least to make worth the jump .
As far as dev goes there are many was to get around the draw calls , you can instance many objects, its only when you have a very large visual distance and you want many , many unique objects 9no poly/texture sharing) that it comes up a lot .
Like a Flightsim it would be a case , something with vast space .
What about 11.3 being given support for win7 .
Remember when 7 came out and
Remember when 7 came out and people were still making their installs look like the 98 start menu…yea those people…. LOL
I don’t like not having
I don’t like not having access to DX12, but I also don’t like companies supporting inferior, older OSs. I want access to DX12, but I’m currently using Windows 7 simply because I’m too cheap to pay for a legal upgrade.
It’s good to know that
It’s good to know that DirectX 12 will ship with Windows 10. Hopefully it will be made available for Windows 7/8/8.1 as well.