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It's been over 18 months since we first visited the topic of DirectX 12 and what features and benefits it would bring to modern gaming. Much has happened since. Windows 10's launch and the debut of Ashes of the Singularity brought the starting time hints of DirectX 12 gaming performance, as did Legend Legends, which debuted some weeks after. We've also covered the work being done on Vulkan, the open-source, Linux-friendly DX12 competitor (at present not expected to debut until 2016), how that software might impact the time to come of Valve and the company's push for its own SteamOS, and the debut of DirectX 12 on the Xbox One equally well.

From debates over the importance of asynchronous computing to confusion over exactly which characteristic sets are and aren't supporting on current hardware, DirectX 12 was 1 of the about important stories we covered in 2015. This story volition first you off on a word of its capabilities and advantages compared with DirectX eleven, and if you want more nuance, experience gratis to consult the links above.

Enter DX12

Microsoft and Nvidia first took the hat of DirectX 12 at GDC 2014. The new API promised to deliver the same low-overhead benefits of AMD's custom Curtain UI, along with vastly improved operation and superior hardware utilization compared with DirectX 11. Even better, DirectX 12 (and D3D 12) are backwards compatible with almost every single GPU from the GTX 400 to the present mean solar day. At nowadays, only Nvidia's Kepler and Maxwell cards are DX12 compatible, just the company has promised that Fermi compatibility is coming in a hereafter update.

Microsoft has published a blog mail service and accompanying API samples that illustrate how much more powerful the software is, while acknowledging some of the flaws in the DirectX xi API. I of the central problems with DX11 is that information technology'south virtually impossible to multi-thread the 3D rendering path. Game rendering ends up running well-nigh entirely on a unmarried CPU thread, bogging down the rest of the arrangement. DirectX 11 also makes certain assumptions about the underlying hardware that have proven to map poorly to GPUs from both AMD and Nvidia.

Here'southward a threading comparing between DX11 (top) and DX12 (bottom):

DX11 - DX12 CPU comparison

See how, in DX11, the entire workload is hanging on a single thread with extremely low utilization on the other threads? That's a problem — with the kernel-mode driver running on the same thread as the game and the D3D layer, there's only not much for the other threads to practice. The second graph shows how, by splitting the workload more evenly, the game tin can hit much lower latencies. Ameliorate latencies translates straight into higher frame rates.

3DMark - DX11

3DMark – DX11

3DMark DX12

3DMark – DX12

This pair of screenshots from 3DMark 2012 farther illustrate the departure. Total CPU fourth dimension is dramatically reduced in DX12 past efficiently reallocating data across all cores.

Os and GPU back up

DirectX 12 is currently supported on all Nvidia GPUs based on Kepler and Maxwell. That's the vast majority of the 6xx series and all of the 7xx and 8xx graphics cards. Fermi support is coming soon, which volition extend support all the way back to the 400 and 500-serial as well.

AMD supports DirectX 12 on all GCN-class hardware dating dorsum to the launch of that family unit in 2012. All AMD GPUs from the HD 77xx family (or above), the Hd 85xx family (or higher up), and the Radeon R5 family (or above) all support DirectX 12. This includes the various iterations of GCN, from 1.0 – 1.2.

One affair to understand is that while DirectX 12 is a common API, that API has different optional features, divers as feature levels. AMD's first-generation GCN products back up DirectX 12 at the 11_1 feature level , as do Nvidia's Fermi and Kepler cards. Cards based on Hawaii, Tonga, and Republic of the fiji islands back up the 12_0 feature level. More than data on this, and a comprehensive comparison between AMD, Nvidia, and Intel, can be found hither.

Windows 10 is the only operating arrangement that supports DirectX 12, which means if you want in on these features y'all'll need to have advantage of Microsoft'southward free upgrade (or buy a new PC with W10 preloaded).

How'southward operation?

In that location are several facets to DirectX 12 performance, and the benchmarks themselves are very early. As our Ashes and Fable Legends previews demonstrated, AMD gains some ground on its rival in DirectX 12. The gap isn't enormous, and information technology varies depending on which cards you compare. The GTX 980 Ti still wins Fable Legends overall, though the Fury X closes that gap in Ashes of the Singularity. Overall, it's too early on to draw conclusions.

If you lot're trying to suss out what GPU to buy, my answer is this: With both AMD and Nvidia set to introduce cards based on fourteen/16nm technology within the next half-dozen-9 months, it's probably best to wait and see what each visitor brings to the tabular array. If y'all accept to buy a GPU today, you tin can await skillful DX12 performance from either vendor. The relative difference between the 2 hasn't yet been shown to be large enough to justify fans of 1 company or the other jumping ship. If the early trends concur, DX12 is a bit improve for current AMD cards than it is for Nvidia, but I'k not ready to commit to that as fact.

Based on what we've seen then far, DirectX 12 won't automatically evangelize college frame rates as if past magic. Its value is in the style it loosens the stranglehold on multi-threaded CPUs, giving developers the option to use rendering techniques that have advantage of this new power. We've as well seen the selection to run GPUs from two dissimilar vendors in the same PC, and there's reason to remember DX12 could indirectly ameliorate AI calculations as well.

Bank check out our ExtremeTech Explains series for more in-depth coverage of today's hottest tech topics.