Microsoft: DX12 to deliver 20 percent performance boost

The examples are being shown that way because it is the easiest way to communicate what is going on with the improvements...everyone knows that currently in scenes with lots of moving objects in them that gpus get tasked and slow down when rendering them (generally), so by demonstrating such a scene that not only doesn't slow down but actually outperforms previous API performance substantially, they are effectively communicating what's going on under the hood without resort to getting to technical (where some people's eyes glaze and drool cascades down their chins...)

Main thing for me that's important about D3d12 is that it is going to really open up the expensive gpus and cpus we've been buying for years in a way that earlier APIs simply haven't done--it'll bring multi-core cpus/multi-gpus, and other things into the D3d API for the first time--'bout time, I'd say. Best thing: you won't need to buy $600+ gpus to get "Ultra" quality effects in D3d12-compliant games. This is ideally suited for discrete gpus, but I imagine that even the lowly consoles & the even more lowly Intel IGPs might benefit as well.

 

It will definitely improve integrated solutions from Intel, it wont help consoles though.

If anything, it will increase the performance gap between them and PC's even further, unless there is something horribly wrong with the low level DX11 that the X1 uses.
Doubt it though, as the performance is in line with the hardware.

 

Developers need an API that works, and D3D11 is unable to efficiently use the capabilities of the latest hardware.

D3D12 is not so much radically different - resource binding, pipeline state management and draw call processing is completely overhauled, but pipeline stages, shader model and texture formats remain the same (unlike the transition from D3D9 to D3D10, an earlier attempt of a "mild" API reboot where everything had to be revised from ground up).

It's just taking away unnecessary abstractions that get in the way of efficient CPU/GPU programming, and though needs a shift to a more straightforward and explicit resource management model, many game developers have already began to implement this model internally.


Here's an excellent summary written from both driver developer and game developer points of view: http://www.gamedev.net/topic/666419-what-are-your-opinions-on-dx12vulkanmantle/#entry5215019

 

what about the other 99% of games?

if I may speak for the 2/3rds of comments on this--it would be ... REAL nice if they could implement some type of directx12 wrapper for older applications that run 11, 10, 8, and lower. many of these timeless titles will likely never see a remake updating graphics engines etc. any time soon if ever. and even when they do half the time they are botched by HD remaster mania. it is nice to have the retro version 100% in tact sometimes. I've read that every new version of directx includes previous versions (even though to this day I am often forced to install directx 9.0c for some reason...)... but that's just running the old version. I have a dream that one day all applications can be treated equally and fully utilize the most recent version of directx...

 

Hope it does, i just bought a middle of the road laptop fir some lazy in bed gaming and iplayer, i3 core with HD 4400, runs games at 720p ok, but if DX12 gives me some free fps i will not look a gift horse in the mouth.

 

this should put pc gaming on par with consoles. amazing and sad that all it took was a little effort into a new api.

 

It can be interesting.
"Just spent last week with it. We got a 70% boost over DirectX 11 on the an FX 8350 running Ashes of the Singularity."
http://forums.offworldgame.com/462287

 

Thanks. I'll enjoy reading that!

 

tbh this all sounds like noise to me. Dx10 was supposedly this huge difference maker, it wasnt really, and dx11 as well (it wasnt really). If this turns out to be good and gets adopted quick, and performs well... then great. And when that happens, great, we'll be playing games, and all this will still be pre-release hype noise we won't be thinking about.

Also - MS needs to market its new windows 10 excluve API. Thats what all this is. Just saying, all this hype might be honest, but its only just marketing. True or not it matters not when it comes to PR

 

God, DirectX doesn't work like that.

For the 1000th time, DirectX isn't a magical thing that makes your PC faster or makes graphics instantly better.

In short, it's a collection of APIs. Developers need it and use it to make games look better. To see the difference between DX9 and DX11 you need to look at it's implementation through time. If games look much better now than six years ago, it's because DirectX 11 allows it, AND because OpenGL also allowed with newer revisions.

Now, DX12 is a little different because it "changes" how the APIs "communicate" with hardware. If this applies to games that use DX11 is not clear to me though. Maybe just 5% up to 10% better performance.

But think of DirectX like this (just an example):

DX9 game + SSAO = 60fps
DX11 game + HBAO+ = 60fps
DX11 game running DX12 + HBAO+ = 65fps
DX12 game + HBAO+ = 80fps
DX12 game + Super Hyper HBAO+ = 60fps

 

Yes! People with performance problems who are stuck at 30FPS or lower, will now get up to 36FPS (20%).

Amazing, isn't it :banana:

 

Still better than a kick in the sacks though?

It's not going to make crap hardware great, but it will make great hardware greater if devs do a good job.

 

That is latests Beta driver offered by AMD for my card and it is the latest Physx drivers from the nvidia website.

 

If 20% is all we can expect from DX12 then Vulkan is really gonna mop the floor with it.

 

http://www.gamedev.net/topic/666419-what-are-your-opinions-on-dx12vulkanmantle/#entry5215019

Anyone link this already? It's quite interesting.

 

Yeah DmitryKo (sp?) posted this the other day and it was really interesting.

 

Oh.. how did I not see that xD sorry.

 

The very news story this thread is devoted to and a couple of [thread=397482]other similar threads[/thread] contain an example where a 28 fps Asteroid demo with a 28% CPU usage was redone to work at 90 fps consuming 10% CPU.

Direct3D 10 was a complete overhaul of the API, which required the end user to buy a new OS and a new video card. Direct3D 11 introduced additional pipeline stages and a new shader model, and also required a new OS and a new video card to fully utilize the new features. And what's more important, they required a lot of effort on the part of game developers to learn a completely new API and rethink their approaches to game design and graphics programming - and the results of that are yielding only now.

OTOH, Direct3D 12 runs on 65% of existing Direct3D 11 hardware, or 50% of all current GPUs [post=5025289]according to Feb'15 Steam Survey[/post], the OS upgrade is free for all users running Windows 7/8/8.1, which is like 90% of current Windows OS usage, and existing Direct3D 11 games can use the same API constructs for shaders, textures and pipeline stages, though resource binding and pipeline state management need to be reworked.

Yeah, all of this is definitely pre-release noise and marketing hype. :nerd:

This is already done for Direct3D 8 and lower, which maps to Direct3D 9 since Windows Vista.

[post=4787091]As for wrapping Direct3D 9/11 on top of Direct3D 12[/post], that could bring performance benefits for existing D3D9/10/11 apps, but also introduce a lot of compatibility issues, because current DX9/DX11 drivers have to work around application bugs and that responsibility would shift to the wrapper, since DX12 (DDI12) driver is much more lightweight...

http://www.gamedev.net/topic/666419-what-are-your-opinions-on-dx12vulkanmantle/#entry5215019

They already do, DirectSetup does absolutely nothing on modern Windows versions because Direct3D9/11 is now a component of the OS.