The new Direct3D API together with the new unity mantra will be a boon for all of Microsoft's platforms

Oct 3, 2014 15:19 GMT  ·  By

Microsoft has confirmed that DirectX 12 will be released with the final version of the upcoming Windows 10, but for the time being, the corporation has not offered any details regarding support for previous versions of the operating system.

Microsoft is looking to move people away from Windows 7, attempting to push Windows 10 to as wide a user base as possible, making it unlikely that the company will implement backwards support for DirectX. However, taking into account the fact that a new Direct3D API takes some time to permeate the market, you're bound to have plenty of time to prepare for migrating to another OS.

Looking at the company's past evolution, we see that DirectX 11, which was launched with Windows 7, was also released for Vista after a short while, but with DirectX 11.1, the company only released partial support, after Windows 8 went live.

This could mean that the company is attempting to coerce users into adopting Windows 10 when it comes out, in order to adhere to the new unity mantra, looking to offer more cohesion to the entire Windows / Xbox ecosystem experience.

Windows 10 apps might work on Xbox One

The company hinted at the fact that the Xbox One would be undergoing some changes, more specifically its software environment and Xbox Live, in order to offer a similar experience across the board, congruent to the one desktop or handheld users are accustomed to.

While Microsoft did not flat out state this, it's highly likely that the Redmond-based company is looking to unify its gaming and home user experience in a more streamlined package, especially considering the resources it's investing into developing cloud computing services.

The company is also working on a solution to bring streaming gameplay to a wide variety of devices, essentially enabling Xbox One games to be played via online streaming on any device supporting Windows.

DirectX 12 will be a boon for Xbox and Windows

Microsoft also announced that developers would be able to see a preview branch of Unreal Engine 4.4, with working DirectX 12 integration, through the DirectX Early Access Program. For the time being, details regarding the initiative are being kept under wraps, so we don't know whether the fabled API will bring the performance revolution that many hope it will.

Many developers have stated that the improved API offers programmers more direct control over hardware resources, instead of having the application programming interface always looking over their shoulders and keeping tabs on everything, like with DirectX 11.

This will translate into improved performance all across the board, which will push visual quality even further, with some pointing to the jump in complexity that DirectX 11 allowed at the time of its release as a basis for comparison.

The most powerful aspect of the DirectX 12 API is the orientation toward multi-threaded efficiency. In the past, one single core used to do a lot of the work, while all the others had much lower loads, effectively introducing a bottleneck, the single-thread capacity of the CPU.

With the way things are done in the upcoming API, CPU overhead will be greatly reduced, and scalability across multiple cores will translate into things being done faster. However, some developers warn that this might not produce a dramatic performance boost, but will simply mean that more things will be done at the same time, which might not necessarily mean that we'll get greatly increased visual fidelity, but more assets on the screen at the same time.

Cross-platform deployment

However things may be, the balancing act between CPU and GPU load that DirectX 12 is capable of doing has been showcased repeatedly in technical demos, also showing a drastic decrease in power consumption, which translates into less heating.

This neat feature will have a great impact in the mobile world, because dialing back CPU usage essentially means that your battery won't run out of juice as quickly. And taking into account the fact that Nvidia's Tegra K1 GPU posted some beastly benchmark results, we're most likely going to see bigger and better mobile games showing up.

DirectX 12 will also blur the boundaries between the PC and Xbox One platforms, which were already cousins of sorts, both using DirectX 11. The upcoming API will enable developers to port things over from the Xbox One to the PC more easily, but the real boon here is the ability to port PC games to the Xbox One with greatly enhanced ease, opening the platform to even more developers through Microsoft's ID@Xbox program, which is getting increasingly friendly.