14 DAY TRIAL // In addition to the traditional desktop, which is going to receive a plethora of updates in Windows 10, the gaming side of the operating system will also be significantly revamped and we're going to find out everything about this next month.
As we already reported to you a couple of days ago, Microsoft will host a Windows 10 conference focused on the consumer experience with the new OS on January 21 in Redmond, and it appears that there are more things on the agenda than we initially thought.
Phil Spencer, the head of Microsoft's Xbox division, said in a tweet last night that "I'll be focusing more on what we are doing on Win10 in January, it's time for us to talk about gaming on Windows,” suggesting that very exciting news are awaiting for gamers next month.
The focus will be on DirectX 12
It's easy to anticipate that the main PC gaming topic will be DirectX 12, which is scheduled to be unveiled together with Windows 10 in early fall 2015.
We've checked with our sources and we’ve heard that, while DirectX 12 will indeed be the main subject of the gaming keynote, there's also “a little bit something else” that's going to be unveiled during the conference.
At this point, it's a bit too early to speculate on this, but hopefully we'll find out more details in the upcoming weeks and share them with you.
DirectX 12 is going to bring a massive improvement in terms of performance and Intel had already presented the new version in action earlier this year.
Intel used the Surface Pro 3 equipped with an Intel Core i5 processor to highlight the difference between DirectX 11 and DirectX 12 when trying to render a demo of an asteroid field with the help of the HD 4400 graphics card.
The difference pretty much speaks for itself: with DirectX 11, the demo was running at 19 FPS, while DirectX 12 increased it to 33 FPS, leading to a 70 percent increase in performance using exactly the same hardware configuration.
More consumer news prepared
The January 21 event will be all about consumers, and in addition to gaming news, Microsoft is also very likely to unveil the very first Consumer Preview build of Windows 10.
While it's not yet clear if this build could also be released for download shortly after the event, Microsoft wants to show consumers that Windows 10 is also improving both the desktop and the Modern UI, so expect news focused on touch enhancements to be disclosed as well.
What's more, a preview build of Windows Phone 10 could also be unveiled, finally providing Preview for Developers members to catch a glimpse of the new platform.
All these projects are expected to reach the final stage of development by early fall 2015, when the Windows 10 rollout is scheduled to begin on all platforms.
@RpLayy I'll be focusing more on what we are doing on Win10 in January, it's time for us to talk about gaming on Windows.
— Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) December 12, 2014
