14 DAY TRIAL // Over the past four months, Advanced Micro Devices has been going on and on about its Mantle API, and so have a steadily increasing number of game makers, but NVIDIA never gave any sign that it was preparing something to counter it. Now we know why: DirectX 12.
Microsoft formally launched the DirectX 12 API less than a day ago, confirming that it would be supported not only by PCs, but also by game consoles and all other Microsoft platforms, even Windows Phone.
From what we gathered, the API will bring many of the benefits that the Mantle API enables on AMD's graphics core next GPUs.
That means smoother gameplay thanks to a better task distribution and communication between the CPU and GPU, as well as sharper graphics.
Not sure how the two APIs will compare though. We suppose that comparative benchmarks will crop up in a matter of days, however.
Anyway, with DirectX 12 out, we can only assume that this is why NVIDIA did not bother coming up with an API of its own.
The Santa Clara, California-based GPU maker has said that the Kepler and Maxwell graphics processing units support it.
It also said that the Fermi-based GPUs, launched back in 2010, support DirectX 12 as well (GeForce GTX 400 and newer). Basically, all of the company's DirectX 11 GPUs support DirectX 12 also.
It's important to note that DirectX 12 was developed from scratch, in order to enable advanced GPU hardware features, as pretty much all developers demanded. Pulling out all the potential from multi-core systems was another must.
For its part, NVIDIA worked closely with Microsoft over the past year, and was able to power a tech demo of the Xbox One racing game Forza at the Game Developers Conference. The GeForce GTX Titan Black graphics card provided the visual computing prowess.
It is believed (and hoped) that the inclusion of the console market will help the adoption rate of DirectX 12. Previously, the new API alone could not really force a faster move from a generation of video cards to another.
Right now, 70% of all games (contemporary ones anyhow) have support for DirectX 11. NVIDIA believes that DirectX 12 will take over the industry even more quickly than its predecessor, maybe exceed that percentage in a year or two if we understood its expectations right. Especially since inefficiencies in leveraging the hardware resources will be harder to come by now.