Microsoft Announces DX12 Support for Windows 7

This doesn't make senses. Isn't DX12 1 of the tools to get you to migrate to 10? I'm for it but I don't get the benefit its only good till 2020. What am i missing?
Isn't that the whole thing? Since W7 is about to go EoL MS doesn't loose any migration.

... They finally had to accept that most developers are continuing to ignore DX12 in favor of DX11, since 7 has too big a userbase to ignore financially. ...
Isn't it also easier (and thus cheaper) to program DX11?
I got the impression that DX12 "allows" (requires) the programmer to make hardware specific optimizations to get even better performance.
 
Microsoft are VERY CLEARLY scared of losing control of PC gaming.

That's all this is about.

I'm praying Zen2 has Win7 support, that would be a day one sale from me right here, no question.
 
for any one thinking MS did this for there own good NOPE some one paid for this and they PAID A LOT looks like it was Blizzard/Actiavison that get the check book out for what ever reason

Win7 is EoL now there was never a plan to do this
 
The catch is it is a Blizzard specific library that will only work for WoW, it’s not like MS has made everything available MS just didn’t stop them when Blizzard figures out how to make it work. And now with this they won’t have to support multiple graphics pipelines just DX12, probably saves Blizzard an ass ton of money.

in the long run any way likely they paid MS a shit ton to do this Bliz knows Win7 is still big in developing markets read Asia
 
I always said if Vulkan can support multiple OSes, no reason why DX12 couldn't run on Win7. I think Microsoft tried to say it was because of the new WDDM version in Win10 and other stuff, but clearly that wasn't the final word on the issue. Will be interesting to see how DX12 fares on Win7 vs Win10, as others have said. Won't matter much if games continue to generally run better in DX11 vs DX12. Microsoft's own IPs have been sticking with DX12 and doing well with it though, like Gears of War 4 and Forza games. AotS first paved the way for good DX12 usage. Vulkan really made an impression on me though, with games like Doom 4, and I can't wait to see idTech 7 and Doom Eternal. It doesn't seem like Microsoft plans to roll out DX12 to the Win7 OS as a whole, only certain games will get support for DX12 on Win7. So Vulkan might remain the low-level API choice for broad system support. I dunno, I guess we'll see how things turn out. I'd be surprised though if Microsoft was gonna put significant work into an OS that will be EoL soon.
 
I would have thought that if Microsoft were to drastically increase graphics performance, and reduce latency in Windows 10, they would not be in the position of having to spend their resources on shit like this, as well as the fact that even more people would be more willing to upgrade to newer Windows versions.

Back in the day, many sites would run benchmarks between the latest Windows, and the previous version. Usually graphics performance dropped around 5% in the newer version, so there is a lot of lost performance in Windows 10...

And yes, everyone and their dog knew Microsoft was lying when they said it would be impossible to update the DX version in old versions of Windows...
 
Hmmm, I wonder whether the Venn diagram of diehard gamers who have to play the latest titles and Windows 7 users (on modern hardware) really overlaps that much.

Obviously there is a big enough big chunk of WoW users to make a case for this, but that isn't exactly a new game...
 
Hmmm, I wonder whether the Venn diagram of diehard gamers who have to play the latest titles and Windows 7 users (on modern hardware) really overlaps that much.

Obviously there is a big enough big chunk of WoW users to make a case for this, but that isn't exactly a new game...
It really makes me wonder what the hell does WoW need DX12 for that can't be done with DX11.
 
My (albeit limited) experience has been that DX12 tends to be slower than DX11 on high end fast desktop CPU's, but conversely can speed things up on anemic low clocked mobile designs.
Because it's not going away. Not sure why people think MS's arbitrary EOL to extended updates means anything.

Anyone who continues to use any OS after it no longer receives security patches connected to a network is a complete fool. No amount of caution, firewalls or other tools will ever be enough once there are open security exploits that will never be patched.

All software and ESPECIALLY operating systems require active maintenance to remain secure. Once that actually I've maintenance is gone they need to be dropped like a hot potato. This isn't the 80's. Static untouched software doesn't work anymore.

When people fail to patch their shit, everyone on the internet suffers as we get more.botnets and the garbage that comes along with it.
 
I agree with most that this is a bit too late. It's been nearly 5 years since DX12 debuted and the adoption rate has been slow to say the least. Whether it was the limited resources of budget, skill, engines, lthe dev's have had mixed results with it to put it nicely. Due to the many issues of 10 many have held off on using it and 7 still holds something like 30+ percent of the market. So that's roughly a 1/3 of the population that they're marketing this too.

Since the days of 9.0c(and maybe before) MS has always had a API path where you had to upgrade to the newest OS to get the latest DX features. As a gamer it's been the main motivation for me to upgrade at each turn. Up until 10 it worked o.k., but coincidentally the jump to DX10 with Vista had problems of it's own. DX11 was a huge hit but like most it took ~2 years to get rolling and spanned thru 7/8/8.1 but remember it debuted in 2010. DX12 debuted in 2014 and 5 years later it's still kind of crawling along. This could change that. Just an odd coincidence, anyone notice how the odd numbered DX versions seem to be the most popular?

I continue to feel sorry for the PC game reviewer sites. DX11 vs DX12 vs Vulkan, RTX on/off, DLSS on/off, 1080p/1440p/2160p, cpu core/thread counts and how a particular game may use them, and now throw in Win7 vs Win10 with dx11/dx12, 2019 is shaping up to being an overly complicated mess to review games.
 
Anyone who continues to use any OS after it no longer receives security patches connected to a network is a complete fool. No amount of caution, firewalls or other tools will ever be enough once there are open security exploits that will never be patched.

All software and ESPECIALLY operating systems require active maintenance to remain secure. Once that actually I've maintenance is gone they need to be dropped like a hot potato. This isn't the 80's. Static untouched software doesn't work anymore.

When people fail to patch their shit, everyone on the internet suffers as we get more.botnets and the garbage that comes along with it.

By that logic, anyone who continues to use unpatchable hardware is a fool. Throw out every CPU you own with speculative execution now!
 
I'm just floored. This makes no sense for Microsoft to do this. But I'll take it! Someone at Microsoft is still cool.
 
There seems to be some confusion about this. I read it to mean Blizzard has a D3D12 client library they can ship with thier games as Microsoft does not appears to be doing a general release of DX12 support for Windows 7.

I understand why Blizzard would want it. Now they can pick one API to support and that helps in many areas of developement.

Apparently, only the big dev houses are getting this, from what I have read. The smaller dev houses are not getting it.

That's my take on it.
 
This is literally the only reason I upgraded in the first place.....

Fuck you microsoft

There have been a lot of these types of comments since Windows 10 came out, continuing till today. The question I have for those who make them is: Why?

DirectX 12 is a dud and non-event with there being very few games that use it, with a large number of games that do use it actually running worse in DX12 mode than in DX11 mode, and with Windows 7 having received Vulkan support, with Vulkan doing the same thing as DX12 but being more attractive to developers because it's open source.

It's been a very long time that it's been apparent that DX12 is a non-event. So why does anyone base their choice of OS on DX12?
 
There seems to be some confusion about this. I read it to mean Blizzard has a D3D12 client library they can ship with thier games as Microsoft does not appears to be doing a general release of DX12 support for Windows 7.

I understand why Blizzard would want it. Now they can pick one API to support and that helps in many areas of developement.

Apparently, only the big dev houses are getting this, from what I have read. The smaller dev houses are not getting it.

That's my take on it.

I wonder if it's possible to use the DX12 files from a Windows 7 DX12 game like WoW to implement DX12 for Windows 7 into other games.
 
There seems to be some confusion about this. I read it to mean Blizzard has a D3D12 client library they can ship with thier games as Microsoft does not appears to be doing a general release of DX12 support for Windows 7.

I understand why Blizzard would want it. Now they can pick one API to support and that helps in many areas of developement.

Apparently, only the big dev houses are getting this, from what I have read. The smaller dev houses are not getting it.

That's my take on it.

correct its again mostly do to China and other 2nd world countries are still mostly windows 7
 
I agree with most that this is a bit too late. It's been nearly 5 years since DX12 debuted and the adoption rate has been slow to say the least. Whether it was the limited resources of budget, skill, engines, lthe dev's have had mixed results with it to put it nicely. Due to the many issues of 10 many have held off on using it and 7 still holds something like 30+ percent of the market. So that's roughly a 1/3 of the population that they're marketing this too.

Since the days of 9.0c(and maybe before) MS has always had a API path where you had to upgrade to the newest OS to get the latest DX features. As a gamer it's been the main motivation for me to upgrade at each turn. Up until 10 it worked o.k., but coincidentally the jump to DX10 with Vista had problems of it's own. DX11 was a huge hit but like most it took ~2 years to get rolling and spanned thru 7/8/8.1 but remember it debuted in 2010. DX12 debuted in 2014 and 5 years later it's still kind of crawling along. This could change that. Just an odd coincidence, anyone notice how the odd numbered DX versions seem to be the most popular?

I continue to feel sorry for the PC game reviewer sites. DX11 vs DX12 vs Vulkan, RTX on/off, DLSS on/off, 1080p/1440p/2160p, cpu core/thread counts and how a particular game may use them, and now throw in Win7 vs Win10 with dx11/dx12, 2019 is shaping up to being an overly complicated mess to review games.


Most of my OS upgrades were due to DX updates or for hardware support, or both. W95 to W95 OSR2 for USB 2.0 support, W95 to W98 for DX 5.2 and better USB 2.0, W98 to 98SE for DX 6.1 and networking, 98SE to 2000Pro for DX 8.1 and NTFS, skipped ME, 2000Pro to XP for DX9 and Halo and IE6 and virtual networking, XP to Vista64 for 64bit and DX10 for Crysis which I played on XP32 at first with 2GB of RAM. W7 just because I wanted to since Vista already had DX11. Might of got some of those wrong since I'm hung over and barely awake. :p

ON 8.1 Pro now and have no desire to upgrade to 10 for the shit show that is DX12 among other things that are wrong with that OS. Albeit it does suck when a game I want to play is W10 only.
 
By that logic, anyone who continues to use unpatchable hardware is a fool. Throw out every CPU you own with speculative execution now!

But speculative execution can be patched via firmware and OS updates... so its not really the same thing. If Intel was to say... we are no longer providing updates for Core Duo processors, then yes people would be stupid to continue using them.

The point is valid anyone willing to run an OS without security updates is no better then your average anti vaxxer. Your not just putting your own data at risk your putting everyone else at risk as well. Even if all you do is game and you don't trust your banking info ect.... becoming part of a bot net, or helping to spread other crap isn't ok.

For now windows 7 has updates... and people willing to pay for them in a couple years, go ahead. Today if your a moron running windows XP connected to the net you deserve to catch some hate.
 
Halo MC/Reach on PC and DX12 on Win7.

Seems like there is something going on at MS.

Listening to gamers? That is some crazy news
 
There have been a lot of these types of comments since Windows 10 came out, continuing till today. The question I have for those who make them is: Why?

DirectX 12 is a dud and non-event with there being very few games that use it, with a large number of games that do use it actually running worse in DX12 mode than in DX11 mode, and with Windows 7 having received Vulkan support, with Vulkan doing the same thing as DX12 but being more attractive to developers because it's open source.

It's been a very long time that it's been apparent that DX12 is a non-event. So why does anyone base their choice of OS on DX12?

Versionitis

The same applies to Vulkan for that matter. People always want the latest highest number even if it adds nothing of value. In the case of Vulkan... its true that there are cases where the latest OpenGL is in fact faster, and Vulkan adds nothing but more complicated coding work. Yet end users in general don't understand that. Vulkan is better. 12 is iigher then 11; 11 is higher then 10; 10 is higher then 9. Has to be better right. :)

In the case of DX 12 I think MS should have actually named it something completely new. DX 11 and DX 12 are completely different things. As people point out DX 12 is often slower.... and that isn't unexpected imo. One is a high level API the other a low level. They have different use cases completely... and 9 times out of 10 DX 12 adds nothing of value for a developer. Its like back in the day comparing assembler code to C code.... sure assembler has the potential to be the fastest code around, but the more complicated teh code the more that advantage goes away... and your just a masochist using assembler when C would be faster both in the coding and execution. MS should have spun DX12 into its own thing as an extension to DX... allowing developers to create bits of DX 12 low level assembler type code where it made sense, and using the high level DX shader stuff where more work doesn't equal more results. (Imagine a DX 11... with DXLL low level extensions.)
 
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By that logic, anyone who continues to use unpatchable hardware is a fool. Throw out every CPU you own with speculative execution now!

That's kind of disingenuous.

Meltdown has at this point been more or less completely mitigated in software (albeit at a performance hit, but less of one now than the first mitigations). Spectre is harder to mitigate, but also much more difficult to take advantage of.

There are some areas of real concern (for instance untrusted guest operating systems running inside of VM's on affected hosts, but this is not a realistic attack vector for most usees, and thus much less of a concern.

Furthermore, the fact that one thing has security problems is not a reason to ignore easily preventable security problems in something else. This line of reasoning is just fundamentally illogical.
 
Anyone who continues to use any OS after it no longer receives security patches connected to a network is a complete fool. No amount of caution, firewalls or other tools will ever be enough once there are open security exploits that will never be patched.

All software and ESPECIALLY operating systems require active maintenance to remain secure. Once that actually I've maintenance is gone they need to be dropped like a hot potato. This isn't the 80's. Static untouched software doesn't work anymore.

When people fail to patch their shit, everyone on the internet suffers as we get more.botnets and the garbage that comes along with it.
For people that are using their machines just for gaming and no browsing or other internet activities?
Depending how you rate things I find it pretty awesome that when you try and block all windows telemetry ip or domains in the hostfile it simply gets ignored under Windows 10.

So much for supported security in Windows 10 makes me feel much safer.
 
Activision Blizzard wouldn't have had enough money to encourage Microsoft to do this alone. This is a china/India move pure and simple. Adoption of Windows 10 in Asia always lags behind worldwide numbers and it is dirt easy to pirate win7 there.
Couple this with the lower machine requirements(32bit) of win7 and this is just an acknowledgement that 3 billion people will still be using win7 for decades yet EOL or not.
 
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For people that are using their machines just for gaming and no browsing or other internet activities?
Depending how you rate things I find it pretty awesome that when you try and block all windows telemetry ip or domains in the hostfile it simply gets ignored under Windows 10.

So much for supported security in Windows 10 makes me feel much safer.


Don't get me wrong. I detest what Microsoft did with Windows 10 to strongarm their way on the customer and take telemetry data. Between that and running unpatched - however - putting up with Microsofts Win10 shit is by far the lesser evil.

Personally I have given up on Windows completely for my general purpose computing. I keep it around solely for games, and do everything else dual booted to Windows.

I see what you are saying about only using it for games limiting the likelihood of exposure, but is that entirely honest? Are there never times when when one Google's for game patch notes, troubleshooting during crashes or anything like that?

Is it really worth becoming part of a botnet, acquiring a keylogger, and potentially having an expensive Steam account stolen? Or even worse, having all the partitions on your local machine ransomwared?

Security first.
 
You mean I can try Forza Horizon 4 with Windows 7? Hahaha! Cool. I have a GTX 1050 Ti and can't believe I had to google for several minutes to find that it was compatible with DX12.
 
They said it couldn't be done.

But after 4 years of relentless effort, Microsoft has relented and made the impossible, possible. What's next, Windows update system from Win7 ported to Win10? Telemetry-free Win10 Pro? Dare to Dream!

The Windows update system from 7 sucks balls... We just need a way to have more control over the updates, is all.
 
You can put the blame for DX10 and DX10.1 firmly at Nvidias feet. Their cards could NOT do the original DX10 spec and they begged/bribed MS to nerf the spec. And thus DX10 became a farce.
 
Versionitis

The same applies to Vulkan for that matter. People always want the latest highest number even if it adds nothing of value. In the case of Vulkan... its true that there are cases where the latest OpenGL is in fact faster, and Vulkan adds nothing but more complicated coding work. Yet end users in general don't understand that. Vulkan is better. 12 is iigher then 11; 11 is higher then 10; 10 is higher then 9. Has to be better right. :)

In the case of DX 12 I think MS should have actually named it something completely new. DX 11 and DX 12 are completely different things. As people point out DX 12 is often slower.... and that isn't unexpected imo. One is a high level API the other a low level. They have different use cases completely... and 9 times out of 10 DX 12 adds nothing of value for a developer. Its like back in the day comparing assembler code to C code.... sure assembler has the potential to be the fastest code around, but the more complicated teh code the more that advantage goes away... and your just a masochist using assembler when C would be faster both in the coding and execution. MS should have spun DX12 into its own thing as an extension to DX... allowing developers to create bits of DX 12 low level assembler type code where it made sense, and using the high level DX shader stuff where more work doesn't equal more results. (Imagine a DX 11... with DXLL low level extensions.)

Wait no your omitting the multicore abilities of dx12. Dx11 mandates piling everything onto one main/central/coordinator thread. The high draw call issue with dx11 just aggravates that issue. We as pc gamers don't appreciate that issue as a lot of what we play are console ports that are made to play nice with very weak console cpus and don't scale up massively on the pc versions in terms of draw distances/npcs/physics. When ps5 and xbox whatever have their exclusives ported over to pc the bar will shoot right up for us. That's where dx11 will start to look like a wheezing fat man.

Otherwise I'm with you dx12 needs a ton of dev resources to get the most out of it and it's plainly going absolutely nowhere at all. Far more effective to just code whatever in the higher level (dx11) and let nvidia/amd driver teams hold your hand and sort out and optimise for you, which is how its always been anyway.
 
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Vulkan is superior for pretty much all use cases except for "We, Microsoft want to have full control of the standard". Aside from that, there's no reason not to use Vulkan. I can only hope to see more transition to Vulkan (or use of OpenGL if it will be suitable) rather than spend time on DirectX12 and whatever they think up next. Even MS themselves could benefit from the Vulkan development done openly and contribute in kind, unless they'd rather stick to a proprietary alternative for the sake of it. Windows 7 and WoW are both relatively old, updated codebases and its a bit strange to see this kind of thing added now, but overall all OSes and tasks can benefit from using Vulkan and other open tech instead.
 
I hope Microsoft puts a poison pill in Windows 7 that permanently and irrevocabbly disables its network stack starting ~ 1 month after the EOL date.

Otherwise there are going to be so many unpatched idiots out there ruining the internet for all of us.

Every operating system, computer or mobile shouöd have this built into the kernel from the gold release so there is no circumventing it.
 
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