DirectX 12: Ushering In A New Era Of PC Gaming

That guy is substantially bald. :)

I want to see the differences in game. So, bring on the games!
 
Maybe I've been in the PC game for too long, but after all these years I can't listen to all this marketing speak anymore. Blah, blah X percent, blah, blah N percent, as soon as I hear it my mind drifts away. On the surface it always sounds like the same bullshit with the names changed. /Last time I heard this speech it was for Mantle.
 
I'm not watching a video about DX12 from ATI. Wouldn't watch one either from Nvidia. Would rather watch one that I felt was objective.
 
Maybe I've been in the PC game for too long, but after all these years I can't listen to all this marketing speak anymore. Blah, blah X percent, blah, blah N percent, as soon as I hear it my mind drifts away. On the surface it always sounds like the same bullshit with the names changed. /Last time I heard this speech it was for Mantle.

I can't really stand it anymore either. The software or hardware should speak for itself, without the endless bulletpoints and spin that would make even a test pilot dizzy.

I just wanna see the damn games already and see for myself what the difference is :p
 
The big takeaways which were already known are this:

1. DX11 can only use a single thread to send commands to the GPU
2. DX12 can use multiple threads (slides showed up to 8, but I am guessing it could use more)
3. DX11 is very high overhead
4. DX12 is low overhead
5. DX12 drawcalls/s possible is way higher - current benches show around a 15x higher number of drawcalls vs DX11.
6. Split Frame Rendering in SLI and CF configurations. Supposedly this will speed things up a lot.
 
I'm not watching a video about DX12 from ATI. Wouldn't watch one either from Nvidia. Would rather watch one that I felt was objective.

I wouldn't either. ATi couldn't possibly know anything about DX12 since we were only on DX9 (maybe 10) when ATi ceased to exist :p
 
no reflection of motion graphics off bald head = directx 12 fail
 
The big takeaways which were already known are this:

1. DX11 can only use a single thread to send commands to the GPU
2. DX12 can use multiple threads (slides showed up to 8, but I am guessing it could use more)
3. DX11 is very high overhead
4. DX12 is low overhead
5. DX12 drawcalls/s possible is way higher - current benches show around a 15x higher number of drawcalls vs DX11.
6. Split Frame Rendering in SLI and CF configurations. Supposedly this will speed things up a lot.


Most impressive thing I saw that wasn't an opinion from that was the drawcalls test side by side showing the massive FPS dip
 
I've decided I'm going back to what we used to do. I'm not buying any PC upgrades until my computer cannot run X game I really want to play. I remember that's what we used to do back in the early 90's (because computers were absurdly expensive) and I'm sick of all the marketing an incremental upgrades.

DX12 likely means I'll be able to keep my current hardware even longer, bring it on!
 
It'll matter in 5 years when Xbox2 supports DX12. We'll see only a handful of PC games support it until then.
 
I just get the feeling that splitting half the screen across SLI is going to have screen sync problems.
 
It'll matter in 5 years when Xbox2 supports DX12. We'll see only a handful of PC games support it until then.

I wouldn't count on that. UE4 is having DX12 support added to it.

I just get the feeling that splitting half the screen across SLI is going to have screen sync problems.

Cards each render half the frame, and then the whole frame is sent to the screen.
 
Wake me up when there are actually effing DX12 games.

See you in 2016.
 
I just get the feeling that splitting half the screen across SLI is going to have screen sync problems.

No, split frame rendering is actually solid. I believe Civilization Beyond Earth had it in its Mantle implementation and by all accounts there was a smoothness there that was compelling.

Where things drive off into the weeds with SFR is the people believing that VRAM stacking would automagically be a thing because of it. Total nonsense.
 
It'll matter in 5 years when Xbox2 supports DX12. We'll see only a handful of PC games support it until then.

Consoles already have low level graphics APIs. There's no need for DX12 on the XboxTwo.
 
every new version of DirectX is hyped to be the greatest thing ever...and then the games come out that barely take advantage of all its capabilities (DX11 tessellation seemed to take years before games started using it)
 
every new version of DirectX is hyped to be the greatest thing ever...and then the games come out that barely take advantage of all its capabilities (DX11 tessellation seemed to take years before games started using it)

I think this will take off a little bit faster than the previous versions. One, anyone with Windows 8/8.1 is probably going to upgrade. Also, some of the features are fairly nice and do give a significant performance boost, which will make game development easier. And worst case scenario, you can have a D3D11 device on top of a D3D12 device.
 
DX12 on the XboxTwo would allow for easier coding and porting

Hardware matters more than API when porting. This round of consoles are basically low end PCs. That makes things much easier than simply adding DX12 into the mix.
 
every new version of DirectX is hyped to be the greatest thing ever...and then the games come out that barely take advantage of all its capabilities (DX11 tessellation seemed to take years before games started using it)
You say "every", but I recall DX 6,7,8, and 9 bringing a whole lot to the table. DX10 and 11 is where things really slowed the hell down, and you can thank MS for that by tying it to Vista upon release.
 
Hardware matters more than API when porting. This round of consoles are basically low end PCs. That makes things much easier than simply adding DX12 into the mix.

I think that's a myth, because I've talked to developers that say it doesn't translate. Even though PS4 and Xbox One may have essentially x86 under the hood, the API's are still insanely proprietary and stripped down and custom. That's why "console ports" are still such a struggle, to the point many companies are throwing their hands up and outsourcing the effort.

It reminds me of when Macs went x86 and people just assumed that Windows programs would start running natively on MacOS and it would be a whole new era. Never happened.

If the "its easier to port cuz consoles are PEE CEEZ" myth were true then why is Batman for example such a g.d. mess? And it sits atop a mountain of Xbox/PS4 era games that had crappy PC ports.
 
no love for my daughters HD 6950 :(

..she is going to be sad

Really Dad?

Maybe it is a good time to teach her that the tech world moves forward and that a GFX card pushing 6 years old shouldn't make her Dad pout on a forum.
#rollmodel questionable!
 
The big takeaways which were already known are this:

1. DX11 can only use a single thread to send commands to the GPU
2. DX12 can use multiple threads (slides showed up to 8, but I am guessing it could use more)
3. DX11 is very high overhead
4. DX12 is low overhead
5. DX12 drawcalls/s possible is way higher - current benches show around a 15x higher number of drawcalls vs DX11.
6. Split Frame Rendering in SLI and CF configurations. Supposedly this will speed things up a lot.

Re 2: DX12 is optimized for 8 threads since the best usage scenario is single core <-> single thread <-> single GPU. Thus to utilize the potential fully one needs 8 core CPU and 8 GPU SLI. Of course there is a niche with high-end 8 core CPUs but only there are only rumors about 8 GPUs SLI/CrossFire systems coming next year.

Contrary to what the cynics and naysayers are telling, DX 12 is a huge step forward. Can be compared to switching from the 32-bit to 64-bit OS and likewise the impact will be seen over the years.
 
Maybe I've been in the PC game for too long, but after all these years I can't listen to all this marketing speak anymore. Blah, blah X percent, blah, blah N percent, as soon as I hear it my mind drifts away. On the surface it always sounds like the same bullshit with the names changed. /Last time I heard this speech it was for Mantle.

Exactly. All those figures are just fancy PR talks. What matters is what we'll actually see in commercial games.
 
Re 2: DX12 is optimized for 8 threads since the best usage scenario is single core <-> single thread <-> single GPU



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... I saw this video... and... I couldn't help but think of this: http://gdcvault.com/play/1020791/

... All DX12 does is basically catch up to where OpenGL 4.x had been...

only there is now this: https://www.khronos.org/vulkan

... so...

Vendor Specific Proprietary API... vs... Industry Standard API that developers are going to have to use anyways to leverage titles on every single non Windows device in existence... well... one of two API's given that Apple is trying to pull a DirectX of their own with Metal...

... so... does anybody... and I mean... anybody... have any good reasons on why DX12 is even... you know... remotely important? Does something special? Is somehow superior?

Anyone?

Bueller?

And it's not like Microsoft's executives haven't admitted the lack of importance in DirectX. Khronos standards have figured quite heavily into Microsoft's platform-neutral software development push... and um... did anybody else notice a re-addition to this page: https://www.khronos.org/members/contributors

Yeah... Microsoft's back on the Khronos contributor list... a reversal of the Ballmer-Era policies of isolation and irrelevance.

About the only factor that could make DX12 remotely interesting from anybody's viewpoint... is if the API stack were released under an Open-Source license. Of course that couldn't ever happen. It's not like Satya would ever think of opening up the licensing on Microsoft's toolkits and actively pursue not being rendered irrelevant... oh... wait: https://github.com/Microsoft/dotnet

So... maybe there is some hope that DX12 won't continue to be just another log-jam competent developers know better than to even start with.
 
Contrary to what the cynics and naysayers are telling, DX 12 is a huge step forward. Can be compared to switching from the 32-bit to 64-bit OS and likewise the impact will be seen over the years.

I think this is the important part. A DX11 game made in 2015 won't be much different from a DX12 game made in 2016. ;) But over the years it will see more and more use.
 
Re 2: DX12 is optimized for 8 threads since the best usage scenario is single core <-> single thread <-> single GPU. Thus to utilize the potential fully one needs 8 core CPU and 8 GPU SLI. Of course there is a niche with high-end 8 core CPUs but only there are only rumors about 8 GPUs SLI/CrossFire systems coming next year.
Lol. No.

It increases the draw calls per GPU by utilizing more threads and thus more CPU cores. The increase in performance comes from having MORE CPU cores than GPU's, not an equal number.

Honestly, the best case scenario I can come up with is pairing an 18 core Xeon E5-2678 (36 threads) on a high end workstation with 4 GPU's on a high end workstation board like the Asus X99-E...and all that is assuming DX12 will even scale that high (which I seriously doubt).
 
Consoles already have low level graphics APIs. There's no need for DX12 on the XboxTwo.

The advantages won't come from the low level side of things but from the advanced feature set. For instance DX12 introduces asynchronous shading which is something the PS4 is able to do already but the Xbox lacks. They'll be adding those features to the Xbox in the near future as the hardware is already capable.
 
I like these bald guys like myself eyes wide open trying to explain why Windows 10 is the best =)
 
I think that's a myth, because I've talked to developers that say it doesn't translate. Even though PS4 and Xbox One may have essentially x86 under the hood, the API's are still insanely proprietary and stripped down and custom. That's why "console ports" are still such a struggle, to the point many companies are throwing their hands up and outsourcing the effort.

Ports are being outsourced because just developing the game on one platform now takes so much damn resources. Look at game credits: thousands and thousands of names for an 8 hour campaign.
 
Really Dad?

Maybe it is a good time to teach her that the tech world moves forward and that a GFX card pushing 6 years old shouldn't make her Dad pout on a forum.
#rollmodel questionable!

yeah but .. she's 6 and can't afford newer tech on $2 a week allowance
 
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