Microsoft Announces DX12 Support for Windows 7

cageymaru

cageymaru

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Blizzard Entertainment added Windows 10 DX12 support to its MMO World of Warcraft (WoW) and fans of the game responded with a warm welcome to new features such as multi-threading. Blizzard Entertainment contacted Microsoft about bringing the same improvements to WoW gamers that remain on Windows 7. Microsoft responded to feedback from Blizzard Entertainment and has now ported the user mode D3D12 runtime to Windows 7. "This unblocks developers who want to take full advantage of the latest improvements in D3D12 while still supporting customers on older operating systems." With the latest patch, WoW now supports DX12 on Windows 7! Microsoft is now working with other developers to port their D3D12 games to Windows 7.

How are DirectX 12 games different between Windows 10 and Windows 7? Windows 10 has critical OS improvements which make modern low-level graphics APIs (including DirectX 12) run more efficiently. If you enjoy your favorite games running with DirectX 12 on Windows 7, you should check how those games run even better on Windows 10!
 
Well, enjoy it till EOS.....

Seriously, that's a crock of shit. DX12 is why I went with Win 10. Damn you Ashes of Singularity influencing my decision to upgrade....
Who am I kidding. Win 10 free upgrade, was gonna happen. Offering DX12 to an OS that has limited time, whatev. MS grasping at what they can. We all knew DX12 would and could be possible on Win 7, and we know why.
 
I like where your head is but i think that's a crack [p]ipe dream. but i dig it.
clockdogg said:
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!
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Cactusj said:
As Skydriver pointed out, Windows 7 goes EoL January 2020... so whats the point?
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Seeing how long people clung to Windows XP after it was dead, and Windows 7 supposedly picked up some market share. I'd say it makes a lot sense in regards to catering to gamers. Maybe Microsoft have given up on trying to find shitty ways to get people to upgrade to their latest OS. Granted I upgraded to Win10 upon release and I don't have any regrets.
 
Cactusj said:
As Skydriver pointed out, Windows 7 goes EoL January 2020... so whats the point?
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Because people aren't going to stop using Windows 7 just because MS doesn't want to update anymore. With the poor quality of updates in recent times, those people might even be better off - the cure has been worse than the disease far too often lately.

I could see Windows 7 becoming more attractive after Jan 2020 *because* MS is no longer making any changes to it.
 
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skydriver said:
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?
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It makes perfect sense, but as usual they're way too late. 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. And rather than address the major complaints that are preventing many of those 7 users from converting to 10 (telemetry, random buggy updates with a mind of their own, app shovelware), they'd rather dig in their heels and backport, even though they had previously claimed DX12 was un-portable due to it being "too deeply ingrained in Windows 10". Always figured that was b.s.

So they're just trying to get more games on DX12, and then if that happens they'll figure out some other way to pull the rug out on 7.
 
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Blizzard should have done the logical thing and moved to Vulkan. Why developers continue to use DX is beyond me. Why lock yourself into any specific platform. But hey I'm looking forward to some VKD3D benches on Wows DX12 path.

Hopefully after this little DX windows release fiasco... people can stop allowing a OS developer tell them that somehow a API is OS bound. Its just a software library. DX could run on Linux if MS wanted it to... the whole New windwos new DX for that version only sillyness is only perhaps the most glarring reason developers should be moving away from DX. Vulkan / opengl should be the goto 3D APIs (yes I said Ogl... OpenGL 4.6 is both faster and more feature rich then DX11... its platform agnostic, allowing even easier mobile ports ect... and heck Sony even has very good GNM->OpenGL tools so it will be even less work going console to PC ;) yes that is a semi joke)
 
Well I’m certainly curious how DX12 stacks up versus DX11 on Windows 7. It more often than not appears to be slower on Windows 10, conversely it will also be fun to see how the two OSs stack up.
 
This makes absolutely no sense considering Win7 extended support ends in January 2020. Why put any work at all into an OS that will soon be going away?
 
Nolan7689 said:
Well I’m certainly curious how DX12 stacks up versus DX11 on Windows 7. It more often than not appears to be slower on Windows 10, conversely it will also be fun to see how the two OSs stack up.
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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.

I suspect this is because nuktithreaded dx calls can help free up core0 to handle the big main game thread on most titles on slower CPU's, but that top end desktop CPU's are fast enough to handle that game thread without spreading out the DX calls, so instead the nuktithreaded dx12 calls only have negative effects from cache thrashing.

At least this is my theory.
 
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Good call, but a bit too late. Does Microsoft feel threatened, to make such desperate moves?
And no, no one is going to delete their W7 just because Microsoft stopped updating it. Most people have blocked updates anyway.
 
Microsoft said this was impossible... They said it would never happen, due to “architectural” differences between the OS’s...

Doesn’t this decision give all those clinging on to Windows 7, a reason to keep using it?

Very strange. There must be a catch somewhere.
 
Stimpy88 said:
Microsoft said this was impossible... They said it would never happen, due to “architectural” differences between the OS’s...

Doesn’t this decision give all those clinging on to Windows 7, a reason to keep using it?

Very strange. There must be a catch somewhere.
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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.
 
KATEKATEKATE said:
seconded! that's still my favorite Windows (not sorry).

also i wonder if DXR will be possible with this backport of DX12, or is that really only a 10.1809+ thing...
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Windows 8.1 had definite downsides, but didn't deserve all the hate it got. Once you sorted the start menu rubbish, it was perfectly fine in my opinion.
 
Lakados said:
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.
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If that was true they would have pushed Vulkan for the simple reason that they would have support for other platforms than Windows without any hassle.
 
Pieter3dnow said:
If that was true they would have pushed Vulkan for the simple reason that they would have support for other platforms than Windows without any hassle.
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Do they not have OpenGL support anymore? Been years since I played so no idea - but if so, then there's your other platform support, and the work to go to Vulkan would then not be needed for the tiny amount of people playing on other platforms (and yes, I realise that OpenGL in WoW was inferior to DX)
 
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