DirectX 12 to be introduced March 20th is the headline.

Conjecture is that AMD, Nvidia will have new DX12 cards sooner than later -- as they may have been used for some of DX12 development and testing. Remains to be seen if they are "all new" or just "improvements" on the current cards.

DX12

I'm hoping the new cards will make the jump to 22nm or 20nm -- an excuse to buy a new card.

As long as it's Win8 only I won't be rushing to get any.

It was a major PITA to reload my PC from 7 to 7 64-bit just 18 months ago, I'm in no hurry to go to 8.




The Jedi Master

Now that you mention it, I "assume" Windows 7 will get it as an update -- for business reasons.

Thing is, what will DX12 actually "bring to the table" -- that we gamers feel is a "must have". Some indicate a "Mantle like" capability will be included.

Well, as DX11.1 and 11.2 have been Win8 only so far, I'm not taking it for granted.

The possibility of DX and OGL giving Mantle-like low-level hardware access has been mooted lately in the press via a few comments from their respective groups, but as of yet nothing is official.

Anyway, DX10 and 11 both took years to be used in games in more than a token manner. It will be a long time before DX12 is the standard. I think Dirt 2 was the first DX11 game I had? Yet even today we still have brand new games coming out in DX9!

The new consoles are DX11-class, so I'm not optimistic.




The Jedi Master

There will be some more goodies at GDC :p

Haha Microsoft flinched at the Mantle taunt... "hey guys don't go hang out with Mantle, we're working on DX12, I promise we are"

Unless DX12 works with Win7 not many will be adopting it anyhow.

^THIS,

It's rumored to be a Windows 9 exclusive.

LOL! BRILLIANT!



The Jedi Master

Rumor that DX12 primarily IS Mantle. The details are lacking. But, AMD did not consider Mantle "proprietary" and the implication is that Microsoft used it as a basis for DX12.

We'll see if that's true or false. But, an interesting rumor (again, rumors are not well-established facts -- "rumor" is my term to distinguish unproven, possibly false comments).

Meantime, Catalyst 14.3 Beta is available. Fixes some things in the latest games. Note: Instructions are to uninstall previous driver manually before installing Beta 14.3 (normally, changing AMD drivers does not require an uninstall).

As Mantle has proven beneficial primarily in lower-end CPUs it's not certain what benefits DX12 would then have on higher-end ones.



The Jedi Master

Repeating something I've reported. In my Mantle tests with different CPUs and GPUs -- using Swarm benchmark:

A mid-level AMD APU (CPU part) plus mid-level GPU and Mantle gave the 10 to 20 percent improvement.

A high-level AMD CPU plus very high end GPU and Mantle gave 60 to 90 percent improvement. Most of that came from pumping up the "LOW END". The high FPS did not change that much (if at all). So, the improvement was "just where its needed" where one could actually "see" it with the unaided eye (rather than just measure it).

So often, driver improvements only improve the "high end fps". Nice in a "measurement" -- but, meaningless for the "visual" aspect of gaming.

Thus, in my tests (using Swarm which may be atypical), Mantle was "outstanding" in what it accomplished for the actual visuals. The rough parts of the visuals (typically 5 or 6 fps) went to 25 or 30 fps -- and became smooth. Moreover, the biggest improvement was with an "extreme gamer" system -- the best of all worlds for an "extreme gamer"

We'll see if that's a fluke of the Benchmark or if its more generally applicable (with good game programming).

Never heard of Swarm.
In Thief and BF4, though, most sites report that with 4+ cores and video cards costing over $300 the improvements are under 10fps (when they're already in the 50+ range) whilst with 2 cores and lower-end video cards the improvement can easily be almost doubling of the fps (from 20 to 40, say).

So for people who couldn't afford the good parts it's a great help and will keep people from skipping on games because "my old PC can't hack it and I can't spend the money on it." Someone in the Il-2:BoS forum just did that very thing, actually.

Of course, Mantle itself isn't of much help unless you have a newer GCN card anyway, so at a minimum they'll still need to spend SOME money to get a new mid-range AMD card.



The Jedi Master

Dx12 will be Windows 9 Exclusive. :p

As for Mantle and DX12, they are both Just Low Level APIs, that offer commands to the GPU with Less Overhead and Intermediate commands.

OpenGL's next Big Update will offer Low Level API as well.

in Thief it enables a lot more visual effects (google it, raindrops etc etc), while maintaining a similar FPS.

in BF4, its supposed to be faster, but I dont see it, and I bailed on BF4 Long ago.

Cat 14.3 has it's share of issues, DX9 Games already had issues and 14.1, 14.2, 14.3 made them worse, luckily the only DX9 Game I play anymore is DCS, and I can easily Bypass Cat 14.x with DLLs from older drivers in the /Bin Folder.

Other DX9 Games have either been patched to DX10 or 11 or I stopped playing them.

14.1 was the most stable, 14.2 had several issues from the moment I chose Install.
Lock Ups, Black screens, etc etc when changing display profiles, screen arrangements, eyefinity, extended or toggling XFire On or Off.

Wiping AMD's drivers to install the next beta is getting annoying, as I Have to re-do everything afterwards (Eyefinity Array, and Extended Profiles).

The games I've been playing aren't helped or hurt by the 14.x betas. However, Windows Media Center stalls out every once in a while saying the there was a problem with the GPU (AMD driver issue). So, just yesterday, I decided to go back to the 13.12 WHQL driver on my main system, for now. Almost by definition, Beta's do come with attached risks -- the rewards make the Beta good for some and the risks make it bad for others

When is the rumored debut of Windows 9?

Fall 2014 to Spring 2015

That makes it sound like Win 8.2. Certainly not enough time to have made any major changes.

That's only 2 years after 8's release. Not a lot of time at all.



The Jedi Master

Windows 9 is expected this Fall for a Few reasons:

A. It has new Abilities built in to support XP Users/Corporations
(Prolly a stripped down XP VM Like Win7 Compatibility mode but more streamlined)
I've heard the term and seen the term in docs that read "Boot to XP Mode", for whatever it's worth.

B. Geared towards Desktop Users, desktop, taskbar, start menu, blah blah blah is all returning, albiet tuned.
No more tiles to deal with.

C. Windows 8, 8.1, is Going the Way of Vista, it was introductory in terms of O/S Improvements.
Windows 9 will take all the network, storage, and Subsystem improvements and move them into a Desktop Environment sans Tiles. The only issue with Windows 8/8.1 is it was already publicly labeled as a fail.
MS Can patch it all they want, but people already made up their minds, and likely already paid for Windows 7 Licenses or re-installed their XP O/S.

The core of the O/S Was designed for Low Power Touch Devices (tablets/phones, 2in1 laptops etc).

Where as the core of Win9 will be High Performance Based.

Everything will have Low Level Access, Audio, Graphics, SATA Controllers, Everything,
So, Better Graphics, Better Sound, Better Read/Write Speeds. Better Hardware Graphics Compatibility with Virtual Machines

nVidia Fermi, Kepler and Maxwell DX11 GPUs will be DX12 Compatible
AMD GCN and GCN1.1 DX11 GPUs will be DX12 compatible

Yes, but Win 7 won't be, and I really don't enjoy changing my OS. That takes days with the amount of time I have to devote to it each day and the amount of work to reinstall several dozen programs.



The Jedi Master

DX12 will be integrated into Windows Mobile, Windows RT, Xbox One.

Forza 5 Will receive a title update to run Dx12 when it's released.