Will Directx12 ever be supported?

[GabrielK]

I have to point out though, the game running slowly on some systems has more to do with engine design than rendering API, even if both DX11 and DX12 help a bit to increase performance. Even on my system (overclocked i7 and two R9 290s in Crossfire) I still don't get more than 40 FPS in busy areas or if there's lots going on.

Yea, powerhouse computers go below 40 in hugely crowded areas. Never seen it dip under 30 thou.
I am really curios how dx12 would change this, if it would change it. I've seen a lot of hype about the potential of dx12, but I'm curios how various company devs will code using the new API, if they'll be able to milk it for all its got .

[Kosmos992k]

You know, I really wish that people would stop seeing the latest DirectX release as some kind of miraculous cure all that will make game graphics a magnitude better than they already are. It's like you see a proprietary graphics library sitting atop third party hardware as some kind of magical pixie dust that if you could just sprinkle enough of on your game it would produce photo realistic graphics at 120 frames per second.

It's just a freaking graphics library, it provides lower level access to some hardware features, but guess what guys, there are other graphics libraries that can provide the same sort of support for the underlying graphics hardware. A weak DX11 or DX12 capable GPU is still going to be vastly inferior to a top tier one. The use of DX11 or DX12 isn't going to make a weak GPU look strong.

As someone pointed out they just dropped their first pass on the DX11 client for PCs, and are still working to incorporate the use of DX11 features where appropriate, as well as analogous features in the OpenGL libraries used by the PS4 since it's GPU is every bit as ready as all the other DX11 ready GPUs that AMD produced in the last 3 years.

Since DX12 is not much more than a newly born baby right now, it's a little premature to be wanting to ask it out on a date.

Personally I recommend not expecting too much from DX12, it's pretty much MS's version of Mantle. It will help reduce CPU usage but otherwise I have not seen anything groundbreaking from the likes of Mantle.

And you're not going to, the raw performance of the GPU is a fundamental limiting factor. You could write a highly efficient, machine code, custom driver for a specific GPU (like game makers once did) and as long as Mantle does it's thing decently you won't see a great deal of difference in performance. Engine design is far more important in performance of a game than the graphics libraries of APIs being used.

[GabrielK]

...

DX12 is supposed to be relevant, much more relevant than DX11 was.
The difference should be blatantly visible if properly coded.
The comparative tests I've seen were incredible.
How that performance increase translates into the usual garbage of a code that many companies put out for their games... I don't know.

The thing will be that future games using dx12 will be even more graphically intensive due to the developers having more room to "breathe" thus negating the frame rate increase.
It's a race one can't win, the better the APIs and Graphics cards get, the more graphically intensive they make the game.

[Kosmos992k]

DX12 is supposed to be relevant, much more relevant than DX11 was.
The difference should be blatantly visible if properly coded.
The comparative tests I've seen were incredible.
How that performance increase translates into the usual garbage of a code that many companies put out for their games... I don't know.

The thing will be that future games using dx12 will be even more graphically intensive due to the developers having more room to "breathe" thus negating the frame rate increase.
It's a race one can't win, the better the APIs and Graphics cards get, the more graphically intensive they make the game.

My underlying problem with the reverence that DX11/DX12 receive is that it's not the library that does the work, it's the hardware. So a properly coded game using DX11 and custom libraries for GPU functionality not included in DX11 should produce visuals every bit as good as those a DX12 game could - on the same hardware. DX11 & DX12 don't add functionality to the GPU, they simply provide an interface to use the GPU more easily.

[GabrielK]

My underlying problem with the reverence that DX11/DX12 receive is that it's not the library that does the work, it's the hardware. So a properly coded game using DX11 and custom libraries for GPU functionality not included in DX11 should produce visuals every bit as good as those a DX12 game could - on the same hardware. DX11 & DX12 don't add functionality to the GPU, they simply provide an interface to use the GPU more easily.

I am not even sure what graphical fidelity DX12 brings.
I'm really looking forward to the supposed performance increase, I think that's the highlight of the version (or so I understood it).

I need to lookup and see if it brings any new fancy stuff to the table. (assuming the cards support whatever it is)

[Bishop81]

The only benefit I know of it that it allows more draw calls which are traditionally very expensive on PC - consoles do not have this problem. So certain effects will probably look better.

That and lightening of the CPU load - which is only beneficial if the game is bottlenecked by the CPU.

[Raist]

The game still relies heavily on the CPU in places it could offload to the GPU. Until that is remedied you won't be seeing big performance gains by just moving to the next DX tier (in most cases). Even something seemingly small like passing off AA to the hardware could make a huge difference for many systems.

[Bishop81]

The game still relies heavily on the CPU in places it could offload to the GPU. Until that is remedied you won't be seeing big performance gains by just moving to the next DX tier (in most cases). Even something seemingly small like passing off AA to the hardware could make a huge difference for many systems.

Err ... Assuming "AA" means anti-aliasing, it is done by the GPU. FXAA is implemented as a shader.

[SolaceX]

I think most MMORPGs will benefit from dx12 because the large amounts of players on screen at a time is CPU intensive and dx12 allows more cores/threads to be used in parallel. Also, since FF14 does not use PHYSX, all the character and npc physics are CPU limited as well.
I appreciate that FF14 went to dx11. The water effects were very poor previously. I hope dx12 will come soon!

[Postcards]

It can definitely benefit those with weaker CPUs. If they decide to implement it, it will be at 4.0 or later.