Microsoft's graphics API suite gained momentum over time once developers figured out it wouldn't ever go away.Thus, DirectX seemingly pushed OpenGL out of the way by the time version 9 (aka DX9) hit the PC gaming scene in 2002. Games to work efficiently with your video and audio hardware.Windows 95 didn't have this direct line of communication – until Microsoft developed its DirectX suite of APIs.At first, DirectX didn't take off, as developers mostly relied on OpenGL at the time and programmed efficiently in the DOS environment. Check the detailed guides below. Note that this package does not modify the DirectX Runtime installed on your Windows OS in any way.Many veteran PC gamers should remember the old days of editing the Config.sys file and the Autoexec.bat file to set up the correct settings environment so that a specific game could work correctly (IRQs and DMAs were edited too, but that's another story).The DirectX update will come along with Windows Update. At the time, most PC games ran on the old DOS platform, which allowed developers to "talk" directly to PC components such as the audio card, video card, mouse and more.The Microsoft DirectX End-User Runtime installs a number of runtime libraries from the legacy DirectX SDK for some games that use D3DX9, D3DX10, D3DX11, XAudio 2.7, XInput 1.3, XACT, and/or Managed DirectX 1.1.
Directx Audio Windows 10 Is Slated"Historically, drivers and OS software have managed memory, state, and synchronization on behalf of developers. Mantle was seemingly well-received and performed spectacularly, but it was short lived, as Microsoft quickly released a version of DirectX that finally gave developers better access to hardware."DX12's focus is on enabling a dramatic increase in visual richness through a significant decrease in API-related CPU overhead," said Nvidia's Henry Moreton last year. To address this, AMD released its Mantle API suite, so that developers could better optimize their software for AMD chips.We've seen no reason for Microsoft to bring DX12 support to older versions of Windows.Essentially, graphics chips have become just as powerful as the main processor, taking on computing tasks other than graphics rendering.AMD's Mantle allowed developers to utilize this power in compatible Radeon graphics chips. Windows 10 is slated to be just as popular, and with it arrives the latest in the DirectX series, DirectX 12.The framework is coming to Xbox One soon, too What DX12 can do for you (and your games)The drawback with DirectX before this latest release is that it still didn't provide "low-level" access to hardware components as seen with the consoles.![]() Directx Audio Update Will ComeFor the gamer, that means better framerates and a better image quality.To do this with DirectX 12, you're gonna' need to upgrade Want DX12? Better get on Windows 10The beauty of DirectX 12 is that it's a native API of Windows 10. The days of having a single CPU core and a single GPU core went out in the early aughts, and Microsoft is finally getting up to speed with this latest DirectX release.Look at it this way: computers have moved from a single-lane to an eight-lane superhighway, allowing the CPU to throw rendering and compute commands to the GPU faster than ever before. With DirectX 12, games will likely see better performance because the load is tossed between the multiple cores simultaneously instead of dumping loads onto one core at a time.This is a big deal, as DirectX 11 doesn't take advantage of multiple cores in this fashion, thus a single core is doing all the work while the others remain idle. The more cores the better, meaning a processor with two cores (aka two processors crammed into one package) isn't quite as perky as a processor with four cores.The same is true with a graphics chip, and you can get a speed boost if you install two of the same graphics chip into a system (known as SLI via Nvidia and CrossFire via AMD). As a result, developers of advanced applications can efficiently control the GPU, taking advantage of their intimate knowledge of the game's behavior."By dumping more tasks onto the graphics chip, the main processor has less to do, thus the game isn't bogged down by what's going on in the operating system's background. DX12 gives the application the ability to directly manage resources and state, and perform necessary synchronization. Essentially, this API should provide better performance in games that support it, but that also means developers will likely have to shell out patches to bring their titles up to DirectX 12 speed, if possible.GPU providers AMD and Nvidia are already knee-deep in support with their drivers, so it's just a matter of time before we really see the benefits of what DirectX 12 offers.If you have yet to upgrade to Windows 10, DirectX 12 is as fine a reason as any to do so. Quantum Break is expected to support the new API as well as Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, Star Citizen, Forza Motorsport 6: Apex and several others.Please keep in mind that this is a very simplified explanation of what DirectX 12 brings to the PC gaming table. These include Ashes of the Singularity, The Elder Scrolls Online, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Gears of War: Ultimate Edition and Hitman among others. In a nutshell, he outlines what's called a pipeline state representation, work submission, and resource access.He also provides a chart revealing that DirectX 12 provides a 50% improvement in CPU utilization over DirectX 11, and a better distribution of work across multiple sequences of programmed instructions, or threads.The good news here is that there are a number of PC games that are already taking advantage of DirectX 12. DirectX 12 is also backwards-compatible to some degree, allowing PC gamers to play their favorite titles without having to rip out their graphics card for a new "compatible" model (in most cases).If you want a more detailed explanation of DirectX 12's three key three areas, check out Microsoft's DirectX 12 blog here, written by Matt Sandy. Cree representativeSo, if you want to play the latest games at their best, you might not have a choice regardless.Then again, given that it's free and is essentially a souped-up Windows 7, it shouldn't be all that tough of a transition – especially in the name of better games.
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