Early testing of an alpha build of DirectX 12 indicates that gamers will see some impressive improvements in GPU performance when the software launches alongside the Windows 10 OS.
Tech site AnandTech has been running tests using Oxide’s Star Swarm demo, and is reporting performance increases of up to 400% on AMD GPUs and 150% on Nvidia GPUs.
There’s an in-depth breakdown of the results here, but suffice to say that the omens are good for PC gamers. Taking a look at one card from AMD and Nvidia; the GTX 980 scored an FPS of 26.7 on DX11, which improved to 66.8 on DX12, while the Radeon R9 290X scored 8.3 and 42.9 respectively.
AnandTech notes “incredible improvements in CPU efficiency and multi-threading”, though it also points out the the Star Swarm demo in question, which you can see in action above, is a best-case scenario.
“But to that end, it’s clear that DirectX 12 has a lot of potential in the right hands and the right circumstances,” the site sums up. “It isn’t going to be easy to master, and I suspect it won’t be a quick transition, but I am very interested in seeing what developers can do with this API. With the reduced overhead, the better threading, and ultimately a vastly more efficient means of submitting draw calls, there’s a lot of potential waiting to be exploited.”
Windows 10 will be a free upgrade for Windows 7 and Windows 8 owners during the first year of sale, and it’s expected to launch in late 2015. PC gamers will be keeping a close eye on any further details regarding DirectX 12, I’m sure.
