DirectX 12: A Game Changer for Xbox One and PC?

Gamespot:

"So much hinges on the potential of DirectX 12. Here we analyse how gamers and developers can benefit from it."

[Iluvtrim]

Awesome

[Silver360]

Remember when all the talk was dx12 was not coming to X1? That was obviously wrong. We really need to wait and see what happens.

[TheRedButterfly]

"Because the new API's true capabilities remain to be seen on the Xbox One, it's not completely clear whether or not the update will serve to extend the console's performance."

Well, considering how the Xbox One was developed around the idea of DX12 ( https://twitter.com/XboxP3/... ), and the fact that it /still/ doesn't have its intended API, if you're being any sort of realistic, it's hard to imagine a scenario where it doesn't "extend the console's performance."

How much it extends it depends on several things, but to say that "meh, it might not do anything" is laughable. Nice try though GameSpot. At least this wasn't as "well researched" as Lucy James' understanding of the XO settings menu. https://www.youtube.com/wat...

That said, it's definitely a game changer for PC. Can't wait to see what Vulkan can do as well.

[XB1_PS4]

It will help, but I don't see it being some drastic change. That said, I'm mostly a PC gamer, so this is going to be amazing for me.

[Utalkin2me]

Glad it's going to help my PC gaming.

[freshslicepizza]

all signs point to significant improvements on the pc, the xbox one is not as enthusiastic so we'll have to wait and see.

one thing is clear, those who have been critics of the xbox one will keep up the same tactics. that's sadly the way it works on forums.

[Gazondaily]

I expect some changes on Xbox One but no where near drastic like some people imagine it to be. Still, I am eager to see what it can do for the console

[xfiles2099]

yeah I agree I don't see it doing much for Xbone but for PC complete different story

[christocolus]

@XB1_PS4

I agree. The PC is going to be the biggest beneficiary of DX12,but there will be some gains on Xbox One too.how much? now that's what no one knows at the moment. Maybe at E3 we will get some clarification on the matter,so far the the new esram api and new rendering features seem to be some of the major benefits of DX12 on Xbox One.

"Async Shaders are something that the PlayStation 4 already uses in a variety of games such as Infamous: Second Son (the Async shaders helped the PS4 render the particle effects seen in-game). A similar effect will likely come to Xbox One games utilising similar rendering methods. In practice, this means more rendering ability, potentially paving the way for enhanced visual effects."

[Rookie_Monster]

Can't wait for the first wave of xb1 direct 12x games like Forza 6 and Halo 5 to find out. My guess, it will be awesome!

[Hoffmann]

A lot of hot air about improvements that will most likely be quite small. Especially on the Xbone while they might be significant a few times on PC.

I can be wrong of course but my gut tells me that this is mostly marketing by Microsoft.

[Ron_Danger]

The improvements to PC have already been proven by a few devs. There was that dev vid of a futuristic RTS games where the framerate are was aweful with DX11 but ran like butter using DX12. That was proof alone that it great improves PC performance. (Sony fan here with a mid range gaming PC so my facts might be slightly off)

(Edit for vid link)

https://m.youtube.com/watch...

[dragonaught007]

Welp if itl give boost in stability which is wat most people want then I guess its a good thing other then that I dont expect more then that

[ScorpiusX]

It better be with all the talk about , as for what it will help hope it provides substantial improvement to all it's makers products . If not what the point of creating it if you're going to short change your products .

[IamTylerDurden1]

Wouldn't u expect pc gamers to be gushing over dx12 more than xbone gamers considering pc will obviously see more benefits like always? Yet u almost entirely hear about xbone gamers bragging and more articles with xbone in the headline.

Phil himself compared the improvements to getting a patch in a game & said it has the capability to increase from 30 to 35 fps as an example of the power increase. We are talking slight improvements but basically you live with the hardware that u got, there is no magic even the cell had more untapped potential than xbone that is why u saw amazing PS3 games towards the end.

Basically ur limited by your hardware and tweaks in how efficiently you use it can help a little. Optimizations can be performed with the PS4 as well though & i truly feel this dx12 hype all about clicks and pr.

[marlinfan10]

Are xbox fans not allowed to be excited over it? I hardly ever see people saying it'll bump it up to 1080p/60fps, 4k, whatever else, and if someone does say that they're normally down voted to hell. It's mostly people excited, talking about their consoles future improvements, while not being entirely sure on exactly what it'll bring. This is a gaming site after all where people come and talk about their gaming consoles

What I find interesting is why there's nearly an equal amount of playstation fans (you're a great example) in the articles trying to downplay it or complaining about xbox fans talking about it

[Gilgamesh15]

It's insecurity that brings Sony fans to X1 articles. If they see a dx12 article, they are compelled to jump in and crap all over it. I guess it makes them feel good.

[3ndulg3]

Completely correct,xbox fans need to be more vocal,and stand-up for their console.

[lfc_4eva]

@marlinfan

He's in most xbox articles because he's waiting for some ps4 games to play on.

[rainslacker]

PC fans are excited for it. Not so much here, as the majority of the people here seem to be console owners, but in other forums, PC fans do seem to be eagerly anticipating it. This is probably due to the next windows being free, so devs will actually take advantage of it, unlike older DX releases which rarely got implemented since developers develop games based on what OS people are using, and MS rarely makes any real reason to upgrade an OS.

[IamTylerDurden1]

This isn't a game changer for console gaming it is a minor tweak. A game changer is VR Occulous and Project Morpheus.

The switch to HD gaming was a "game changer".

Blu-ray is a game changer.

Online gaming is a game changer.

I don't believe dx12 will get these multiplat games to 1080p. It'll do something but not anything significant.

Marlinfan - why don't we see more articles on how amazing Morpheus will be? Why constant rhetoric and propaganda about dx12 it gets annoying when fresh articles get passed over for the same dx12 nonsense. U can feel good about dx12 but i feel like if u were truly satisfied w/the performance of your xbone u wouldn't need to boast so loudly about dx12 u would be happy and would feel no need to over compensate.

Many xboners champion dx12 like it is a piece of hardware that will make the xbone more powerful than PS4, that is annoying and the problem is that many naive ppl are easily influenced and run with this information as fact. Sad that dx12 articles dominate these sites instead of new interesting ones on new games ect - like i bet very few ppl knew that an innovative beautiful game call Wander is coming out june 4, articles like these block interesting ones.

[3ndulg3]

If thats the case stay out of xbox articles.

[Lennoxb63]

I find it hard to believe that the X1 getting improvements is hard to believe for some people. Every Xbox ever created was built around the DX of that time. So why is DX12 different? And last I checked, PC gamers were just bashing MS relentlessly just a couple of months ago. So why are they taking up arms around DX now? Us reasonable Xbox fans know that its not going to turn it into a high end PC. That's what people like to say we say. When really its the stealth trollers and Sony fanboys (not Sony fans) who say it.

No. We're just looking forward to any improvements that it will bring.

[RiseofScorpio]

Well said.

[edqe]

I hope DX12 is not going anywhere but game developers would start to use Vulkan instead. It definitely can't beat DX12 hype/PR ...

[edqe]

*ups* ... Vulkan doesn't seem to be too popular here. Unfortunately people doesn't tell why they prefer proprietary one company technology over open cross-platform technology.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

[rainslacker]

Vulkan is just a graphics API, whereas DX12 is more inclusive of everything required for a game. With Vulkan, many other API's have to be licensed to make a game, although parts of DX12 often get used for the task for Windows games. Vulkan will likely be less supported by PC hardware manufacturers as well, so the chance that it see's a dramatic uptake in use is rather limited.

For the most part, Vulkan, as it was with OpenGL, will be the way to go for things outside of MS platforms, but PC games in general are built for Windows, so DX12 is likely going to be the go-to choice since DX will have the most support hardware wise.

[edqe]

> Vulkan is just a graphics API, whereas DX12 is more
> inclusive of everything required for a game.

That's right but I guess that's why Valve is pushing SDL forward.

> Vulkan will likely be less supported by PC hardware
> manufacturers as well

Hmmh, why is that?

PC gaming is changing. It is not only about Windows anymore.

[rainslacker]

"That's right but I guess that's why Valve is pushing SDL forward."

Indeed it is. It's nothing new really that OpenGL is just a graphics API. It's always been just that. DX12 is simply more inclusive to all the parts of a game. There are tons of 3rd party tools out there which accomidate the lack of some things that aren't within OpenGL. Many are free, others are built into the game engines themselves and licensed through that.

"Hmmh, why is that? "

Just based on history. DX12 will be the first out of the gate, and MS is being really aggressive with getting windows 10 a user base by making it a free upgrade. For gaming, many people are going to move onto Win10 just because developers are going to adopt DX12 faster than they adopted older versions of DX because the API won't have to wait for people to upgrade due to MS forced upgrade policy in the past.

My assumption is that while there are changes happening in PC gaming, no matter how much Steam, or whoever, may be pushing for alternatives, Windows is still going to have the majority of market share when it comes to gaming PC's. It actually pains me to say that, as I don't like MS stranglehold on the PC market, but I can't imagine that PC gaming is going to get to a place that renders Windows unnecessary.

[hello12]

Dx12 games will be better than DX11 games we know that much. A modest gain is better than nothing.

Dx12 does not mean 1080p 60 frames- the CPU and GPU are still the same. Devs will have new techniques to get the most out of the hardware present.
PS4 afterall is more powerful than x box one but devs still struggle to get its first party games to 1080p 60frames.

What is likely to be seen when DX12 games for x box one come out is the frame rates don't fluctuate as much.

DX12 games will have more enemies richer world.

Dx12 1080P games is lot harder to do the API doesn't suddenly fix that, but according to Brad Wardel Microsoft has a new Esram pix coming with Dx12 hopefully solve the 1080p issue.

Project car dev
"Let me be clear guys.

30-40% is on PC where the lack of multithreading ability in DX11 restricted us most. "

Fine that cleared up but he did say there was about 7% increase going from Dx11 to Dx12 on x box one. To get any increase at all is good for x box one when the game was not developed for the DX12 Api in the first place.

PC gains are really good 30 to 40% DX11 patched to DX12

[TheGreatGamer]

You deserve more bubbles, couldn't have put it better myself. The resolution differences have been getting smaller and smaller since launch without dx12 and modest gains are better than no gains

[MCTJim]

I love how people keep saying MS is PR'ing DX12 performance on the X1. They have indeed not said it will give this or that...

Didn't Brad Wardell the biggest touter of say DX12 say MS is quiet on the gains it will give the X1 because they don't have anything to compare it to performance wise?

http://n4g.com/news/1713510...

[corroios]

After two years same still dont understand that dx12 is a tool to take best of the machine. Dx12 will help getting the max of 1.30 teraflops of the xbox one it isnt nitro . The specs dont change. But when people talk pc with so much raw power untaped! Pc with 3, 4, 5 teraflops its diferent.

If some are waiting games to jump from 900/30 to 1080/60 on the xbox one...

[JJShredder]

For real, getting so tired of all of this. BOTH systems will see graphical improvements through their life-cycles and there will forever remain that gap as the hardware is not changing.

Most games today can't seems to release without a slew of issues (mostly graphical) anyways. Even if they are improved as a result of DirectX or Vulcan or ICE team or whatever the catchy names are these days, we won't even be able to enjoy it for months.

[AlphaBlackWolf96]

At E3 when Forza 6 is revealed we will see what DX12 can really do for Xbox.

[rainslacker]

Yeah, because MS always shows in game footage for Forza in it's reveals.

[AlphaBlackWolf96]

I'm pretty sure that was sarcasm. Nonetheless, they always have Forza on the show floor to play.

[rainslacker]

It was sarcasm.:) And yeah, they show it on the floor, but no one believes those bull-shot trailers are rendered in real time on the system while the entirety of the game logic is also running.

I've yet to see a console racing game trailer that had the same level of graphics and detail that are shown in trailers, no matter who it's from. It doesn't make them ugly games by any means, just that the trailer won't be indicative of what DX12 can do.

[343_Guilty_Spark]

Ian Bell clarified his statement saying that the 30-40% across the board performance boost would be For PC. Had it been for Xbox One, the performance of Project Cars would have exceeded the PS4 version. This seemed to scare quite a few individuals on the board, although I am not sure why. I love gaming and want to see everything improve, so that 30-40% boost for PC gamers is fantastic.

Now, let's move on to what he did say regarding Xbox One. He said around a 7% across the board performance boost for Xbox One. Now before you say that's nothing think about this: Before the Xbox One got the 10% kinect reserve lifted most games were 720p. That's 2x less pixels than 1080p and and over 56% less of the pixels required for 900p. Now it stands to reason if a 10% boost can increase resolution between 56-100% while Maintaining a standard of 30fps; that a 7% boost would be capable of bumping the Xbox One to parity with the PS4 version (1080p is only 44% more pixels than 900p ).

Anyway my point is the Xbox One doesn't really need a drastic boost to match the PS4 performance. It is already close. These different versions of the game are not worlds apart. Once the Xbox One gets the API it was designed around it will get closer to parity with the PS4. The whole DX12 API is designed to get much more out of the same hardware so again I'm confused why an improving Xbox One seems to bother people.

Let's all chill out and Love games not plastic boxes!!

[rainslacker]

Graphics aren't anywhere near that linear to be able to say that a 7-10% boost will equate to doubling the resolution. When you double the resolution, you also double the number of pixels that have to have effects applied to every single pixel in that render, and doubling that would take doubling the performance of it's current iteration.

No matter how much of a godsend DX12 may be, it cannot force the hardware to perform more pixel effects on those pixels than it can currently, and those things are already handled within the GPU core without the need for the API outside of getting the data to the GPU itself.

Anyhow, if you want to take it in a linear fashion, how does 10% of 900p = 1080p. Seems that 10% increase over 900p comes out to 990p, which isn't a standard resolution. This does't even take into account the horizontal resolution which anywhere between 50-200% more depending on if you're talking about 720p or 900p.

Please explain how a 10% boost in performance equates to doubling resolution performance using math that actually works out in some way. I tried everything I could imagine, even taking out the pixel effect factor, and still couldn't make the numbers work. How do you get a well said for having absolutely no factual information whatsoever outside of your first paragraph which was just a quote.

[Wii_nes_007]

PC yes Xbox no.

[DougLord]

People getting caught up over the fps increase DX12 will bring are making the same mistake as people debating 900p upscaled vs 1080p native. DX12 is not going to make any existing games run better - not by any noticeable amount. It's already been said by Project Cars that a DX12 patch would maybe give you 7% boost = 2 or 3 fps.

DX12 is about enabling developers to do things they couldn't before. If you have a scene with 1 million draw calls it would run at 1fps, so you limited the polygon complexity of models, the number of things on screen and the number of lighting sources. Now you no longer have that constraint. So you end up with more complex gfx, but you still might be at 900p being up scaled to 1080p.

[343_Guilty_Spark]

Where did he say 7% across the board performance equals 2-3 fps, because I can't find a quote for that anywhere.

[jmc8888]

A 7 percent increase of a game running at 30 FPS = ~2.1 FPS gain.

A 7 percent increase of a game running at 60 FPS = ~4.2 FPS gain.

The gains will be a bit more with a game designed around it because in certain situations you will have better efficiency, allowing more and better assets without the same cost it had under DX11. Though it's up to the developer whether they'd like to use that extra complexity option, which then in turns impacts a game's performance based on what they are making it do.

So in essence there will be no boost to a game not yet created, because the game will be created around the new limitations, and thus you'll have better quality/quantity of assets while trying to hit 30 or 60 FPS. So if you are budgeting X for a certain section, you'll now be able to have more/better assets and still utilize that same amount of power.

It's just if you compare it to games that are currently almost finished or already made, given that static constraint because the assets are already decided upon and all that, it will give you a 7 percent gain on Xbox and 30-40 percent on PC.

There's a article up that talks about the 7 percent gain on Xbox One for Project Cars. That's a good ballpark figure for this sort of situation, you'll see a bigger impact on newer games, but mostly in quality/quantity of assets, though it might be possible for some devs to simply reduce the overhead by keeping the same quantity/quality of assets and utilize the savings on a few extra FPS.

http://n4g.com/news/1733331...

[rainslacker]

Just a point of note, polygon complexity doesnt' really have much to do with draw calls, as a single model will be sent to the GPU as a single draw call. A model is just an object to the GPU, and a draw call is just how many times a GPU has to reference an object, whether polygon, texture, shader, etc.

Otherwise, you are kind of right about draw calls in how DX12 can improve on them. Most of this limitation was removed last gen using batched calls, which significantly reduce the number of draw calls by the thousands in some cases, as groups of objects are sent to the GPU as a single object using pointers to isolate them within the GPU itself. Removing the batching process however will improve on performance, as it's one less step to take in the pre-render subroutine. The actual improvement will depend on the engine and the way the graphics routines are built more than it will depend on the API used to push those objects.

Internally to the GPU I don't think it will make a huge difference either way, as all those objects still have to have a pointer for the GPU to reference no matter how many objects are sent to the GPU either virtually or physically.

[parentsbasement]

So , it gets better... it improves...no one knows how much or how little , only that , it gets better...that sure seams like a win to me but alas , I know where im at , lets beat it into the ground...calm your fear, PS will still be the " once in a lifetime massive beast of a console that will never have an equal "

[iTechHeads]

no

[jhoward585]

Numbers don't lie. PC and x1 were getting higher number of draw calls with DX12.

The high number of draw calls were about the same number of draw calls you see in CGI movies according to MS. I know I know MS have twisted things in the past so I don't blame you for not believing them. Whether MS has been blowing smoke out of their asre I see some things that are true.

Like for instance. The blue ogre does look like a rendered characters from a pixar movie. That was visually noticeable to me at first glace. I have never seen anything so life like before in a video game.

All I have to say MS has a lot to prove at e3. can't wait.