Here Is The Forza 5 Tech Demo Running On PC In DirectX 12, Powered By Nvidia's GTX Titan Black

Microsoft and Turn 10 Studios showcased earlier today a tech demo of Forza 5 running on the PC via its new API, DirectX 12. Well, time to take a look at what was shown. YouTube's channel 'Bright Side Network' has uploaded the video showing off Forza 5 running with constant 60fps at 1080p on the PC.

[Reverie990]

That's good and all, but what about showing it running on the machine it's actually available on?

[Manic2014]

It's an example of how the game can be ported easily within a month by a four man team with DX12.

[2pacalypsenow]

the games are made on PC for xbox 1 , the only porting is the PC>XB1

[abstractel]

@2pacalypsenow That's not quite how console development works. A lot of people seem to believe that developers develop on off the shelf PCs with similar specs and that was the case before the final devkits were available and there's some truth to it -- but it's not telling the whole story.

With console devkits you are using low level API libraries completely customized for that console, which is why console exclusives always look better than console multiplatform (and games like Titanfall appear in that category too since it's only multiplatforms).

This is why Ryse, Killzone and Second Son are the best looking games out -- and really even though they are early gen titles they rival the best PC has to offer because of this low level access (and other economic factors like needing to run on lower/mid spec PCs). It's not as easy as just turning a couple of features off and on.

Crysis 3 and Battlefield 4 are the only games to rival Ryse, KZ and Second Son. PC will eventually surpass but there are just so many factors to take into account that you can't make a statement like the one you did.

I've mentioned it before, but I've been in this field professionally for 16-17 years, I do know a bit what I am talking about.

[abstractel]

To add some more food for thought, I do believe Xbox One will hit 1080p but it is an inferior machine to the PS4 and no low level API is going to change that as PS4 is constantly updating their libraries as well. Both consoles will get better looking games as time passes but one will remain a bit ahead. Whether you care about that extra "oomph" is up to you. But be aware that more power doesn't just mean better graphics.

[kiz2694]

I wouldnt say it shows it was easy to port, Lets face it, if you need to own a Titan Black to run it (which is like double the price of an X1) It doesnt really show much, if they had it running on a mid range graphics card, that would be impressive, but this just seems pointless becuase its running on one of hte worlds fastest graphics cards.

[DevilOgreFish]

Microsoft - "console like optimizations using DX12."

PC is slowly stripping away the benefits of consoles.

[Muerte2494]

So this is technically the Xbox One E3 demo!? Remember when the pictures showed a PC running Windows 7 and had a GTX ???

[3-4-5]

Forza 5 looks really good.

[MasterCornholio]

They should do an before and after with an Xbox One game.

For example:

Here's Ryse running at 900P at 30FPS with our previous version of DX. Now this is Ryse running at 1080P 60FPS with DX12.

Something like that would be great.

[tudors]

Now your just talking sense mate ;)

[ABizzel1]

DX12 isn't really doing that, it's the fact that the GPU running these demos is 4x more powerful than the GPU in the XBO.

DX12 biggest upgrade is for low powered CPU's which is why some sites are saying it's a Mantle rip off.

[Geoff900]

You aren't going to see much of a difference between the two, what DX12 is all about is lowering the amount of CPU/ and in some cases GPU resources by using a resource table.

For instance you can have a tree change the location, the look of the tree and the colour pallet by using a simple code.

Think of it this way, like NAT (Network Allocation Table), each computer (node), is held in a table with it's address, the switch/router can be configured so that when a certain device comes online UPNP is enabled, or disabled, security features are enabled etc etc.

The same principle is being used here, the GPU can use a table of graphics textures, tiles etc and be told what to use, and where to put them within a level thus lowering the amount of overhead being used.

[Kayant]

I still don't understand why they would chose to show the benefits of a DX12 and it's console-api elements on PC but using the single *most powerful* GPU on PC atm.

That doesn't make sense to me because the Titan is like 6x+ more powerful than the XB1 so they would have already had an easier time porting due to being less constrained power wise. Wouldn't using a mid-tier GPU make sense for this demo.

Or am I missing something here?

Edit -

@wtopez

That makes sense thanks for the explanation.

[wtopez]

I think it was just meant to show how relatively easy it would be to port games from one platform to another with DX12. The fact that a group of only 4 people were able to port a chunk of Forza 5 onto a different system that has a completely different hardware set (even from different manufacturers) and that it ran stable is certainly promising.

The use of a Titan Black was probably to power through the lack of optimization a port like that would have, seeing that it was made in such a short time.

[Geoff900]

Well most developers use more powerful GPU's, than what is available in PC market, or in consoles.

Debugging, testing, the SDK etc all have to be held in memory, and need to be fast enough to process the data.

Also this was to show how easily it was to optimize a game for DX.

[jhoward585]

I agree. I want to see what DX12 can really do.Porting Foza from DX11 to DX12 and runing it on Nvidia's GTX Titan GPU doesn't mean a thing.

The coding language are very similar from one DX api to the next. DX9, DX10, DX11,DX12.

EX.Xbox was running a modified version of DirectX 8.1 and 9 came out in 2002. Xbox 360 used a modified version of DirectX 9 and DirectX 10 came out in 2006. So, it's not that surprising.

[JBSleek]

It means alot. This demo really has gone over your head. It was to show how porting can be done easily it wasn't shown to show the power of this API or at least this demo wasn't.

[jhoward585]

@JBSleek

What you fail to relize is that the x1 hardware was speciaclly design to run on DX11 api, not DX12.

So DX12 can't be the full version. Its possible that MS modified DX11 and called it DX12 just like theyve done in the past. Its just that simple. Porting it over to PC is nothing new.

The API need to be created before the hardware in order to get the fullness of GPU/CPU. You will never get the fullness doing it the other way around.

[Geoff900]

Xbox uses DirectX 3D a custom subset of whatever DX that is available.

The Xbox 360 used DX3D 9.0, however they did some modifications to the subset that allowed it to use some of the DX3D 10 features.

In this instance, DirectX 12 is a more optimized version of DX11, and the Xbox One is more than capable of utilizing some if not all of it's features.

I think you need to comprehend that hardware is hardware, but with firmware/software it can always be changed, tweaked, updated, modified, and even deleted.

Software is what tells the hardware how to perform tasks, how data is managed, which pipes to go down, etc. You can always make changes to it.

[corvusmd]

Ah, so close...I thought it was gonna be direct feed.

[Aces17]

How can anyone be surprised? EVERYTHING is demoed on PC first.

[pennywhyz]

PC's are Godlike.

[kainslayer]

titan black was runing on a frame limiter probably was hitting 140 fps to 100 fps but they limit the beast to show 60 so xbots would not see the reason to buy pc.......;-p

[gamernova]

Hand over the Xbox exclusives to PC. PC will make em more money, like titanfall did on PC. If Sony wants to throw over some exclusives, we'll throw our money at them too. If they haven't figured it out, a good chunk of PC gamers can afford to buy their games. I've literally never played forza but I'm down for a racing game. Hopefully this dx12 leads to good things on PC and hopefully good things for both consoles. I know odds are that the ps can't benefit but I don't like people being excluded. Non exclusion reduces the hatred on this site and after what Titanfall stirred up, I don't want anyone excluded. No good.

[LexHazard79]

Dont worry I think this gen PC will see more 1st party Xbox games! MS said they plan on supporting PC more! DX12 and games are a good start!

[gamernova]

Hope so man! Good times ahead. It's always a good time to be a gamer :)

[cheapness1]

Surely they could have demoed this with a slightly less high end PC. Forza 5 running at 60fps on a PC with a GTX Titan (can only imagine the other components were high-end as well) bit overkill.

I'm not exactly an expert but seeing as the Xbox One has a PCish architecture and uses DX surely it wouldn't be that hard to port games from Xbox to PC?! Wasn't that the great thing about 360/PC ports?

Not exactly sure what they're showing off...

[oIITSBIIo]

Forza on PC would be nice .

[pennywhyz]

Assetto Corsa is on PC best next gen sim out and nothing on any console will beat it.

[Milruka]

I own it, I also have a lot of sims and a lot of hours in racing games.

AC is pretty boring, replays make the game also seem really slow and the AI is far to aggressive.