Info MICROSOFT porting DX12 Games to Windows 7 OS ? **New Info*

[Metal Messiah.]

Hello @-all,

MICROSOFT just posted a blog. And it looks like DX12 Games are coming to older OSs as well, including Windows 7 OS ? Till now, only Windows 10 OS was the supported OS for this API.

But will it make any difference ? I don't think so. Your thoughts ?

Earlier this year, Microsoft announced that they had successfully ported DirectX 12 to Windows 7, enabling the performance benefits of the new API to be accessible to a larger number of Windows users. This feature was first used with World of Warcraft, enabling the game to run better on most Windows-powered systems thanks to DirectX 12's multi-threading enhancements.

Now, Microsoft is making it easier to run their DirectX 12 titles on Windows 7, creating a "Development Guidance Document" as well as other useful development resources. Microsoft hopes that this will allow developers to bring the benefits of DirectX 12 to more of their customers, while also increasing the API's adoption by both gamers and game developers.

One thing to note is that Microsoft expects DirectX 12 games to run best on Windows 10, having previously stated that their new OS includes "critical OS improvements" that allow the OS to make better use of the low-level API. Even so, enabling DirectX 12 support over a wider range of OS' cannot be seen as anything other than a positive move for Microsoft.

The BLOG can be found here:

Porting DirectX 12 games to Windows 7 | DirectX Developer Blog

We publish binaries and documents to allow game developers to run their DirectX 12 games on Windows 7.

devblogs.microsoft.com

 

[BFG-9000]

This came out back in March. It requires custom DX12 libraries in the game directory so it's not like a global DX12.

Given the (extremely short) list of games so far since then, it's pretty obvious this only happened because those game developers wanted it specifically because gaming cafes in China are all running Windows 7--and will continue to do so even after that goes EOL in just 5 months from now.

 

[Metal Messiah.]

Yes obviously, we need to use the binaries on Windows 7 OS. I will try that sample and see whether it works properly or not ! The document is a bit confusing.

D3D12 on Windows 7 is quite different to D3D12 on Windows 10.

To use D3D12 on Windows 10, all you need to do is link to D3D12.lib and you're on your way. But D3D12 doesn't exist on Windows 7 in such a way that you can do that. Instead, apps that want to use D3D12 on Windows 7 need to redistribute the D3D12.dll file, along with supporting binaries.

Then, at runtime, you'll need to be explicit about which D3D12.dll you are going to use, either the one bundled with your app, or the one that comes from the OS.

 

[Metal Messiah.]

How to run that SAMPLE ? It keeps on closing back, the Direct3D12 runtime for Windows 7 ?