Will DirectX 12 Come to Windows 7?

[Gurg]

This is the problem with the monopolist Microsoft. The company needs to be busted up.

 

[r0llinlacs]

There is no question to ask, the answer is no. You don't need to blame greed or laziness either. All you need to do is look at the end of feature support for Windows 7. Does it end before DX12 releases? Yes. What does that mean? No DX12 for Windows 7.

It is as simple as that, it is an old operating system. Microsoft gives the same period of time for feature support on all their OSs, and they are insanely liberal with said feature support (where it is 100% nonexistant in other commercial OSs) and even more liberal with security support which extends several years or even a decade after feature support ends.

There is no underhanded meaning behind the move, that is how development works.

That's how planned obsolescence works. There is no reason to stop supporting 7, other than they don't want to.

 

[1GroovyCoder]

It would be silly of them to expend resources on a platform that will be more than 2 releases old. Sure some people would like that, but from business perspective it doesn't make any sense, they save money on developments and potentially get some converts.

 

[r0llinlacs]

It would be silly of them to expend resources on a platform that will be more than 2 releases old. Sure some people would like that, but from business perspective it doesn't make any sense. People who want the best gaming experience will get Windows 10 anyway, and the ones who will stick to Win7 are office users who simply need the basics.

As if Microsoft doesn't have enough money already?

 

[yumri]

It would be silly of them to expend resources on a platform that will be more than 2 releases old. Sure some people would like that, but from business perspective it doesn't make any sense. People who want the best gaming experience will get Windows 10 anyway, and the ones who will stick to Win7 are office users who simply need the basics.

As if Microsoft doesn't have enough money already?

yes Microsoft has enough money already but if you look at it they are basicly doing what most other devlopment companies do includeing apple which is after a few newer releases they drop support for the old one in favor of the newer ones getting more attention.
Windows 8 was a total flop from the get go by the design idea of " 1 operating system for everything " which did not really go over to well with anybody as they made it very much for the tablet and not so much for the desktop to which now windows 10 is more for the desktop looking very much like a KDE shell of Linux and acting like it too um besides how the start button works as it works like in windows 7 instead of something that would be windows only.
DX12 is a preformance upgrade not a visual upgrade also so to those who actually "Upgrade to windows 10" they will see no differnece in how DX12 games work compared to DX11 and DX9 games.
for the ppl who are saying that DX12 is alike to mantle and might get crushed by Mantle or replace Mantle do not see that Mantle is the reason why DX12 exsists as MS had to make something better than DX11 to compete and now that they actually have a competitor who has a reliable base of devlopers Mantle and DX12 will hopefully progress better than DX, OpenGL and glide did glide being crushed under OpenGL and OpenGL competeing with DX for market space.
DX11 was also mainly just a improvement over DX10 in preformance.
what i am curious about is will DX12 have backwards compatiablity or will you have to install both DX11.2 and DX12 on the same machine?

 

[Rahbot]

I tried using windows 8.1 64bit the other day (Nov 15 2014), all I did was have problems, first I couldn't take control of my other hard drives in my system, after I did which took about 2 hours to do so, my mouse would not map actions in-game, third after all of that I had to sign in all the time after starting my computer or when it would go to sleep or shut down my monitor, I couldn't remove the sign in screen at all. Boot time was twice as long than Windows 7 64. Hinse I went back to Win 7 64bit. I will never buy or support Win 8/8.1 due to problems that still are in it. Also before I re-installed Windows 7 64bit, I updated over 50 updates and it still didn't help any. Also where is start menu in windows 8? I know there isn't unless you download a patch or program to make one. Also games in Win 8.1 seemed to run not as smooth, and were more choppy and unplayable.

Now I know that a 8 core system with 16Gb of Ram and a WD Black 500Gb with a Nvidia GTX 770 SE should run better in win 8 but it ran worst, than Win 7.

That exp is putting more of bad taste in my mouth with Microsoft. I really am looking forward to Win 9 (10) next year. I really hope that DX12 comes to Win7. So I that I don't have to waste money on another OS that is a piece of crap worth nothing but torrenting for free in the first place. Or better yet Microsoft should just give it away.

 

[Alsone]

All it will do is just stop even more people gaming on PC's.

People don't like tiles on desktops, that much should be obvious by now as should be the fact that people want the full desktop found in Win 7, not some cut down version and many people also like the video desktop from Vista.

Personally, unless I see a major change in MS's attitude, I'll be on a MAC when the lifetime of my Win 7 expires.

 

[Spyd]

I Guess MS will launch DX12 exclusive to Windows 10 and 8.1, and after some time will be released for Windows 8 and Windows 7.
Just a little scare to get some to jump boat to their new OS. They did the same with Internet Explorer 10; at first it was Windows 8 exclusive, now you can even have IE11 on Windows 7.

 

[Belardo]

Spyd: Either they will release DX12 for Win7 or they won't. Considering how MS dumped support for Win8.0... they're going to do the same for Win7 and 8.1 users. Hey, remember when MS releases DX10 for XP? Oh yeah, they never did.

@ta152h : Windows 8.x doesn't run games any faster than Windows 7. The performance difference is 1% give or take. ie: If you're getting 100fps in Windows 8, you're not going to notice the 99fps in Windows 7.

Bloat? Metro-boated on UI is bloat. The MS store for apps and wares is bloat.

 

[Danifilth]

If MS is so arrogant and greedy that they won't release dx 12 onto win 7 then AMD has an opportunity to provide close to the metal API with mantle on Vista, win 7, win 8, linux, and steam os.

But AMD's Mantle API only works with AMD cards. Doesn't that make them just as greedy and arrogant as Microsoft?

Is for amd cards right now but once its complete it will be released to anyone to use in their games or cards nvidia intel and such. Well last time i heard that is something about Open Source

 

[chicofehr]

DX12 is not as big as DX11 from DX9 was. Its just DX11 with some optimizations. Not enough to make me upgrade.

 

[tseska69]

If MS is so arrogant and greedy that they won't release dx 12 onto win 7 then AMD has an opportunity to provide close to the metal API with mantle on Vista, win 7, win 8, linux, and steam os.

But AMD's Mantle API only works with AMD cards. Doesn't that make them just as greedy and arrogant as Microsoft?

Is for amd cards right now but once its complete it will be released to anyone to use in their games or cards nvidia intel and such. Well last time i heard that is something about Open Source

Interesting. Last I read, I thought, was that it would AMD only. Good for them if it is open source at some point.

 

[Belardo]

@johnnyb105:
Vista will never be on par with Windows7. Its memory defect will always be there. It added no real UI usage enhancements over XP. (Vista is more a skin job).

 

[Gurg]

It would be silly of them to expend resources on a platform that will be more than 2 releases old. Sure some people would like that, but from business perspective it doesn't make any sense, they save money on developments and potentially get some converts.

For an "old" operating system around 30% of the laptops/netbooks for sale with Windows at Microcenter still feature W7. 62% of the desktops still feature W7. If anything MS should stop supporting the failed wacko W8 versions.

 

[4745454b]

People keep saying they never released DX10 for XP, but they never said they would. There is a technical reason why. To complain otherwise shows a lack of understanding hardware. The driver support just isn't there. You can emulate 98 on a phone all you want, but that doesn't give you hardware acceleration.

 

[albundyhere]

i take amd's advice with a grain of salt. i have deep resentment towards the company that has given up on their desktop cpu line and focused on apu's with antiquated motherboard chipsets. there is no roadmap that shows any improved chipsets. its all the old ddr3 tech, with probably no m.2 slots and no sata express. and because of this resentment, i will be only purchasing nvidia cards.

 

[Belardo]

@4745454b : Uh... as you kind of just said "hardware / the driver support isn't there" - Uh, its a driver issue... MS could have made DX10 for Windows XP... as the driver only needs to talk to the HARDWARE. Nothing in the world kept. MS from doing it, other than to force people to buy their crappy Vista OS - which bombed.... just like Win8.

@Albundyhere (You that old?): Until Core2 came out - AMD was the CPU/chipset to get... They were making deep inroads into PC market share. Had Dell not screwed AMD (with intel's help) - they would have sold many many more PCs. Also, just before Core2 - if you walked into Office Depot / etc - 9 out of 10 desktops had AMD CPUs. The Pentium 4 was crap compared to AMD. It ran hot, it ran high (clock rate) and cost out the nose. Even the $1000 3.8Ghz Pentium Extreme would get its ass handed to it by the $200 AMD at 2.2Ghz. Intel was planning to push Netburst to 10Ghz! That is the only way it works. Intel screwed people with the first P4s as they were not pin compatible with the ones less than a year later. (Socket 423 vs Socket 478).. intel promoted "buy the P4 now - to invest in the future" - of course, there were NO future for Socket 423 users. And of course YOU had to use the super expensive RD-RAM (vs. DDR or SDR). In the end, P4 users had exotic cooling to keep from having a meltdown.

Then Intel took their Core1 design, updated it to dual core (note: Core2 CPUs look like AMD) - and not only did intel punch AMD in the balls with better performance... they kicked them repeatedly in the balls on the ground with pricing!

Now, take into account that Intel is a much much larger company than AMD. They had the marketing muscle that AMD never had, never will. So AMD was starting to hit 50% of PC sales **WITH NO blueman group marketing!** (PC sales, not market share). When AMD started losing sales to Core2, it wiped out their profits. Sure, spending millions on ATI didn't help, but ATI today helped keep AMD in business.

It takes tons of money to design, developer, test and produce CPU and GPU technology. AMD doesn't have deep pockets to spend on design as intel does. They are not on equal footing... so give AMD a break in that regard.

The AMD X2 CPUs were quite old... it would be over a year before Phenom came out... but AMD did do a good job with both chipsets and CPU design... it wasn't much better than 939 CPUs. Phenom2 did catch up to Core2 performance... but by then, Intel was shipping the first iX series (i3/i5/i7). Also, to attempt to compete with Core i5, AMD releases the 4X4 setup! It was a 2 FX CPUs on a board to support cross fire. It was easily about $1000 for the CPUs+board... which were still sub-par to the $250 i5.

There are two things at play here. The top end, which hard-core people buy, the low-end which MOST people buy based on the performance of the high end. IE: "Intel CPUs are faster" - but buy a Celeron... thinking its FASTER than some AMDs. Today, "pentium" is now the bottom end.

Now, a few years ago - AMD CPU division does some very very STUPID things... from that point, I had given up on AMD and have been building and selling Intel systems (usually higher end) and use AMD GPUs. First, AMD split their socket lines AM3 and FM1. The FM(A-series) chips were incompatible with AM3 boards, but had GPUs built into them (better than intel's i5) and FM boards had native USB3 back then... while AM3+ still doesn't - today... hell, none of the AMD FX/AM systems support PCIe 3.0, just the recently released FM2+ - which isn't compatible with FM2 cpus, etc etc.. is a mess!

AMD should have retired Socket AM a long long time ago. They should have streamlined their line to FM1 (which has incompatibilities with FM2 which had Zero advantages over FM1) and have a few "upgrade" CPUs for AM2 users... because the AMD gamers became intel gamers.

My 2 year old intel system has PCIe 3.0

And then brought back the FX for the high end AM3+ board and called them "8 core and 6 core" CPUs.

These "8 core" CPUs were sometimes SLOWER than the older quad-core AMD's they were supposed to replace! Why? Because AMD took a page from intel and made their own "netburst" CPUs! So, they run fast (clock rate) run high voltage (125w) and hot! Meanwhile, many of intel's CPUs jog along at 65~85w. I don't care what AMD says... they are calling 4 / 3 /2 core CPUS as "8 / 6 / 4" core models... their performance and pricing shows this. This may piss-off AMD fanboys, but the performance shows this problem. You cant get the best AMD cpu with their latest motherboard tech.

And with the mess of AM3+ / FM2+ and under-performing mix of CPUs and no clear upgrade path... its so very very difficult to go with AMD.

You can buy a good Gigabyte intel board for $65 and up and start with a $50 CPU and build up from there. You'll know you're getting a modern setup with some upgrade path... until the iX-6 series.

 

[4745454b]

But the drivers run in a different space on XP vs Vista and newer. (A different ring actually.) XP would have needed to be completely redone to work in that manor. You could emulate it, but that won't give you hardware acceleration/support. Which is needed for drivers. Look up the differences between where the drivers run in XP vs Vista. (OS vs user ring/level.)

 

[rainvie1]

(Opinion) Vista came out 6 years after XP, and many people didn't bother to get it at all. Win 8 came out only 3 years after Win 7. Seems kinda silly to ask if we're still using 7 when there's no reason to upgrade... not releasing DX12 for Win7 would be shooting themselves in the foot. *shrug*

 

[MidnightDistort]

What kind of gamer is still using Windows 7 anyway? I could see using it for businesses and such, but since you can get extra performance from Windows 8.1, and gamers need every last bit of performance, Windows 7 isn't the best choice for gaming anyway.

Really, Microsoft deserves the black eye for their high-handed approach to making everyone use a tablet OS on a desktop with Windows 8, but Windows 8.1 is just better than Windows 7. I have both, and can dual boot, and I never go to Windows 7. It's obsolete, and crude by comparison, after you set up Windows 8.1 so it works how you want. But, thank goodness for the uproar, or we'd still be booting into that idiotic metro screen.

Even so, forget DX12 for Windows 7. The OS is completely obsolete and bloated. They've already said they'll be supporting Windows 8.1, although I'd prefer they just forget that because Windows 10 will be a free upgrade, and will fix the lingering interface issues with Windows 8.1 (the idiotic charms, and the right click start button), while presumably improving performance even more. Why bother supporting either?

Of course, Mantle will support all of the OS varieties, so it always an option on the people who cling to the decadent Windows 7 OS.

Most gamers i know are still on W7 because they know W8 is not faster than W7. Less resources are used in W8 which is minimal at best. You don't gain a whole lot of performance from W8, it doesn't make much of a difference which OS you use, the hardware you use is what really matters. You could still game on Vista and get similar performance. If you really want better gaming performance, game devs should be looking towards Linux, since it's more efficient and does not eat up resources. With some upgraded code in Linux gaming would be far better but considering we're still on Windows performance will always be limiting. It's not going to matter if you use W7, W8 or W10 other than the DX which will find it's way on W7 whether or not MS wants it on there. If you found W7 to be too slow or outdated there was something wrong with your installation, lack of preventive maintenance or you need new PC hardware. I don't have a problem with W7 and it's the same speed as W8 is. No discernible differences other than maybe boot times which doesn't make any difference, i usually fire up W7 first thing when i walk in the door and do some things while it's booting up. So you're basically spending money on an OS so you can turn your PC on faster and maybe get an extra 0.05fps? All that when you could have spent that money on a new GPU and gained better visuals.

I cling onto W7 because W8 hasn't offered me anything W7 couldn't already accomplish. Other than a few small tweaks W8 has and a better task manager i get the same performance. Oh, and also my PC was built with 2011 parts, even my older 08' dual core (upgraded from single core) PC handles W7 well, maybe not good enough for gaming other then XP or older. W8 had a minor difference in speed on the '08 PC but my home built PC doesn't care what OS is on it, it boots and plays my games with no problems at all with W7.

 

[Wo Ow]

How about games players are slowly migrate to Android, ChromeOS, iOS, OSx? All those OSs upgrade for free and with longer lifespans whine windowOS is still continuing decades old practice to con users with half done OS patch 10% then force users upgrade to another 40% complete package on new version title.

 

[Toddskins]

I just built a 4790k machine 4 months ago and elected to buy Win 7 Pro 64-bit on Ebay even though 8.1 has been out for some time. Why? I LOVE the entire Win 7 format. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Period.

Regardless of MS supporting Win 7 into the future or not, Avast AV and Malwarebyte companies continue to support older OS's (i.e. XP), and people are still productive and love their existing setups.

With regard to DirectX 12, and MS not supporting Win 7, that kind of news will help AMD a lot. I think Mantle will gain more traction and be a very real consideration for people like me when I get ready to buy a new Video card (which I have not bought yet).

However one thinks about Windows 10, it's becoming more and more evident that MS has made so many enemies in its past, and is likely to continue doing so, that they can be unseated eventually. Not bringing out DirectX 12 for Windows 7 users, pronto, is just another nail in their coffin.

People are not dogs. They have options.

 

[Stardance]

Microsoft continues its policy of catering to their "strategic partner" hardware OEMs by endeavoring to force everyone to buy a new computer every three years in order to "upgrade" the Windoze operating system. I don't know about you, but I have never either bought or built a computer because I wanted to use Windows or any other specific OS. (It's the applications, stupid!)

 

[Danifilth]

What kind of gamer is still using Windows 7 anyway? I could see using it for businesses and such, but since you can get extra performance from Windows 8.1, and gamers need every last bit of performance, Windows 7 isn't the best choice for gaming anyway.

Really, Microsoft deserves the black eye for their high-handed approach to making everyone use a tablet OS on a desktop with Windows 8, but Windows 8.1 is just better than Windows 7. I have both, and can dual boot, and I never go to Windows 7. It's obsolete, and crude by comparison, after you set up Windows 8.1 so it works how you want. But, thank goodness for the uproar, or we'd still be booting into that idiotic metro screen.

Even so, forget DX12 for Windows 7. The OS is completely obsolete and bloated. They've already said they'll be supporting Windows 8.1, although I'd prefer they just forget that because Windows 10 will be a free upgrade, and will fix the lingering interface issues with Windows 8.1 (the idiotic charms, and the right click start button), while presumably improving performance even more. Why bother supporting either?

Of course, Mantle will support all of the OS varieties, so it always an option on the people who cling to the decadent Windows 7 OS.

Most gamers i know are still on W7 because they know W8 is not faster than W7. Less resources are used in W8 which is minimal at best. You don't gain a whole lot of performance from W8, it doesn't make much of a difference which OS you use, the hardware you use is what really matters. You could still game on Vista and get similar performance. If you really want better gaming performance, game devs should be looking towards Linux, since it's more efficient and does not eat up resources. With some upgraded code in Linux gaming would be far better but considering we're still on Windows performance will always be limiting. It's not going to matter if you use W7, W8 or W10 other than the DX which will find it's way on W7 whether or not MS wants it on there. If you found W7 to be too slow or outdated there was something wrong with your installation, lack of preventive maintenance or you need new PC hardware. I don't have a problem with W7 and it's the same speed as W8 is. No discernible differences other than maybe boot times which doesn't make any difference, i usually fire up W7 first thing when i walk in the door and do some things while it's booting up. So you're basically spending money on an OS so you can turn your PC on faster and maybe get an extra 0.05fps? All that when you could have spent that money on a new GPU and gained better visuals.

I cling onto W7 because W8 hasn't offered me anything W7 couldn't already accomplish. Other than a few small tweaks W8 has and a better task manager i get the same performance. Oh, and also my PC was built with 2011 parts, even my older 08' dual core (upgraded from single core) PC handles W7 well, maybe not good enough for gaming other then XP or older. W8 had a minor difference in speed on the '08 PC but my home built PC doesn't care what OS is on it, it boots and plays my games with no problems at all with W7.

I made a mistake buying windows 8.1 so i can boot to desktop in 4 seconds on my seagate 2TB hard drive UEFI GPT. With windows 7 it only took 14 seconds without UEFI and i usually take off my belt to let my beer belly out. By the time i put my belt away im already to the desktop. But the performance is the same and only difference is it has better core parking power reservation in a smarter way.

 

[xHDx]

I don't understand the rant about Windows 8/8.1. There is nothing wrong with it at all. Used it for about 3 days and I instantly loved it. Nice FPS boost, depending on your configuration. I recieved a 30fps boost on one game which I play regularly, which was great.

From that, I don't really understand why people are looking forward to Windows 10. Mainly, because it's pretty similar to Windows 8/8.1 The theme of new Windows is still there, yet people are somehow instantly attracted to it with a different name. Not sure why. And no, I don't really count, not having a start menu as an excuse, because you can access everything just as fast using the charm. As wella s the file explorer actually being used now, because let's be honest, it wasn't used very much at all. The Start Menu was there in place of it. Not 100% of the time, but nearly every time when you wanted to access something.

I think the main problem is word of mouth with Microsoft being a huge company. We all know why they are, what they make. Once someone says "This OS is bad", then everything instantly takes the same opinion as fact. I find it amusing. I'm loving Win8.1 and I'm never going to switch back, because Win7 was worse as a whole in comparison.

8/8.1 is better for gaming too.