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Apparently DirectX 12 won’t be coming to Windows 7

AMD's chief gaming scientist, Richard Huddy, has said that Microsoft's new low-level rendering API, DirectX 12, won't be coming to Windows  7 users. DirectX 12 isn't due out until the end of next year so Microsoft has yet to officially reveal operating system compatibility itself.

The new API is pretty much guaranteed to hit Windows 10, considering that it is releasing after April next year. It is also pretty likely that Microsoft won't alienate Windows 8.1 users. However, it looks like Windows 7 users may finally have a reason to upgrade. In a presentation at PDXLAN this month and uploaded by Sapphire, AMD's Richard Huddy said:

“52 percent of all people who use Microsoft operating systems these days are still using Windows 7, and that number is going up. It's a very very popular operating system and one thing that's not going to happen to it is DX12, DX 12 is not coming to Windows 7”.

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He continues to say “if you want the benefits of a DX12 style API, the way you will go is use your games that are delivered on Mantle”.  The video then goes on to show Huddy state that Mantle and DirectX 12 are not competitors and denounce any sort of conflict between the two.

Microsoft has yet to comment or confirm this statement but considering that the company is desperate for users to upgrade from previous versions of Windows, it wouldn't surprise me if they did try to persuade gamers with DirectX 12 compatibility.

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KitGuru Says: We know a lot of our readers are still using Windows 7, how do you guys feel about this? 

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36 comments

  1. Are people really surprised? We all knew from the start that DX12 would be a 8/10 exclusive. AMD are only mentioning it to try and get more developers on board with mantle, which doesn’t work with Nvidia hardware and only really shows performance increases in CPU bottlenecked systems. I’d rather just wait for DX12 and stick with current hardware than upgrade to a proprietary system which may die off after DX12’s release anyway.

  2. Mantle will work with NV when finished.. AMD said mantle will be layer for all video card when finished

  3. I dont wannt Win8 or 10….

  4. It doesn’t matter that much, and it was pretty much to be expected. Rather than fretting about losing Windows 7 people would do better to get on the Developer Preview of 10 (from which I’m typing now) and give MS lots of feedback so that it ends up being a good OS. I love 7 and hate 8/8.1, and 10 still has annoying features but if we all give them lots of feedback MS should root them out and we’ll be left with a good OS. 7 is bloated and old and she’s served her time, it’s long past time she was retired.

  5. Of course not, Nvidia can use it but only if they want to. But do you really think their shitty greedy attittude will let them?

  6. from what i have seen of windows 10 it actually looks ok. so i’m happy to wait and upgrade to it when it comes out. in any case (as far as gaming is concerned) we will have to wait for game developers to start upgrading to dx12 anyway…which most likely won’t be immediately. plenty of time, peoples 🙂

  7. AMD does not require to have one of their GPUs to use Mantle, unlike everything Nvidia does, Mantle is completely open to use for both Nvidia and Intel. But of course Nvidia will not support it because fuck being pro-consumer.
    Also, Mantle does not only shows performance on CPU bottlenecked systems, I have a pretty powerful i5-4670K overclocked at 3.8 GHz with an R9 290, and the difference in fps is pretty huge in Battlefield 4 between Mantle On/Off.

  8. Well that sucks, but hey I got to mess around in the win10 preview at my friends place and I have to say I like it a lot. It’s just that windows costs is a lot of money. That plus money for a new gpu, I’m not going to be buying anything fancy for awhile.

  9. Except there’s a bigger picture you’re missing. Most gamers are still on Windows 7, by more than a 2:1 margin over Win8 (see Steam HW survey). All this artificial limitation does is holds back graphics, since developers will target DX11 (or even DX9) in order to reach the biggest potential customer base. Had they included Win7 in DX12 support, developers would be able to build games around DX12 much sooner without fear of getting significantly less of an ROI.

    Not sure how “7 is bloated”. Its no more bloated than Win8/10 with all the worthless metro stuff. Granted, in Win10 it can be hidden more, but not uninstalled/removed. FUD elsewhere please.

  10. “AMD said” — LMFAO

  11. AMD has had the option of using Nvidia features like PhysX too. But “do you really think their shitty greedy attitude will let them”?

    Works both ways, kid. Both those companies are guilty of try to get a leg up on the other.

  12. I saw the video and I didn’t really pay any attention to that, about DX12 not coming to 7, because I thought it was natural. Microsoft wouldn’t want a second XP where 10 years later will have to beg and at the same time scare those who use an old OS to upgrade.

    Anyway even if DX12 doesn’t come to 7, it wouldn’t be a problem. I expect AMD and Intel gpus to use Mantle on 7 and Nvidia to use it unofficially by hiding it in their driver without saying it. A second wonder driver.

  13. You are comparing something that it is totally free from royalties with something that deactivates it self if your… neighbor is using AMD hardware.

    You are comparing a company that brings out techs that work in any hardware, with a company that tries to create a proprietary ecosystem where every peace of hardware or software will be own by them.

    You are the kiddo here.

  14. That’s where Mantle saves the day. And it will be fun to watch Nvidia’s excuses when Mantle will be working on Intel hardware as good as it will be working on AMD hardware. Just wait and see.

  15. How the hell could they use PhysX? Lel, they even made it so it can’t be used if there’s any ressemblance of an AMD GPU in the system… “kid”.

  16. On Linus techtips steam someone from Microsoft was saying this is speculation only. Microsoft has not confirmed this at all. Linus read it out live…

  17. Apparently the information contained in this article is not accurate. Clarifications here: http://www.gamespot.com/articles/amd-misspoke-saying-directx-12-won-t-work-with-win/1100-6423617/

  18. It’s always been pretty inefficient, and all of those years of updates and no service packs have really exacerbated the issue. To be honest, I just assumed that everyone knew about the advancements in efficiency MS have made since 7 – significantly less memory usage, faster boot, much more efficient and faster read/write, transfer rates for SSDs in particular, etc. And even in terms of install space Windows 8 only takes 10-12gb default vs 7 which takes up 16gb once you’d deleted hyberfile.sys and the page file, and that’s *with* metro… The list of improvements under the hood is pretty long, and it’s really undeniable that 8 is faster and more efficient to use. It’s just that the UI itself is effectively unusable. I agree that it would be nice to have the option to get rid of the Metro UI on desktops entirely rather than just completely disable it, and that is in fact one of the most popular of the suggestions on the Windows Feedback for 10. I’d like to see them give you the option on install and then bundle it as an optional update afterward.

    I sympathise with gamers still preferring 7. Heck, I game on 7, and there’s no way you’d find me using 8. I doubt it will hold back developers – they’ve been supporting multiple DX versions for years.

    As for ‘FUD’, I don’t think that’s fair at all. In fact, it’s pointlessly accusative.

    So, all in all I stand by my statement. The best thing for everyone is if we all go on the developer preview of 10 and give them proper feedback.

  19. Mantle is actually intended to work on all hardware eventually. I don’t know what their roadmap is (I haven’t bothered looking), but I know this was intended.

  20. Get the developer preview if you can, and then you can help shape it the way you want.

  21. There have been rumblings about Windows going free; and if not, to offer a free upgrade. I doubt it will happen but it’s likely they will change the pricing structure. I suspect, personally, they’ll try to switch over to a subscription model. Either way, you can’t rely on knowing/predicting the price and it might work out well for you.

  22. They (AMD) offered to everyone to use and Nvidia said “bah, don’t need it”, because well, Nvidia want their own proprietary stuff implemented as opposed to using someone else’s. So if dx12 / win10 don’t get significant love when they come out, I wouldn’t be surprised at all, to see Nvidia release their own alternative.

  23. Hence my point “doesn’t work with Nvidia hardware”. I’m not saying mantle won’t work, its just Nvidia refusing to support it. Generally though, mantle shows the best increases on CPU limited systems.

    Besides all that, what’s wrong with competition between hardware manufactures. Had AMD not bought ATI many years ago, we may have been in a Nvidia only world.

  24. http://www.gamespot.com/articles/amd-misspoke-saying-directx-12-won-t-work-with-win/1100-6423617/

  25. You might have seen reports circulating that Windows 7 won’t support DirectX 12, Microsoft’s next, “low level” graphics API that will introduce several improvements to existing graphics cards and the Xbox One.

    The news is based on a video of AMD Chief Gaming Scientist Richard Huddy speaking at the PDXLAN event. During the video of his presentation (which has since been removed from YouTube) Huddy plainly says that Windows 7 will not support DirectX 12. However, AMD has told GameSpot that Huddy simply “misspoke.”

    “There have been reports based on a video of Richard Huddy of AMD making speculative comments around DirectX 12 support on versions of Windows,” AMD said in a statement. “Richard Huddy does not speak for Microsoft, and he was unfortunately speculating from Microsoft’s publication of key dates and milestones for Windows 7 lifecycle and mainstream support policy. Richard has no special insight into Microsoft’s Windows or DirectX roadmaps. Microsoft is a key, strategic partner for AMD and we’re continuously collaborating with them on DirectX 12.”

    PC gamers are worried about the possibility that DirectX 12 won’t work on Windows 7 because as new games start to take advantage of DirectX 12 for better performance and improved graphics, they’ll essentially be forced to upgrade to Windows 8 or the upcoming Windows 10.

    Microsoft previously said that DirectX 12 will work across PC, tablets, phones, and Xbox One. It didn’t say if it will support Windows 7, but that it’s aware of the demand for Windows 7 support.

  26. We all know DX12 ant coming to Windows 7, hell that was the first question I asked when I hear about Windows 10 beta coming. I also like how this was said: “if you want the benefits of a DX12 style API, the way you will go is use your games that are delivered on Mantle”

    Of course noting like the power of mantel right, AMD is a dead man walking, at least in the processor market if you were to ask me, just my opinion.

    PhoneyVirus
    https://twitter.com/PhoneyVirus
    https://phoneyvirus.wordpress.com/

  27. I’ve got a Radeon graphics card, and my next card will likely be a Radeon, so I’ll be able to use mantle with any games that would otherwise need DX12. If a company makes a game without mantle support, and it realistically needs mantle to play well without DX12, I probably just won’t buy it.

  28. If Mantle can work with nVidia hardware, somebody will release a hack of it for nVidia if nVidia themselves won’t, so nVidia card owners can still play DX12 games with Mantle support on Win 7. Just like 3dfx Glide wrappers for non-3dfx cards back in the day.

    nVidia can only fool some of the people some of the time, or even some of the people all of the time, but they can’t fool all of the people ALL of the time.

  29. Yeah, if AMD had paid nVidia a shed-load of cash, THEN they could have used it. Riigghhtt.

    nVidia is a greedy pig of a company, and it’s the main reason I refuse to give them my money anymore. Haven’t had an nVidia card since my old 7600GT. Watching them slowly squeeze more and more money out of people, while paring down features and implementing proprietary, exclusive technology, while giving customers less video memory all at the same time just turned me right off. Then, when my Toshiba Tecra M3 with an nVidia discrete chip died a month after I sold it to my mother-in-law (bumpgate) was the last straw.

    nVidia’s not getting another dime out of me if I can possibly help it.

  30. Now I understand why nVidia decided to release the GTX970 and 980 cards on 28nm early, instead of waiting for 20nm at TSM early next year, and why nVidia is suddenly, mysteriously charging a lot less for their hardware.

    They heard that DX12 will not exist for Windows 7. Since Mantle allows for most of the features of DX12 (ie. shed-loads of draw-calls without performance hit) without having to buy Windows 10, this means AMD Radeon users could stick with Windows 7 if a game has Mantle functionality, but nVidia users WOULD have to update. This would invariably annoy nVidia card owners, so nVidia’s pulling out all the stops to boost their numbers of cards sold in the immediate term in order to get more developers to ignore Mantle and not bother with a Mantle version. This will also mean that more gamers will have to move to Windows 10 anyhow, so they can run DX12, which will reduce the relevance of Mantle.

    If we spread the word about this obscene, gutter-minded scheme, we can head them off at the pass, as it were. Everybody who cares about no getting screwed over and forced to upgrade to Windows 10, just so they can play a game, should go forth unto all the tech websites and expose this insidious ploy before it can fully succeed.

  31. At the end of the day, its their company and they can do what they want. I’m perfectly happy with my GTX 660 and was perfectly happy with my ATI X1950 Pro. I’ve never had a problem with either brands hardware but will probably stick with Nvidia for my next upgrade, just because I am learning to parallel process with CUDA and it would save me having to learn OpenCL too.

    How are they fooling anyone? They’ve said they’re not supporting mantle and thats that. They make decent hardware and do price things reasonably well, besides I’ve never had a problem with Nvidia drivers whereas with a PC build using an AMD APU (was a budget build), I had awful driver issues. Whether that was a one-off or not I don’t know.

  32. Well, video memory is usually defined by the company who offers a variant of the reference chip. There’s 4GB GTX 970 cards, so your video memory argument is invalid.

    Your basing your opinion of a company while having one chip fail? I’ve had chips from AMD, Intel and Nvidia go bad, its technology and it isn’t perfect.

  33. My opinion has been shaped by a pattern of behavior, not by a single incident. I could have overlooked any one of the several things nVidia has done to try to squeeze their customers over the years, but taking them all together, no, I can’t ignore it any longer. AMD consistently provides more for your money. Some argue it’s because they’re not ‘as good’. What the hell does that mean? If a company consistently gives me better value for my money and is open to sharing their standards, that company will get my money, not the monopolistic, callous one.

  34. ‘AMD is a dead man walking, at least in the processor market if you were to ask me’

    You might want to give this a read:

    http://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/amd-bulldozer-was-not-a-game-changer-but-next-gen-zen-x86-core-will-be/

    At the very least, the K12 will be extremely competitive with Intel’s best. At most, it will restore the performance CPU crown to AMD, where it was the last time Jim Keller designed an AMD CPU (Athlon 64).

  35. Yes AMD generally provides better value for money, you can’t argue that Nvidia hardware isn’t great. I’m lucky enough to be able to pay more for a better quality card, nothing against AMD but some of the better OEM’s are Nvidia only. I understand that AMD appeals more to the budget gamers/programmers/office pc-ers.

  36. サシャ・ブラウス

    win8/10 will still run faster and be safer thanks to fully functional DEP and UEFI utilization which brought windows to another level of security that windows 7 can never offer and never will. .let go of whats unsafe and move on, i learned to program on a lab machine at my campus and it infected my laptop which ran windows 7, through a pendrive even with a good anti-virus cuz it couldn’t stop a single vbscript that ran silently without user authorization and caused alot of trouble for me then i upgraded to 8 which was new at that time and the Defender worked fine on the same environment and viruses by preventing em from ever running, yea i tried creating the same situation again with the new OS at that time.
    p.s i ran crysis 2 on max settings on the same hardware that couldn’t run it on that same settings without stuttering on windows 7, wonder which system is bloat cuz windows 8+ versions have been coded to be quite efficient than 7 would ever be, not to forget that 7 was a revamp of Vista(if ur not much of a technical and didn’t know that windows 7 was built on Vista) an OS that was hated quite much as well which still leads to 7 being a inadequate system. thus by default where as 8 being fast and safer will lead to 10 being still better than both either way being narrow minded and biased doesn’t get you nowhere rather than insecure.