News DirectX 12 to launch at GDC this month

Win8-exclusive... M$ making stupid decisions as allways.

 

Yeah, but since when have MS passed up on the chance to force an OS upgrade, through a new DX?

Although, I guess it depends on whether MS see Mantle as a true rival. Plus how many titles support Mantle.

 

This would be the 10% that they arrive early then.
Microsoft has been holding back gaming on the PC for over 13 years, it has taken AMD to spur game development and drive the adoption of a better standard as Microsoft's focus has been on it's beloved Xbox since Windows XP and the original Xbox way back in 2001.

 

If this is true then it could be for less sinister reasons.

Windows 8 has had a full and complete rewrite of the way it handles CPUs. For example, it actually works properly with the AMD FX CPUs rather than relying on a bodge that doesn't work very well (people are still using core parking 'hacks' in Windows 7 to try and fix the issue). It also has the same issue with certain Intel CPUs (mainly the I7s)

So it could be, that like DX10 with Win XP, it simply doesn't work very well or not at all in Windows 7. What I mean is there are several supposed hacks to get DX10 running in XP but apparently none of them work.

It's quite amazing just how many people think that Windows 8 is simply Windows 7 with a stupid touch screen front end bolted on. It just isn't..

 

Maybe people think that because the underpinnings of 7 and 8 are very similar, the kernel's have only see point release changes, from 6.1 in Windows 7, to 6.2 and 6.3 in Windows 8 and 8.1 respectively. Where as XP to 7 saw major release changes in the kernel, from 5.1 to 6.1 so is less likely for something like DirectX to play nice across the different versions.

It's almost certain that we wont see DX12 until Windows 9 as rumors say Microsoft is at least 12-15 months away from release, that would place it around the same time rumors say Windows 9 is expected.
My guess is we will see a major release of the kernel with Windows 9, so it's likely DX12 won't work with 7 or 8.

 

Yeah it's perfectly feasible really.

I just need to make sure that if and when M$ do the uber cheap offer I jump in head first. I pre ordered it for £40 or so (8) but cancelled my pre order when I saw early reviews of it. Silly really, as I have to pinch it now due to the high price.