Xbox One DirectX 12 Benefits Will Be On A Game By Game Basis, Says Spencer
The Windows 10 event Microsoft hosted last week was light on DirectX 12 details for the Xbox One. Xbox Head Phil Spencer mentioned that games using the graphics isI made more efficient use of the CPU and GPU and extended the battery life on portable devices. More console details are expected at GDC in February, but Spencer and Product Director Aaron Greenberg both talked a little bit about DX12 on Twitter. Stardock CEO Brad Wardell also chimed in with his own thoughts.
Spencer previously stated that Direct X12 would not “dramatically change the graphics capabilities of the Xbox One.” He stated that “the CPU, GPU, and memory that are on the Xbox One don’t change when you go to DX12. DX12 makes it easier to do some of the things that the Xbox One’s good at.”
The head of Xbox still stands by that statement, but appears to have softened his stance some. It’s going to depend on the game developer to make full use of DirectX 12.
@JAGLeMans Yea, really on a game by game basis, difficult to make one statements about impact of DX12, depends on where the bottlenecks are.
— Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) January 24, 2015
This is something that Greenberg echoed in a response to a different fan on Twitter.
@JustinAguiar Both, but devs have to make use of it. — Aaron Greenberg (@aarongreenberg) January 22, 2015
The Xbox One was built with DirectX 12 in mind. It already uses many, but not all, of the API’s features. These are the kind of details that Microsoft will have to spell out.
@ExploderMouse We knew what DX12 was doing when we built Xbox One. — Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) January 23, 2015
@markmccreary @ExploderMouse We’ll give more detail on this so people understand the specifics. — Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) January 24, 2015
Meanwhile, Galactic Civilizations developer Stardock has already been running tests with DirectX 12 that show promising results.
Stress test. DirectX 11 could never handle this. pic.twitter.com/xvXBNkQdxo — Brad Wardell (@draginol) January 22, 2015
That image is why @IntelGaming should be very excited about DirectX 12 and Mantle. That screenshot is on a 5960x. — Brad Wardell (@draginol) January 22, 2015
Effects that mantle/dx12 make easier: temporal aliasing, object space rendering, lots (thousands) of light sources. Doing this now in mantle — Brad Wardell (@draginol) January 25, 2015
As a result, games start to look different than what we’ve had for years. It’s both subtle and profound. — Brad Wardell (@draginol) January 25, 2015
PlayStation 4 owners may have something to look forward to as well when it comes to graphics APIs, according to Wardell.
But ps4 fans will have something exciting to rejoice about soon too. Beware of poo pooing dx12/mantle architecture lest you eat crow. — Brad Wardell (@draginol) January 25, 2015
The first true DirectX 12 games are still far off. It will ship with Windows 10 later this year, meaning that games that make full use of the API are still in development.
[Images via MSDN]
