Win8: No DX12 but better DX11.1

Windows Vista DX10, Windows 7 DX11, but there will be no Windows 8 DX12 combination, the next generation system will only be slightly upgraded to DX11.1, but this Does not mean that it is not worth looking forward to. Microsoft said that Windows 8 will not only provide developers with a large number of DX11 updates, but also let ordinary users and system manufacturers experience new fun.

Microsoft today unveiled a white paper "Windows Driver Model Enhancements in the Windows Developer Preview" (click here to download), an in-depth introduction to Windows 8 improvements in graphics technology. According to the white paper, Windows 8 will support the new display driver model WDDM 1.2, which is higher than Windows 7 WDDM 1.1, but will also give up support for XDDM in the server system, all to WDDM.

The most important aspect of DirectX is the introduction of Direct3D 11.1, as well as smooth rotation, stereo 3D, D3D11 Video and other functional technologies. Microsoft said that even low-end hardware, as long as it can take advantage of DirectX, can also achieve better performance on Windows 8.

According to the white paper, other major improvements in Windows 8 DirectX are:

- Advanced shader (HLS) model performance improvements that allow developers to use only GPUs without using CPUs More things: double-precision shader functionality.

- High-performance anti-aliasing path for D2D applications: Target independent rasterization.

- The D3D11.1 application based on the Tile renderer performs better on mobile platforms and low-profile devices: no overwrite and drop.

- Shader debugging can be turned on for all shader stages on DX11.1 hardware: UAV is available at each stage.

- The D3D11 program uses high-quality rendering algorithms without the need to allocate memory for a large number of samples: out-of-order access viewing and multi-sample anti-aliased sample access.

- Delayed shading technology improvements: logical operations.

- Efficient buffer management for game developers: Improved control of consistency buffers.