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Open Sourcing Direct3D 9 on 12 and the Release of the DXBC Signer NuGet Package

July 21, 2021 Jul 21, 2021 07/21/21
Tanner Van De Walle
It’s been a while since we last mentioned the D3D9On12 mapping layer. As a quick refresher, it maps D3D9 commands to D3D12 by acting as the D3D9 Device Driver Interface (DDI). Having this mapping layer enables older D3D9 applications to run on modern systems that may not have a D3D9 driver. Since the last blog post, we’ve added support for...

Direct3D 11 on 12 Updates

February 5, 2019 Feb 5, 2019 02/5/19
Jesse Natalie
It’s been quite a while since we last talked about D3D11On12, which enables incremental porting of an application from D3D11 to D3D12 by allowing developers to use D3D11 interfaces and objects to drive the D3D12 API. Since that time, there’s been quite a few changes, and I’d like to touch upon some things that you can expect when you use...

Direct3D team office has a Wall of GPU History

January 7, 2019 Jan 7, 2019 01/7/19
Shawn Hargreaves
When you are the team behind something like Direct3D, you need many different graphics cards to test on.  And when you’ve been doing this for as long as we have, you’ll inevitably accumulate a LOT of cards left over from years gone by.  What to do with them all?  One option would be to store boxes in someone’s office: But...

For best performance, use DXGI flip model

April 9, 2018 Apr 9, 2018 04/9/18
Shawn Hargreaves
This document picks up where the MSDN “DXGI flip model” article and YouTube DirectX 12: Presentation Modes In Windows 10 and Presentation Enhancements in Windows 10: An Early Look videos left off.  It provides developer guidance on how to maximize performance and efficiency in the presentation stack on modern versions of Windows.   ...

Announcing new DirectX 12 features

November 7, 2017 Nov 7, 2017 11/7/17
Jacques van Rhyn
Announcing new DirectX 12 features We’ve come a long way since we launched DirectX 12 with Windows 10 on July 29, 2015. Since then, we’ve heard every bit of feedback and improved the API to enhance stability and offer more versatility. Today, developers using DirectX 12 can build games that have better graphics, run faster and that are ...

Rise of the Tomb Raider, Explicit DirectX 12 MultiGPU, and a peek into the future

July 8, 2016 Jul 8, 2016 07/8/16
Andrew Yeung - MSFT
Rise of the Tomb Raider is the first title to implement explicit MultiGPU (mGPU) on CrossFire/SLI systems using the DX12 API.  It works on both Win32 and UWP.  Using the low level DX12 API, Rise of the Tomb Raider was able to achieve extremely good CPU efficiency and in doing so, extract more GPU power in a mGPU system than was possible ...

DirectX 12 Multiadapter: Lighting up dormant silicon and making it work for you

April 30, 2015 Apr 30, 2015 04/30/15
Andrew Yeung - MSFT
Are you one of the millions of PC users with a laptop or a desktop system with an integrated GPU as well as a discrete GPU?  Before Windows 10 and DirectX 12, all the performance potential from the second GPU goes unused.  With DirectX 12 and Windows 10, application developers can use every GPU on the system simultaneously! Are you an elite...

DirectX 12 – Looking back at GDC 2015 and a year of amazing progress

March 9, 2015 Mar 9, 2015 03/9/15
Andrew Yeung - MSFT
Last year at GDC 2014, we announced DirectX 12.  Since then, we have made amazing progress, and we were excited to showcase this progress at GDC 2015. At the GDC 2015 Expo, we had a range of live demos including Lionhead Studio’s next beautiful game Fable Legends, Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 4, Unity Technologies’ 3D game ...