Windows 11 desktop

Microsoft officially announced Windows 11, first details about PC gaming


After a major leak that occurred last week, Microsoft has officially announced Windows 11. According to the team, the big focus for Windows 11 is a simplification of the Windows user interface, a new Windows store, as well as improvements to performance and multitasking.

Now what interests most of us is gaming. According to Microsoft, Windows 11 will be ideal for gamers, though the team did not provide any concrete evidence for these claims.

Windows 11 will support Auto HDR (though I’m pretty sure that the latest Insider Build of Windows 10 also supports it). Whether Microsoft will make Auto HDR exclusive to Windows 11 remains to be seen.

Microsoft also mentioned DirectStorage which, once again, will be available on Windows 10. In fact, all the features of DirectX 12 Ultimate will be compatible with Windows 10.

My guess is that there will be minimal performance differences between Windows 10 and Windows 11. I mean, we haven’t seen yet any game that takes full advantage of DX12 Ultimate. And, in case you’re wondering, Microsoft has not announced a new DX API.

Microsoft stated that Windows 11 will be available to download by the holidays this year. Moreover, there will be numerous beta builds for Windows Insiders, starting from June 28th.

UPDATE:

Microsoft now claims that DirectStorage will only be available in Windows 11. In other words, the company will lock these features behind Windows 11 in order to force PC gamers to upgrade.

“With DirectStorage, which will only be available with Windows 11, games can quickly load assets to the graphics card without bogging down the CPU. This means you’ll get to experience incredibly detailed game worlds rendered at lightning speeds, without long load times. “DirectStorage Optimized” Windows 11 PCs are configured with the hardware and drivers needed to enable this amazing experience.”