During this year’s Build Developer Conference, Microsoft talked about its upcoming API, DX12. Microsoft claimed that DX12 has the fastest adoption by titles under development since Direct3D 9. That’s definitely great news for PC gamers – and Microsoft – as DX12 is advertised as the API that will bring huge performance benefits to the PC platform.
As Microsoft’s Principal DirectX Development Lead Max McMulle said that “this [DX12] has been the fastest adoption of the Direct3D API we’ve seen since Direct3D 9” and continued:
“It’s been the fastest adopted API in more than a decade.”
McMulle then explained DX12’s Multiadapter functionalities. DX12 will support Linked GPUs and Unlinked GPUs. Linked GPUs is similar to what we have today with SLI and Crossfire. However, via Unlinked GPUs, PC gamers will be able to use GPUs from different vendors like AMD and Intel.
As McMulle said:
“This feature exposes direct control of two linked GPUs as well. So you might have known as Crossfire or SLI from AMD and NVIDIA, respectively, but you’ll get direct control of both GPUs in DX12 if you so choose.”
McMulle later said that developers can take advantage of two completely different GPUs, thus we can safely say that it will be possible to use an AMD and an NVIDIA GPU on a single PC system. Of course that’s up entirely to the developers as they’ll have to code their games in order to take advantage of Unlinked GPUs.
DX12 will support independent memory allocation, meaning that developers will be able to use the total amount of VRAM that is available on Crossfire and SLI systems.
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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