Microsoft has demonstrated Forza 5 running on DirectX 12, 1080p, 60 FPS, on PC. It’s an impressive display of DX12’s capabilities, and may be dropping hints at the company’s PC plans.
DirectX 12 gives developers the chance to use bundles. These are command strings that can be executed by the GPU directly. They do not have to go through the CPU, so these are very efficiently processed. It also offers inherents, resources that were not added in there during coding, but are available on the device.
Another feature it offers is resource lifetime. DirectX 12 makes it possible to track use of certain resources, without using D3D. Those in the know also know that this means a huge payoff in efficiency.
Finally, DirectX 12 makes available the use of resource tables, which allows developers to organize a set of resources, such as texture maps, into a single command.
Overall, Microsoft cited how DirectX 12 was going to incentivize console-style game development on Windows, and also alluded to how the gains from games made in this way, could be carried over back to the Xbox One.
So, we know that this Forza 5 demo is just a demo, but one can’t help but wonder if Microsoft plans to bring any Xbox One games, at least 1st party offerings, to Windows. With the x86 architecture, we do know that this is not unfeasible, at least on the technological side. For now, Microsoft has not fully laid out their cards, but we do know that they have huge plans for Windows as a gaming platform. Lacking any serious leaks, we will likely have to wait until summer to find out what else Microsoft has planned for gaming.
