Stardock developer Brad Wardell made some huge claims on DirectX12, particularly in relation to Xbox One. Apparently, Microsoft has already given up on using the console’s current eSRAM API, and will be introducing an entirely new one, based on DirectX12.
Wardell has been working closely on DirectX 12 for Stardock’s upcoming game, Ashes of the Singularity. He has expressed vocal support for DirectX12 before.
In a recent interview, Brad gets to the root of the matter, pointing out that this goes to the root of ResolutionGate. Basically, Xbox One’s eSRAM has always had huge potential, but that potential is just as likely to be fumbled as it can be optimized. Brad blames this on the DirectX11 API.
For this reason, the API that came with DirectX11 will be replaced with a DirectX12 API, and Brad says this will make a huge difference in terms of making sure every Xbox One game will use eSRAM to its very best. There will also be a separate optimization tool that will find the best optimization per game via an algorithm.
Brad pulls back his claims a bit, explaining that the changes won’t give Xbox One as much benefit from DirectX12 as Windows. Also unmentioned is how well the console will do in terms of outputting in 1080p, 60FPS in the future.
Do these claims make you feel better about buying an Xbox One? Or are you going to hold out until you see it in action? Share your thoughts with us in the comments.
You can read Brad’s key statements below.
I’ve never heard Microsoft just come out and, I mean they should just really come out and explain to people why they’re having problems getting games to run at 1080p. But maybe they don’t think their users will understand, basically it has to do with developers aren’t making effective use of the eSRAM API. So in DirectX12 they actually threw it away, they threw away the crappy one in DirectX11 and they’re replacing it with a new one. So that’s pretty huge.They also released a new tool, it’s this optimization tool that will actually algorithmically try to come up with an optimization for the developer. So instead of the developer trying to hand set-up what uses eSRAM, they have their own app to try and do as much of it for them as they can. Third, DirectX11 still serializes stuff from the developer to the GPU. It is low-level but the fact is as low-level as it, it’s still serializing a lot of GPU calls. So it won’t be anywhere near…you won’t get the benefit on Xbox One that you’re getting on the PC.
