Post by Lone Wanderer on Mar 17, 2019 6:33:09 GMT
The announcement comes as a surprise for a number of reasons; probably the biggest is timing.
Windows 7 has a remaining lifetime of just 9 months before Microsoft ends support. Microsoft did not reveal why it caved in and ported DirectX 12 to Windows 7 for select games. Maybe because it was not all that much of an effort to do so, or because it expects that many customers will keep on running Windows 7 for some time after support ends.
A look back at the end of support for Windows XP suggests that history could repeat itself. It took years after support end before Windows XP usage numbers dropped significantly.
The move would make sense if Windows 8.1 gamers would benefit from DirectX 12 support as well but that is unclear at this point.
Another reason why the decision is surprising is that Microsoft does not back port features to older versions of Windows once it made the decision to limit them artificially to new versions of Windows.
The change may be beneficial to game developers who have a large enough base of users on Windows 7 as they may focus on the DirectX 12 version of the game and introduce performance improvements at the same time.
www.ghacks.net/2019/03/13/directx-12-comes-to-select-windows-7-games/
Windows 7 has a remaining lifetime of just 9 months before Microsoft ends support. Microsoft did not reveal why it caved in and ported DirectX 12 to Windows 7 for select games. Maybe because it was not all that much of an effort to do so, or because it expects that many customers will keep on running Windows 7 for some time after support ends.
A look back at the end of support for Windows XP suggests that history could repeat itself. It took years after support end before Windows XP usage numbers dropped significantly.
The move would make sense if Windows 8.1 gamers would benefit from DirectX 12 support as well but that is unclear at this point.
Another reason why the decision is surprising is that Microsoft does not back port features to older versions of Windows once it made the decision to limit them artificially to new versions of Windows.
The change may be beneficial to game developers who have a large enough base of users on Windows 7 as they may focus on the DirectX 12 version of the game and introduce performance improvements at the same time.
www.ghacks.net/2019/03/13/directx-12-comes-to-select-windows-7-games/