• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

AMD confirms GCN, incl. XBO, doesnt support DX12 12_1 (but does 12_0 stop panicking)

C

chadskin

Member
AMD's global head of technical marketing Robert Hallock confirmed to Computerbase GCN-based graphics cards will support DX12 and at least some will also support DX12 feature level 12_0. Computerbase mentions Tonga, Hawaii and the Xbox One GPU will surely support 12_0, however question marks remain for older chipsets like Bonaire, Tahiti and Pitcairn.

Meanwhile, Nvidia confirmed earlier their chipsets GM200, GM204 and GM206 will already support DX12 feature level 12_1. At GDC this year, MS gave an overview of feature level 12_0 and 12_1:

32d9dcfaf6.jpg
Click to expand...
Hallock said it shouldn't be an issue that AMD cards only support feature level 12_0 since all the features relevant for games are included in 11_1 and 12_0. Also, most games will stick closely to what the consoles use and will therefore mostly use 12_0. Keep in mind, though, he's the global head of technical marketing, so his words shouldn't just be taken as gospel. Computerbase also pointed out Nvidia said the same thing when their Kepler cards didn't support feature level 11_1.

tl;dr: If you want a fully compatible DX12 card you should look into getting a Nvidia GTX 960, 970, 980, 980 Ti or Titan X. Or wait until more information regarding AMD's upcoming Fiji card(s) are released.
 
Caayn

Caayn

Member
chadskin said:
Computerbase mentions Tonga, Hawaii and the Xbox One GPU will surely support 12_0, however question marks remain for older chipsets like Bonaire, Tahiti and Pitcairn.
Click to expand...
Isn't the XB1 gpu based on Pitcairn.

Are the difference between those two large enough to include DX12 support?
 
G

Genio88

Member
chadskin said:
AMD's global head of technical marketing Robert Hallock confirmed to Computerbase GCN-based graphics cards will support DX12 and at least some will also support DX12 feature level 12_0. Computerbase mentions Tonga, Hawaii and the Xbox One GPU will surely support 12_0, however question marks remain for older chipsets like Bonaire, Tahiti and Pitcairn.

Meanwhile, Nvidia confirmed earlier their chipsets GM200, GM204 and GM206 will already support DX12 feature level 12_1. At GDC this year, MS gave an overview of feature level 12_0 and 12_1:


Hallock said it shouldn't be an issue that AMD cards only support feature level 12_0 since all the features relevant for games are included in 11_1 and 12_0. Also, most games will stick closely to what the consoles use and will therefore mostly use 12_0. Keep in mind, though, he's the global head of technical marketing, so his words shouldn't just be taken as gospel. Computerbase also pointed out Nvidia said the same thing when their Kepler cards didn't support feature level 11_1.

tl;dr: If you want a fully compatible DX12 card you should look into getting a Nvidia GTX 960, 970, 980, 980 Ti or Titan X.
Click to expand...

Glad my GTX 980 will have full support then, cause it has to last till Pascal arrives next year
 
undu

undu

Member
Found this in an an article: http://www.anandtech.com/show/8544/microsoft-details-direct3d-113-12-new-features

D3DOIT_575px.png

ROVs is focused on giving the developer control over the order that elements are rasterized in a scene, so that elements are drawn in the correct order.
Click to expand...
D3DCR_575px.png

Conservative rasterization is essentially a more accurate but performance intensive solution to figuring out whether a polygon covers part of a pixel.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

(There are the two features included in level 12_1 that I've found)
 
C

chadskin

Member
Caayn said:
Isn't the XB1 gpu based on Pitcairn.

Are the difference between those two large enough to include DX12 support?
Click to expand...

XB1 is said to be based on Bonaire and PS4 on Pitcairn but I guess they're going by Phil Spencer's statement the XB1 is "full DX12".
 
MilkyJoe

MilkyJoe

Member
I'm confused

Title says

AMD confirms GCN, including Xbox One GPU, does not support DX12 feature level 12_1

Body says

AMD's global head of technical marketing Robert Hallock confirmed to Computerbase GCN-based graphics cards will support DX12 and at least some will also support DX12 feature level 12_0. Computerbase mentions Tonga, Hawaii and the Xbox One GPU will surely support 12_0,


Am I reading this wrong?
 
D

Danneee

Member
MilkyJoe said:
I'm confused

Title says

AMD confirms GCN, including Xbox One GPU, does not support DX12 feature level 12_1

Body says

AMD's global head of technical marketing Robert Hallock confirmed to Computerbase GCN-based graphics cards will support DX12 and at least some will also support DX12 feature level 12_0. Computerbase mentions Tonga, Hawaii and the Xbox One GPU will surely support 12_0,


Am I reading this wrong?
Click to expand...

According to that the X1 supports DX12 but not DX12.1
I guess.
 
J

jmga

Member
MilkyJoe said:
I'm confused

Title says

AMD confirms GCN, including Xbox One GPU, does not support DX12 feature level 12_1

Body says

AMD's global head of technical marketing Robert Hallock confirmed to Computerbase GCN-based graphics cards will support DX12 and at least some will also support DX12 feature level 12_0. Computerbase mentions Tonga, Hawaii and the Xbox One GPU will surely support 12_0,


Am I reading this wrong?
Click to expand...

Google Translate:
According to Hallock, the absence of the feature level 12_1 is no problem in principle. So the key for games features are all included in the feature level 11_1 and 12_0.
Click to expand...
 
M

M3d10n

Member
Maxwell is the first GPU architecture that supports 12_1. Or rather, you could say that feature level 12_1 was defined around Maxwell's new features (which are all available through extensions).
 
S

Seanspeed

Banned
MilkyJoe said:
I'm confused

Title says

AMD confirms GCN, including Xbox One GPU, does not support DX12 feature level 12_1

Body says

AMD's global head of technical marketing Robert Hallock confirmed to Computerbase GCN-based graphics cards will support DX12 and at least some will also support DX12 feature level 12_0. Computerbase mentions Tonga, Hawaii and the Xbox One GPU will surely support 12_0,


Am I reading this wrong?
Click to expand...
No. They're just saying they wont support 12.1.

What I don't get is what they mean by only *some* GCN cards supporting 12.0. Is that not base DX12 support? Or is there another, more basic level, with 12.0 being the first tiered 'feature level'?
 
J

jmga

Member
Seanspeed said:
No. They're just saying they wont support 12.1.

What I don't get is what they mean by only *some* GCN cards supporting 12.0. Is that not base DX12 support? Or is there another, more basic level, with 12.0 being the first tiered 'feature level'?
Click to expand...

DX12 has 4 hardware support feature levels.

- 11.0
- 11.1
- 12.0
- 12.1
 
C

chadskin

Member
Seanspeed said:
No. They're just saying they wont support 12.1.

What I don't get is what they mean by only *some* GCN cards supporting 12.0. Is that not base DX12 support? Or is there another, more basic level, with 12.0 being the first tiered 'feature level'?
Click to expand...

My understanding is a card can be DX12-compatible but not support the DX12 feature level 12_0 or 12_1.

Renekton said:
IINM the Bonaire/Pitcairn reference was for core count rather than feature set.
Click to expand...

It probably was, yeah, but I doubt there's a difference in feature sets since it's the same Sea Islands family. MS already said the XB1is full DX12 and built with DX12 in mind, so they've likely made the necessary changes for 12_0 based off of the Bonaire design.
 
dr_rus

dr_rus

Member
chadskin said:
Hallock said it shouldn't be an issue that AMD cards only support feature level 12_0 since all the features relevant for games are included in 11_1 and 12_0. Also, most games will stick closely to what the consoles use and will therefore mostly use 12_0. Keep in mind, though, he's the global head of technical marketing, so his words shouldn't just be taken as gospel. Computerbase also pointed out Nvidia said the same thing when their Kepler cards didn't support feature level 11_1.

tl;dr: If you want a fully compatible DX12 card you should look into getting a Nvidia GTX 960, 970, 980, 980 Ti or Titan X. Or wait until more information regarding AMD's upcoming Fiji card(s) are released.
Click to expand...

While I agree that it likely won't be an issue what he said about 12_1 features not being relevant for games is a blatant lie.
 
M

M3d10n

Member
Seanspeed said:
No. They're just saying they wont support 12.1.

What I don't get is what they mean by only *some* GCN cards supporting 12.0. Is that not base DX12 support? Or is there another, more basic level, with 12.0 being the first tiered 'feature level'?
Click to expand...

Every DX11.1 (and maybe DX11) GPU should support DX12, which is mostly a new way to interact with the GPU plus bringing bindless textures and indirect draw calls to Direct X officially (they were available as OpenGL extensions for quite a while).

It's kinda like DirectX 9, which covered three shader model generations (9a, 9b and 9c).

DX12.1 covers new hardware features like sparse volume textures, order independent transparency and conservative rasterization. These features are mostly aimed at improving performance of voxel based techniques and enabling new ones, like real time GI.
 
R

roytheone

Member
Wait, in an earlier thread about directx 12 support I was told that my GTX 970 maybe wouldn't support all of the features, while a lot of AMD cards would support it. And now the exact opposite turns out to be true? That's funny.
 
S

Seanspeed

Banned
M3d10n said:
Every DX11.1 (and maybe DX11) GPU should support DX12, which is mostly a new way to interact with the GPU plus bringing bindless textures and indirect draw calls to Direct X officially (they were available as OpenGL extensions for quite a while).

DX12.1 covers new hardware features like sparse volume textures, order independent transparency and conservative rasterization. These features are mostly aimed at improving performance of voxel based techniques and enabling new ones, like real time GI.
Click to expand...
Good explanation, thanks!

roytheone said:
Wait, in an earlier thread about directx 12 support I was told that my GTX 970 maybe wouldn't support all of the features, while a lot of AMD cards would support it. And now the exact opposite turns out to be true? That's funny.
Click to expand...
Really.
 
M

M3d10n

Member
dr_rus said:
While I agree that it likely won't be an issue what he said about 12_1 features not being relevant for games is a blatant lie.
Click to expand...
Yeah, it really opens up the doors for good general purpose real time GI and for that doing stuff like AO and reflections in world space instead of screen space.
 
D

Dictator93

Member
M3d10n said:
Yeah, it really opens up the doors for good general purpose real time GI and for that doing stuff like AO and reflections in world space instead of screen space.
Click to expand...

First I just want to see AO done in world space. That is most important to me before all the other expensive stuff starting being done.
 
H

hodgy100

Member
Dictator93 said:
OBviously, but even the console API cannot take advantage of hardware features that do not exist on the chip itself.
Click to expand...

jmga said:
He is talking about hardware features.
Click to expand...

yeah and that console api will already support all the features of the gpu/ it was more a preemptive comment on those that still think the x1 will get more features / better performance from an upgrade to a pc api.
 
martino

martino

Member
roytheone said:
Wait, in an earlier thread about directx 12 support I was told that my GTX 970 maybe wouldn't support all of the features, while a lot of AMD cards would support it. And now the exact opposite turns out to be true? That's funny.
Click to expand...

Yes it was mention in one thread, i remenber it.

But good news, i'm even more happy for my crazy 980 ti impulse buy.
 
D

Dictator93

Member
hodgy100 said:
yeah and that console api will already support all the features of the gpu/ it was more a preemptive comment on those that still think the x1 will get more features / better performance from an upgrade to a pc api.
Click to expand...
aye, gtochya... sounded like something else :D
FordGTGuy said:
The Xbox One is DX12 hardware, we already know it's getting DX12 and getting DX12 feature set.
Click to expand...
Indeed, 12_0 (even though MS already said the x1 default API has a number of these features, like bundles/batches and stuff)
 
F

FordGTGuy

Banned
hodgy100 said:
see my post above yours. the x1 api likely already has dx12 features.
Click to expand...

It doesn't have every DX12 feature, how many times do we have to go over this?

The Xbox One currently doesn't take advantage of the new cpu communication improvements.

Dictator93 said:
aye, gtochya... sounded like something else :D

Indeed, 12_0 (even though MS already said the x1 default API has a number of these features, like bundles/batches and stuff)
Click to expand...

It has some features that are included in DX12 but not all of them which will come when it releases on Xbox One.
 
F

Finale Fireworker

Member
I don't know what GCN is. GCN is the acronym used to signify the GameCube. I find it hilarious that all theses graphics cards are based on the GameCube.
 
D

Dictator93

Member
S

Seanspeed

Banned
FordGTGuy said:
It has some features that are included in DX12 but not all of them which will come when it releases on Xbox One.
Click to expand...
It wont have ALL the DX12 features, though. That's what this is saying. XB1 GPU only supports up to 12.0 feature level. 12.1 is newer and for the moment, only Nvidia Maxwell GPU's have the hardware to take advantage of it.
 
F

FunkyDealer

Banned
Microsoft makes DirectX, Microsoft makes the Xbox. I'm sure they can make it work or at least add support for alternative methods with similar results. I think the Xbox will have a somewhat unique API anyway.
 
SmokedMeat

SmokedMeat

Gamer™
So if I'm in the market for a GPU, how do I know which current cards will make use of Direct X 12.1?

I take it a 750ti does not?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

AMD Ryzen 4000 And Radeon RX Navi 2X ‘RDNA 2’ Graphics Cards Expected To Launch In October 2020
News Rumor Hardware
20
2K
TaySan replied
The PlayStation 5 GPU Will Be Supported By Better Hardware Solutions, In Depth Analysis Suggests
13 14 15 16 17
812
69K
A Most Virtuous Cat replied
The vast majority of DX12 titles in 2015/2016 are partnering with AMD
2 3
105
20K
Damerman replied
AMD reveals 'Polaris' next-gen graphics architecture
2
66
11K
AmyS replied
AMD Radeon Fury X review thread
11 12 13 14 15
738
99K
tenchir replied
Top Bottom