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DirectX 12 GPU exclusive features to be shown/announced at GDC

CharmingCharlie said:
It still boggles my mind that this is a thing. We have had multi-core CPU and GPU's for nearly a decade now. It's great that finally with Dx12 Microsoft is addressing this issue but in reality this is what Dx10 should have been tackling unless there is some super serious technical reason why Microsoft couldn't have sorted out this huge bottleneck before now.
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Time? Interest?

Also another factor in recent years is that CPU IPC gains have slowed down in recent years, while GPU power is still increasing at a relatively high pace. This API is being considered now for these very reasons.

It could also be that Mantle has pushed them into developing dx12 in this way...
 
CharmingCharlie said:
It still boggles my mind that this is a thing. We have had multi-core CPU and GPU's for nearly a decade now. It's great that finally with Dx12 Microsoft is addressing this issue but in reality this is what Dx10 should have been tackling unless there is some super serious technical reason why Microsoft couldn't have sorted out this huge bottleneck before now.
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There are technical reasons why the DX12 design is only now practically.
And some other reasons too.
 
tuxfool said:
For sure. We are also at a point where GPU architecture has standardized to the point where a common low level api is feasible.
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However it will still be more difficult than DX11 for devs which is why DX11 and DX12 will both be supported for years to come. I don't think DX12 is meant to completely replace DX11 but rather to offer the high-performance/low overhead alternative devs have been asking for years.
 
Kezen said:
However it will still be more difficult than DX11 for devs which is why DX11 and DX12 will both be supported for years to come. I don't think DX12 is meant to completely replace DX11 but rather to offer the high-performance/low overhead alternative devs have been asking for years.
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Of course. It will be similar to dx9c and dx10 with wddm1.0-1.1. Though dx11 (or another high level api) will probably coexist for a lot longer as a fully supported api; not everybody will need the things dx12 provides.
 
CharmingCharlie said:
It still boggles my mind that this is a thing. We have had multi-core CPU and GPU's for nearly a decade now. It's great that finally with Dx12 Microsoft is addressing this issue but in reality this is what Dx10 should have been tackling unless there is some super serious technical reason why Microsoft couldn't have sorted out this huge bottleneck before now.
Click to expand...

This image is such an oversimplification that it is factually incorrect. DX12 has nothing to do with "cores", it has everything to do with giving developers the ability to control what is executed where. So you still can actually have the "DX11" image under DX12, and DX12 won't do anything for you to allow for such parallel workload distribution. What this picture should've looked like is actually CPU->App/DX12->GPU compared to CPU->DX11->GPU.

Think of it in terms of CPU parallelization - this can't be done effectively automatically to a single thread program. This is essentially how DX12 is different from DX11 - it allows programmers to manually parallelize their GPU workload instead of leaving this to DX9/10/11 automatics.

Why now? Both OS and GPU code has evolved to a point where allowing an application to do complex stuff on the GPU isn't as much of a risk to the environment stability as it would be on Win9x and Win2k/XP driver models. No, GPU architectures looking like they're closer to each other have nothing to do with this - only features are important, and we have GPUs with similar features since the first 3D chips.
 
tuxfool said:
Of course. It will be similar to dx9c and dx10 with wddm1.0-1.1. Though dx11 (or another high level api) will probably coexist for a lot longer as a fully supported api; not everybody will need the things dx12 provides.
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Exactly, and Anandtech were right when they said it's a much more "error prone" API, more demanding and decidedly aimed at very skilled developpers whose interest is to push hardware and tech. Indies probably could not care less about that or any AAA devs not invested in PC at all.

I truly wonder if Directx 11 is enough for "console parity" in terms of features. Don't console APIs expose more hardware features than DX11 after all ?

Maybe DX12 will be needed for console parity (in terms of graphical features) later down the line.
 
Brad Wardell creating hype.

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mocoworm said:
Only for you superior gamers!
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Anybody expecting decent gains for the XBO were deluding themselves, even from day one of the DX12 announcement. If there is a significant performance increase it would mean something is seriously fucked with Microsoft and the XBO.
 
mocoworm said:
Only for you superior gamers!
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What's wrong with being happy that a PC api is being thinked and made first and foremost for PC ?
You wont get a miracle with Xbox One, it's already made to getting a lot of the hardware available. It's already made to avoid lot of drawcalls because of the api.
 
I'm also wondering when will be the presentation for DirectX 12, and the one for OpenGL Next to compare.

Anyone know exactly ?
 
Shit guys, can you believe we are only moments away fro the D-GPU unveiling? Finally that powersupply is going to be redefined by dx12 GPU hardware features.
 
Slightly OT, but I find Nvidia's corporate shenanigans so shitty but their software package is just so much better usually.

Rock and a hard place decision making flies through my head. I adore SGSSAA but find the 970 fiasco reprehensible.
 
Dictator93 said:
Slightly OT, but I find Nvidia's corporate shenanigans so shitty but their software package is just so much better usually.

Rock and a hard place decision making flies through my head. I adore SGSSAA but find the 970 fiasco reprehensible.
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Simple solution, don't spend money on either.
You have a decent gpu, no?
Just wait till amd has their drivers where you want them to be, they have been improving them (on the frametime side only after people started testing for frametimes but hey) and adding some of the features that should have been in there for 5+ years (downsampling support etc).

If 2 companies are shit you don't give either of them your money
 
The Shogun said:
Oh shit, so AMD at least is bringing hardware. I wonder if Nvidia has anything

I'm green team ;-)
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There were rumors about Nvidia unveiling a new GPU (Maxwell Titan) but I don't know what to make of it. The GPU conference makes more sense for that kind of stuff.
 
CoG said:
Pretty misleading. It's not like 11 out of 12 GPU cores go unused in DX11 and below.
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no no, what the diagram is showing is that the cpu can only communicate with one gpu core per cycle but DX12 allows code to finally speak to all cores in one burst.

Oh wait you know that and are just saying it's misleading, ok ignore this.
 
Found this post by Brad Wardell on Oxide's site back in January regarding GDC. Not sure if it has already been posted:

The team is hard at work on a series of new technology to show off at GDC as well as a big new game we’ve been working on for the past 2 years.

Microsoft and AMD are scheduled to demonstrate our tech at their booths.

I have discussed online how important DirectX 12 and Mantle are going to be. But talk is cheap. Being able to demonstrate a new game that can display thousands of light sources simultaneously (as opposed to say, 8 like you currently get on your console). Or light sources that can illuminate particle effects. Or having thousands of individual moving objects on screen simultaneously (as opposed to a dozen).
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Thousands of light sources? My 970 is already crying in anticipation.
 
SparkTR said:
Anybody expecting decent gains for the XBO were deluding themselves, even from day one of the DX12 announcement. If there is a significant performance increase it would mean something is seriously fucked with Microsoft and the XBO.
Click to expand...

GhostTrick said:
What's wrong with being happy that a PC api is being thinked and made first and foremost for PC ?
You wont get a miracle with Xbox One, it's already made to getting a lot of the hardware available. It's already made to avoid lot of drawcalls because of the api.
Click to expand...

various people have already said dx11 has a high draw call overhead, so dx12 should benefit xb1 too - especially as xb1 has a relatively low CPU speed. Being able to push the gpu from 6 or 7 cores instead of 1 is bound to help (I hope :))
 
justsomeguy said:
various people have already said dx11 has a high draw call overhead, so dx12 should benefit xb1 too - especially as xb1 has a relatively low CPU speed. Being able to push the gpu from 6 or 7 cores instead of 1 is bound to help (I hope :))
Click to expand...

That is because the xb1 version of dx11 already has a lot of these overheads removed. It is unlikely that something like AC:Unity would work half as well with the anemic single core performance of the console CPUs.
 
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