Rumor: Sorry Folks, There Will be no DirectX 12 Support For Windows 7 - Update

[Olas]

I like how when it comes to Microsoft, not including an update for a brand new API that almost no game is even going to use, on a 5 year old, 2 generations out of date OS that you no longer support, is considered "a hostage situation". Microsoft are now terrorists for not going out of their way to accommodate people who want to use out of date and objectively inferior software.

Did you guys know that Microsoft (based on speculation we heard) didn't donate any money to cancer research last year?

[HEADING=1]Microsoft Supports Cancer[/HEADING]

 

[Hungry Donner]

I'm skeptical MS expects many people to drop Win7 because of a DX restriction, this clearly didn't happen when WinXP was locked out of DX10. The biggest effect of the the DX10 restriction was freezing minimum graphics at DX9c for so long. Whether it was intended or not, (foil hats are optional), from my understanding the XBox 360 was running around this level. If the XBox One was locked at DX11 that would lend this idea credence, but this isn't doesn't appear to the case.

I think I may have just undermined my point, woops.

 

[Saulkar]

I heard about DX10 running in some form or fashion on Windows XP, I wonder if anybody of a technical mindset would be willing to invest in creating a decent "unofficial" patch for WIN7. Yeaaahhhh, that would be nice.

Heres how that worked: the hack has tricked windows XP into thinking it had DX10, when it actually didnt. This mean that games searching for DX10 would return a true and launch instead of refusing to launch. Now, that worked as long as the game didnt need any features from DX10 that isnt in DX9. if they did - crash. So no, DX10 never actually worked in XP as it is not possible.

I know I can consistently count on you to smash my dreams and make me feel stupid then hand me a sucker for being such a good boy. XD

P.S. I am only goofing around.

In all seriousness, why can a third party not hack a higher tier of DX into Windows XP/7? Is it because it requires an asinine amount of reverse engineering, analysing cryptic code (I forget what the correct term for turning code into nonsensical characters that the computer can still read), or is the DX iteration designed from the ground up with out the necessary components to communicate with lower Window iterations?

 

[MorphingDragon]

I heard about DX10 running in some form or fashion on Windows XP, I wonder if anybody of a technical mindset would be willing to invest in creating a decent "unofficial" patch for WIN7. Yeaaahhhh, that would be nice.

Heres how that worked: the hack has tricked windows XP into thinking it had DX10, when it actually didnt. This mean that games searching for DX10 would return a true and launch instead of refusing to launch. Now, that worked as long as the game didnt need any features from DX10 that isnt in DX9. if they did - crash. So no, DX10 never actually worked in XP as it is not possible.

I know I can consistently count on you to smash my dreams and make me feel stupid then hand me a sucker for being such a good boy. XD

P.S. I am only goofing around.

In all seriousness, why can a third party not hack a higher tier of DX into Windows XP/7? Is it because it requires an asinine amount of reverse engineering, analysing cryptic code (I forget what the correct term for turning code into nonsensical characters that the computer can still read), or is the DX iteration designed from the ground up with out the necessary components to communicate with lower Window iterations?

A little of Column A, a little of Column B. Ever since Vista DirectX sits much lower in the operating system. It makes reverse integration harder, but not impossible.

 

[EiMitch]

As much as I dislike Microsoft for pulling shit like this... please don't write "Micro$oft" with the dollar sign as the S. It stopped being clever years ago and it makes people take you less seriously.

I've pretty much never done that before. But dammit, I was pissed this time. Like I said, the last straw.

Also Microsoft still essentially has a monopoly. People think Apple is doing great because of its image, but that's only with private consumers. MS makes the vast majority of its money from businesses, and they are in no danger of switching to Macs.

Yeah, thats why MS thinks its safe to try pulling this control-freak stuff on home PCs and Xbone, no matter how many it doesn't work. /sarc

Its not just MS. I've had less and less faith in the decision-making skills of large companies in general this last half-decade. So let MS drive away consumers and stick to buttering-up their fellow out-of-touch corporate d-bags. Their world is one big circle-jerk anyway.

 

[EiMitch]

Get Steam OS, its Linux which is what Mac OSX is built off anyway (well Unix)

I'll look into that. Assuming I can get a new PC that hasn't had its BIOS screwed-up so that only Win8 "works" on it.

Come to think of it, that probably means I'll have to build my own. I ain't looking forward to that, but it is what it is.

 

[RicoADF]

I'll look into that. Assuming I can get a new PC that hasn't had its BIOS screwed-up so that only Win8 "works" on it.

Come to think of it, that probably means I'll have to build my own. I ain't looking forward to that, but it is what it is.

You can always turn that off, you just need to go into the BIOS. It's annoying but not much that can be done.

 

[Darxide]

Waaaaitwaitwaitwait.

Windows 10?

I swear they only just launched Windows 8. Hell, what happened to Windows 9?

You really should come out from under your rock from time to time.

 

[Nurb]

Hardly anyone uses DX11 in there games yet, why are they bothering to push a new one?

 

[RicoADF]

Sorry Folks, There Will be no DirectX 12 Support For Windows 7

Microsoft's latest DirectX API will be exclusive to Windows 8 and Windows 10.

Update: According to a statement received by GameSpot [http://www.gamespot.com/articles/amd-misspoke-saying-directx-12-won-t-work-with-win/1100-6423617/], Huddy "misspoke" regarding DirectX 12 support for Windows 7.

"There have been reports based on a video of Richard Huddy of AMD making speculative comments around DirectX 12 support on versions of Windows," AMD said in the statement. "Richard Huddy does not speak for Microsoft, and he was unfortunately speculating from Microsoft's publication of key dates and milestones for Windows 7 lifecycle and mainstream support policy. Richard has no special insight into Microsoft's Windows or DirectX roadmaps. Microsoft is a key, strategic partner for AMD and we're continuously collaborating with them on DirectX 12."

So, even though it's just speculation, we probably won't be too surprised if this one turns out to be true, given Microsoft's history.

Source: GameSpot [http://www.gamespot.com/articles/amd-misspoke-saying-directx-12-won-t-work-with-win/1100-6423617/]

Considering the update I'd suggest the title should be updated with a Rumor tag as its not confirmed, even though its likely true.

 

[Steven Bogos]

Sorry Folks, There Will be no DirectX 12 Support For Windows 7

Microsoft's latest DirectX API will be exclusive to Windows 8 and Windows 10.

Update: According to a statement received by GameSpot [http://www.gamespot.com/articles/amd-misspoke-saying-directx-12-won-t-work-with-win/1100-6423617/], Huddy "misspoke" regarding DirectX 12 support for Windows 7.

"There have been reports based on a video of Richard Huddy of AMD making speculative comments around DirectX 12 support on versions of Windows," AMD said in the statement. "Richard Huddy does not speak for Microsoft, and he was unfortunately speculating from Microsoft's publication of key dates and milestones for Windows 7 lifecycle and mainstream support policy. Richard has no special insight into Microsoft's Windows or DirectX roadmaps. Microsoft is a key, strategic partner for AMD and we're continuously collaborating with them on DirectX 12."

So, even though it's just speculation, we probably won't be too surprised if this one turns out to be true, given Microsoft's history.

Source: GameSpot [http://www.gamespot.com/articles/amd-misspoke-saying-directx-12-won-t-work-with-win/1100-6423617/]

Considering the update I'd suggest the title should be updated with a Rumor tag as its not confirmed, even though its likely true.

Fair point. Title updated.

 

[CrystalShadow]

Well, what's the excuse this time?

This just seems like blatant forced upgrading.

Wasn't that the excuse last time?

Lol. Well, I'm not saying what they said last time was true, but they did claim that it was technically impossible to get directX 10 working on XP because they'd rewritten the entire graphics driver stack for Vista.

This time, they don't even seem to be bothering to provide an excuse.

 

[Strazdas]

One point for console gamers, I guess.

Hows so? Do we have any information that consoles get DirectX12?

This is why PC Gaming needs the Steam OS to take off, Microsoft just uses directX to force PC Gamers to upgrade to a more expensive OS with barely any real new features over the last iteration. I don't think the SteamOS will take off though, it will most likely have a small group of dedicated enthusiasts; unless Valve decides to drop some exclusive games for it (HL3,Portal3,Team Fortress3, and so on) don't expect this trend with Windows Operating Systems to at all change.

To be fair, there are a lot of differences between windows 7 and 8 and there are a lot of new features that you dont see, which are actually good. too bad the parts you see got completely anihilated in the process.

SteamOS will take off as much as Linux did - as in not much. thats because it is just a worse version of Linux with Steam preinstalled.

I also don't see why people seem to be getting so upset about this. Windows 7 is over 5 years old now, and support for it ends this coming January,

Wait wait wait, they are dropping windows 7 already? are they mad? i can understand dropping Xp as very few people use it beside government and the like and its 13 years old but 7 is vast majority of their users.

Also Microsoft still essentially has a monopoly. People think Apple is doing great because of its image, but that's only with private consumers. MS makes the vast majority of its money from businesses, and they are in no danger of switching to Macs.

Ech, Apple is doing badly on all fronts. Altrough its consumer products are on the rise, home computers/laptops count is still significanlty bellow 10% and their main money source - the Iphones and tablets are loosing significantly too Android ones (so much that Android is also practically a monopoly). The third moneymaker - Ipods is pretty much dead since most people use their phones so Apple isnt as great as they like you to believe.

The only business strnagehold Apple had was video editing software. however this isnt true anymore for at least 5 years and people are starting to realize it.

is this that big of a deal though? I remember when DX 11 came out DX 10 was still really prevalent for a few years.

The difference between DX 11 and DX 10 isnt big. Its more the kind of a deal that DX 10 vs DX 9 caused and that was pretty significant. that is if DX 12 is all its claimed to be (personally im skeptical). However the claimed 9x the size of Draw Calls handling sounds like a pretty big deal as thats one of the main reasons for Unity having terrible framerate (ubisoft does not know how to use DX 11 properly apperently).

I think you've forgotten about Windows ME....

I don't really care about directx 12 being windows 10 exclusive, its not like game devs are going to drop support for whatever version windows 7 supports.

I'll upgrade to windows 10 whenever I get around to it but it probably won't be because "ERMEGERD I NEED DIRECTX 12"

I luckily skipped ME, but i saw it running on some ATMs and it seems to be doing fine.

DirectX is being Windows 8/10 exclusive and considering that 10 is just 8.2....

yeah, my upgrading is probably going to be the same. whenever i think its worth it as windows and not for a new directX.

This might be the final push that will make OpenGL fully relevant in games again. It's already highly relevant (see: everything Valve does these days).

As an actual professional graphics programmer, I think OpenGL is perfectly fine for games on PC. Depending on hardware level you can get some truly impressive performance with OpenGL these days. The stuff you can do on Kepler generation+ cards with bindless rendering and multidraw indirect seems really promising.

I wouldnt hold my breath. People said that when MS locked DirectX 10 to Vista and DirectX11 to 7 and DirectX 11.1 to 8 and yet OpenGL still hasnt become a factor.

All Valve games i play run on DirectX, so im not sure where that OpenGL relevance comes from. Though granted i dont play all of them.

OpenGL is perfectly fine for games, and i prefer it over DirectX, its just that it really became outdated nowadays due to noone really developing it to the extent DirectX is being developed.

Get Steam OS, its Linux which is what Mac OSX is built off anyway (well Unix)

Oh come on, OSX is so far from Linux nowadays that even Linux advocates dont dare using it as an example. its even officialy labeled as hybrid now and even at its inception wasnt full linux.

I know I can consistently count on you to smash my dreams and make me feel stupid then hand me a sucker for being such a good boy. XD

P.S. I am only goofing around.

In all seriousness, why can a third party not hack a higher tier of DX into Windows XP/7? Is it because it requires an asinine amount of reverse engineering, analysing cryptic code (I forget what the correct term for turning code into nonsensical characters that the computer can still read), or is the DX iteration designed from the ground up with out the necessary components to communicate with lower Window iterations?

I live to serve.

As far as why cant we hack it. well, we would have to completely rewrite it due to massive differences between the operating systems and how they work, which would be essentiall making our own API and not DirectX anymore except copying it and opening outselves to a massive lawsuit, so thats probably why.

well that and we dont have a team of hundreds full time employees.

And even if we rewrite the entire thing, it will still not function fully as lower versions of Windows do not have certain functions required for DirectX and no alternatives (because microsoft just LOVES renaming things every iteration). So we would have to hack and rewrite chunks of the OS itself. so all that done we may as well call it SteamOS based on Windows because Steam likely put way less effort into that than it would take to do this. ANd for what? so a few stubborn people that dont want to update but must play this new game on "teh maximum graphecks" could enjoy it for free?

 

[Kahani]

Most people buy these kind of things as INVESTMENTS. I expect it to last a good long time if it costs more than 200 bucks.

But that's exactly the point - it will last a good long time. Just because you don't get all the latest upgrades doesn't mean the product suddenly stops working. As already noted, the most common version of DX used in games is still DX9, despite DX11 being the most recent. WinXP can't use anything newer than DX9, and yet getting people to upgrade to a newer version of Windows is still a big struggle even now that support has ended entirely and continuing to use it is a major security risk. Clearly not having the latest version of DX available has not been a significant factor in any way.

I think the reason people are so upset is that there's no legimate reason to force users to update to a new OS.

But again, this simply is not happening. No-one is being forced to upgrade anything. Failing to include the latest version of DX does not magically make everyone's PCs stop working. Given the history of DirectX so far, it will be at least a decade before DX11 is old enough that new games don't support it.

a new OS should only come when there's a corresponding change in the technology that demands it.

And yet this has never been the case in the entire history of OSes. New versions are released all the time that do little more than offer incremental upgrades. What was the technology that required Windows 98? There wasn't one, it was just a bit of an improvement over 95, which is why it was version 4.1 rather than 5. Same for the last few versions of Windows - there's a reason 7 and 8 are actually versions 6.1 and 6.2. And it's not just Windows that does this. RHEL 4, 5 and 6 all used version 2.6 of the Linux kernel, and it had been on version 2 since well before it was forked from regular Red Hat Linux. RHEL 7 was the first major version change since 1996. A new OS comes when the company making it decides they've done enough to justify a whole new version rather than just a patch for a previous one. Those incremental changes add up so you'll find new software being less and less compatible with old systems, but there's rarely any single leap in technology that forces a step upgrade in an OS.

Wait wait wait, they are dropping windows 7 already? are they mad? i can understand dropping Xp as very few people use it beside government and the like and its 13 years old but 7 is vast majority of their users.

http://support2.microsoft.com/lifecycle/default.aspx?LN=en-gb&x=7&y=8&c2=14019
It's been standard policy for over a decade - consumer products get 5 years of support, or two years after their successor has been released (see the FAQ linked from that page). Jan 2015 is a couple of months over 5 years since 7 was released, and a couple of months over two years since 8 was released.

As for XP, I think you have that rather backwards. They didn't drop it because few people use it, people only stopped using it because MS stopped supporting it. There's been a big fuss about it for the last year or so, because a whle pile of business hadn't bothered paying attention to the support notes and found themselves suddenly needing to upgrade in a hurry. And even now XP still makes up around a fifth to a quarter (depending on whose stats you look at) of all PC users, possibly more when you consider that stat counters generally rely on internet hits and can therefore undercount business users. Win7 is only at about half, or even less.

As with XP, extended support including security updates will continue for a few years longer, so again people are not being forced to upgrade their OS now for no reason. But it's absolutely normal for non-essential updates such as DX not to be provided for an OS this old.

 

[RicoADF]

Get Steam OS, its Linux which is what Mac OSX is built off anyway (well Unix)

Oh come on, OSX is so far from Linux nowadays that even Linux advocates dont dare using it as an example. its even officialy labeled as hybrid now and even at its inception wasnt full linux.

I said built off rather than "is a varient of/distro of". Your right that it's been heavily modified although how much isn't so easy to determine. From what I can tell it still uses alot of Unix's ways of doing things even if the coding has been rewritten. Even by your own comment it's a hybrid, thus sharing Linux coding which was what I was trying to say. Apologies if I've worded it badly.
They both use Open GL which from the perspective of this topic is the main relevance as it makes porting between them easier.

 

[Metalrocks]

so win 9 is not even out and they talk already of win 10? seriously, is M$ stoned or what? or more likely blinded by all the money they want to make.
i still stick with win 7. but eventually i have to upgrade but this would be win 10. have win 8 on my tab and so far it really annoys me that i have some sound issues and keeps freezing. but also very likely its the tab that has issues.
seriously, not for long and i would seriously consider changing the OS.

 

[Lightknight]

Regarding the Update:

Oh... so no denial of the veracity of the rumor? Just PR-speak? Yep, this is as good as confirmed.

so win 9 is not even out and they talk already of win 10? seriously, is M$ stoned or what? or more likely blinded by all the money they want to make.
i still stick with win 7. but eventually i have to upgrade but this would be win 10. have win 8 on my tab and so far it really annoys me that i have some sound issues and keeps freezing. but also very likely its the tab that has issues.
seriously, not for long and i would seriously consider changing the OS.

There will be no win9.

Win 10 is basically a new OS structure going forward so they jumped to a round number.

 

[J Tyran]

I'm skeptical MS expects many people to drop Win7 because of a DX restriction, this clearly didn't happen when WinXP was locked out of DX10. The biggest effect of the the DX10 restriction was freezing minimum graphics at DX9c for so long. Whether it was intended or not, (foil hats are optional), from my understanding the XBox 360 was running around this level. If the XBox One was locked at DX11 that would lend this idea credence, but this isn't doesn't appear to the case.

I think I may have just undermined my point, woops.

Still a good point though, with both consoles being PCs and the Xbone (I know own one and its still an Xbone) using DX12 we may see a faster uptake of DX12 in PC games this time, its easier to cram it in even as an afterthought this time.

 

[Czann]

Will they try to use Halo to push this forced upgrade thing again?

Doesn't matter. I can still play 99,9% of PC games in a XP system so I don't care at all.

 

[Rawbeard]

This still will not make me love Windows 8, you know.