By way of Gamingbolt and the PCPer Live Blog for Microsoft's Game Developer Conference on Direct X 12, we're learning that the software giant and Xbox One console creator's latest iteration of the graphic API pack will improve performance of Xbox One games.
We're about to get a little bit technical, so bear with me as I adapt the following report from Gamingbolt. For starters, Direct X is a software development kit for the Windows OS. Microsoft has officially discussed the improvements that Direct X 12 will bring to both the home computer, its software partners, and its home console.
Based on Gamingbolt's report of the conference, Direct X 12 will feature new methods that will improve game performance through optimization to rendering and improved resource management. A difference between Direct X 11 and 12 will be how CPU utilization will be handled. Whereas Direct X 11 had much of its work handled on one CPU core, Direct X 12 will more efficiently spread the work load onto multiple cores, reducing utilization by 50%.
According to the site (and until we're given a post-conference rundown by Microsoft), Direct X 12 may allow for applications to control graphics memory more efficiently and allow for GPUs to perform better collision and culling.
Microsoft Says We'll See More 1080p Games as Times Moves on and as Developers Learn the Hardware
Earlier today I posted Xbox director of development Boyd Multerer's comments on how Xbox One owners should expect to see developers make better use of the console's hardware as time goes on through the means of better software usage (i.e. optimization and efficiency).
If you're a bit confused (and I know I am in some regards), then simply understand that with future software developments by developers, more performance can and will be squeezed from static and non-upgradeable hardware, such as the Xbox One.
We'll have to wait to hear from Microsoft themselves to confirm that Direct X 12's improvements will trickle down to the Xbox One, but the odds are good. I wouldn't expect a retroactive performance boost, but future games may benefit from this update.
