Therefore, this action may mean that Microsoft is trying to cater to Windows 7 gamers in this way.Īccording to the Stream Hardware Survey, it shows that there are 71.57% gamers using Windows 10, while there are only 20.4% gamers using 64-bit Windows 7. Why Make DX12 More Accessible?Īctually, it is very surprising that Microsoft brings DirectX 12 games to Windows 7, because Microsoft will end the support for Windows 7 on January 14 th, 2020. The DX12 only supports 64-bit Windows 7 installed SP1, because there is no PIX or D3D12 debug layer, no shared surfaces or cross-API interop, no SLI/LDA support, no D3D12 video, and no WARP support on Windows. And the D3D12 on Windows 7 uses different Present APIs.īesides, there are some limitations to support. Windows 7 does not support DirectML and some fence usage modes, but supports all other features of the Windupdate. However, there are some technical differences of DX12 between Windows 7 and Windows 10. To better support game developers at larger scales, we are publishing the following resources to allow game developers to run their DirectX 12 games on Windows 7.” Therefore, Microsoft said: “We have received warm welcome from the gaming community, and we continued to work with several game studios to further evaluate this work. There are a large number of people in China who like to play World of Warcraft.Īt the end of last year, Blizzard added DirectX 12 to World of Warcraft on Windows 10, which greatly improved the framerate, so it is very popular among gamers. Then why can Microsoft support DirectX 12 games run on Windows 7? Probably the main reason is China. Tip: If you want to upgrade your operating system to Windows 10, I highly recommend you to use MiniTool software to back up important data in advance.īut in March of this year, Microsoft announced that World of Warcraft can use the DX12 API on Windows 7.

Directx 12 on windows 8.1