Microsoft Ports DirectX 12 to Windows 7 – Boosts World of Warcraft’s Performance in Latest Update
Microsoft Ports DirectX 12 to Windows 7 – Boosts WoW’s Performance in Latest Update
This move will allow game developers to offer the benefits of DirectX 12 to users of older operating systems, with the World of Warcraft becoming the first game to benefit from the change with update 8.1.5, which allows the game to use DirectX 12 on Windows 7. World of Warcraft’s DirectX 12 multi-threading enhancements allows the game to better utilise modern processors, enabling higher framerates in demanding areas of the game. World of Warcraft patch 8.1.5 supports DirectX 12 on Windows 7. Â
Moving forward, Microsoft hopes to help more game developers port their DirectX 12 games to Windows 7, stating that they are “currently working with a few other game developers”. Microsoft has also stated that Windows 10 also offers several “critical OS improvements” that allow the OS to make better use of the low-level API, which will allow DirectX 12 games to run best on the newer OS. Â
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   Blizzard added DirectX 12 support for their award-winning World of Warcraft game on Windows 10 in late 2018. This release received a warm welcome from gamers: thanks to DirectX 12 features such as multi-threading, WoW gamers experienced substantial framerate improvement. After seeing such performance wins for their gamers running DirectX 12 on Windows 10, Blizzard wanted to bring wins to their gamers who remain on Windows 7, where DirectX 12 was not available.
At Microsoft, we make every effort to respond to customer feedback, so when we received this feedback from Blizzard and other developers, we decided to act on it. Microsoft is pleased to announce that we have ported the user mode D3D12 runtime to Windows 7. This unblocks developers who want to take full advantage of the latest improvements in D3D12 while still supporting customers on older operating systems.
Today, with game patch 8.1.5 for World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth, Blizzard becomes the first game developer to use DirectX 12 for Windows 7! Now, Windows 7 WoW gamers can run the game using DirectX 12 and enjoy a framerate boost, though the best DirectX 12 performance will always be on Windows 10, since Windows 10 contains a number of OS optimizations designed to make DirectX 12 run even faster.
We’d like to thank the development community for their feedback. We’re so excited that we have been able to partner with our friends in the game development community to bring the benefits of DirectX 12 to all their customers. Please keep the feedback coming!
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You can join the discussion on Microsoft adding DirectX 12 support to Windows 7 on the OC3D Forums.Â
