Is DirectX 12 Worth the Trouble?

D.P. · 16 Mar 2017 at 15:39

https://www.techpowerup.com/231079/is-directx-12-worth-the-trouble

Clearly the performance gains don't at all match the efforts required.

https://www.pcgamesn.com/microsoft/ubisoft-dx12-performance

Turns out that just hitting the same gaming performance Ubisoft were getting on the DirectX 11 version of AnvilNext alone was hard enough when switching over to DX12. They seem to think you should be super-happy if your game can match the old API’s performance, never mind deliver some magical performance gains.

If you take the narrow view that you only care about raw performance you probably won’t be that satisfied with amount of resources and effort it takes to even get to performance parity with DX11

What I have been saying for a long time now. While DX11 and OGL had some issues with multithreading and drawcall overhead DX12 is just not the best way to go about resolving those issues.

For the time being you can expect most developers to stick to DX11.

Rroff · 16 Mar 2017 at 15:46

The thing is most of the performance gains could be realised without going whole hog close to the metal API and is infact what most developers have been asking for not the BS rhetoric certain parties have been purveying. There are some exceptions like Carmack who likes to optimise down to the micro-second but those are exceptions. Most developers just don't want to be putting the time in reinventing the wheel, etc.

Wrinkly · 16 Mar 2017 at 15:50

Best to wait and see what the next generation of AMD cards can do with it. Like most people though, I'd rather see Vulkan dominate.

Ayahuasca · 16 Mar 2017 at 16:06

It's nice for those on older hardware and specifically AMD GPU's as the difference is like moving up a tier of GPU, but for me it runs horribly on BF1 and The Division, for all I know that could be because AMD implement it better as from what I've seen AMD users have no troubles with it.

Kaapstad · 16 Mar 2017 at 16:17

D.P. said:
https://www.techpowerup.com/231079/is-directx-12-worth-the-trouble

Clearly the performance gains don't at all match the efforts required.

https://www.pcgamesn.com/microsoft/ubisoft-dx12-performance

What I have been saying for a long time now. While DX11 and OGL had some issues with multithreading and drawcall overhead DX12 is just not the best way to go about resolving those issues.

For the time being you can expect most developers to stick to DX11.

You are going to have DM and the DX12 Zealots jumping into this thread very soon !!!

One thing that often gets quoted about DX12 is it can help older AMD cards, this is totally the wrong way to look at the new API as it should be what can it do for modern hardware going forward. If the game devs don't want to put in the resources (and I don't blame them as they are a business) DX12 is not going to amount to much.

New tech should be there to make the job easier not the other way round.

Cooper · 16 Mar 2017 at 16:42

DX12 was never about the games, it was about giving the people a reason to upgrade to W10.

The fact that the 'benefits' have turned out to be bogus & full of hot air sums Microsoft up perfectly.

D.P. · 16 Mar 2017 at 17:07

Cooper said:
DX12 was never about the games, it was about giving the people a reason to upgrade to W10.

The fact that the 'benefits' have turned out to be bogus & full of hot air sums Microsoft up perfectly.

MS wanted you to move to Win10, Nvidia and AMD wanted to sell you new hardware and they all marketed the **** out of something most developers didn't really want. As Roff says, some of the underlying issues with DX11 can be solved with out a very low level API. Such low level APIs goes completely against the direction of software over the last 50 years! The last thing developers want is to worry about intricate differences between micro-architectures. You see even AM"Ds marketing playmates have removed ASync compute form older AMD cards in Ashes because it was detrimental to performance without the careful hand tuning required.

Roll on DX13, a hybrid of the last 2 iterations!

Gregster · 16 Mar 2017 at 18:04

I can see the benefit of DX12 for AMD users, purely because mostly DX11 is a slug for AMD. It is great to see games getting boosts for all users but as an Nvidia user, nothing I have gives me better performance over DX11. Not sure what went on but if my memory serves correctly, Nvidia were able to eek out fantastic performance with lower CPU demands quite some time back with DX11.

fs123 · 16 Mar 2017 at 18:11

I think Mantle would have been the better API if MS hadn't killed it by announcing DX12. Doom Vulkan is proof of that. Devs didn't complain about getting the performance out of the Mantle API and there were games which showed a real advantage over DX11.

Then again this is Nixxes who did the presentation at GDC and arguably they have the worst implementation of DX12 in their games. DICE and others seem to be doing well.

mattyfez · 16 Mar 2017 at 18:11

I went straight from a dx10 card to a dx12 card.

Mainly because a lot of recent games just don't run on dx10., so I needed something dx11 capable. The fact it's dx12 capable, is not really a concern of mine.

Overlag · 16 Mar 2017 at 18:12

The same was probably said about DX2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 and 11??

D.P. · 16 Mar 2017 at 18:22

Overlag said:
The same was probably said about DX2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 and 11??

Nope.

Smffy · 16 Mar 2017 at 18:30

Lol

A shame but not overly unexpected I would say...

bfar · 16 Mar 2017 at 18:50

Yea i think this guys arguements might be valid for very small outfits, but for larger studios, the benefits are there. Just look at the way Doom runs, what an engine!

Developers can't keep looking to GPU vendors to do their work for them.

Griffildur · 16 Mar 2017 at 18:57

bfar said:
Yea i think this guys arguements might be valid for very small outfits, but for larger studios, the benefits are there. Just look at the way Doom runs, what an engine!

Developers can't keep looking to GPU vendors to do their work for them.

The only thing that matters is who developed the engine and that is the guy who basically brought us 3D gaming. Not everyone is that guy though ... Don't confuse the two things.

shankly1985 · 16 Mar 2017 at 19:12

Gregster said:
I can see the benefit of DX12 for AMD users, purely because mostly DX11 is a slug for AMD. It is great to see games getting boosts for all users but as an Nvidia user, nothing I have gives me better performance over DX11. Not sure what went on but if my memory serves correctly, Nvidia were able to eek out fantastic performance with lower CPU demands quite some time back with DX11.

Isn't that more the case with older AMD GPUs? The 480 and DX11 driver holds up very well against the 1060 and I believe AMD have improved the DX11 driver for this GPU architecture.

Vega might do just has well with DX11.

Tbh I really want DX12 to be a success and I think it will one day, once all new engines are coded for it.

But for me I want Vulkan API to be the number one API not just because it gives excellent performance but because it's multi platform,
Windows, Android, Linux

Gregster · 16 Mar 2017 at 19:24

shankly1985 said:
Isn't that more the case with older AMD GPUs? The 480 and DX11 driver holds up very well against the 1060 and I believe AMD have improved the DX11 driver for this GPU architecture.

Vega might do just has well with DX11.

Tbh I really want DX12 to be a success and I think it will one day, once all new engines are coded for it.

But for me I want Vulkan API to be the number one API not just because it gives excellent performance but because it's multi platform,
Windows, Android, Linux

Could be and not really looked into it in fairness.

PapaLazaru · 16 Mar 2017 at 19:43

Ayahuasca said:
It's nice for those on older hardware and specifically AMD GPU's as the difference is like moving up a tier of GPU, but for me it runs horribly on BF1 and The Division, for all I know that could be because AMD implement it better as from what I've seen AMD users have no troubles with it.

I definitely see gains on BF1 with my 390.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 16 Mar 2017 at 20:07

I tested out ROTTR and DE:MD with the latest drivers a few days ago. In ROTTR both the GTX1080 and RX470 gained FPS,especially at 1080p,although with some runs performance could drop as very high textures and DX12 would push VRAM usage way too high. I have not played enough of DE:MD,but the internal benchmark showed zero gains.

D.P. · 16 Mar 2017 at 20:10

Griffildur said:
The only thing that matters is who developed the engine and that is the guy who basically brought us 3D gaming. Not everyone is that guy though ... Don't confuse the two things.

bfar said:
Yea i think this guys arguements might be valid for very small outfits, but for larger studios, the benefits are there. Just look at the way Doom runs, what an engine!

Developers can't keep looking to GPU vendors to do their work for them.

It is not the developers job to know the most intricate complexities of a particular micoarchitecture, that is the job of the IHV. The IHV has to make it as easy as possible to extract the best performance form their hardware.