Is DirectX 13 on the cards in 2021 or 2022?

[g67575]

Or, are we in for a much longer wait?

DX 11 released on October 22nd, 2009 for windows 7. Less than 6 years later (July 29, 2015), DX 12 was released.

DX 12 Ultimate was released in March this year, but seems to be mostly an extension of DX 12, rather than a major overhaul.

Perhaps more importantly, will developers 'need' a new version, or can they already get sufficient performance and image quality from DX 12?

Could it be eventually be overtaken by Vulkan, which has provided excellent performance in games like DOOM (2016) and Doom Eternal?

 

[g67575]

DX12U has been described as "an unprecedented alignment between PC and Xbox Series X". What if that's really all there is to it? Apart from enhancing features like ray tracing and adding support for variable rate shading.

Features like Variable Rate Shading and Sampler Feedback seem to be geared towards enhancing performance, very important when you are aiming for 4K resolution on a lower power console GPU, with ray tracing in some titles.

From here:
https://devblogs.microsoft.com/directx/announcing-directx-12-ultimate/

There's a comparison of the known features of DX12_2 here:

About half of the above features are shared by DX 12_1...

So, to me, it seems more like 'DirectX 12.5'

Link:
https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/...s-directx-12-ultimate-its-next-generation-api

 

[g67575]

Windows 10 has been called "the last version of Windows". Maybe we might need to pay for upgrades in the future (I think MS would only do this once they have upgraded almost all PCs to Windows 10).

I think they will just keep releasing new Win 10 builds... rather than require users to upgrade their OS.

I'm very curious about how Microsoft plans to monetize Windows 10... Maybe just lots of paid apps?

Windows 10 licenses that expire every few years

 

[g67575]

I will feel like a bit of a t*** if I upgrade my GPU next year, then Microsoft bring out DX 13 the year after.