New in DirectX 12 feature Level 12_2, a “feature level” is a name that is used to describe a bunch of graphics card capabilities. “Feature level” is a property of your graphics card.
Successive feature levels are supersets of functionality. For example, feature level 12_1 includes all the capabilities of feature level 12_0 plus some more things. And, of course, feature level 12_2 includes all the capabilities of the ones before it, plus some new things. Now it’s worth mentioning that the jump from 12_1 to 12_2 is huge. There are some big-ticket graphics features worth exposing in Direct3D 12, and important enough to be represented in a feature level. There’s a desire to streamline applications who wish to use them, and to make it easier to reason about support for those features on everyone’s gaming environments. Those big-ticket items are
- DirectX raytracing
- Mesh shaders
- Variable rate shading
- Sampler feedback
In addition, feature level 12_2 includes a grab-bag of other capabilities, listed out below. As time moves on and newer-feature-level graphics cards become more widely available, application developers’ lives are made easier since a cumbersome capability check can be removed in favor of simple reliance on presence of the new feature level.
All the things which comprise feature level 12_2 also exist in terms of capabilities and feature tiers queryable through CheckFeatureSupport. No hidden capabilities or anything like that.
