To get the most out of our games when we run them on PC, we try to have the best configuration, both hardware and software. In all this, the DirectX that we will talk about now plays a very important role.
These are a set of elements that are part of the Windows system itself and that allow software, especially games, to make use of the hardware for audio and video playback. Over the years there have been several versions that we have found of these libraries. Right now the latest version we can get our hands on is DirectX 12 which was released in 2015. One of its main benefits was reducing CPU overhead while increasing GPU performance.
Differences between DirectX 11 and 12
But despite the novelties offered by the latest version of the libraries that we mentioned when playing, many wonder if they are really worth it. Basically what we mean by this is that many doubt about the performance increase when going from version 11 to 12 of DirectX. The first thing to keep in mind is that here we find a collection of APIs used to manage tasks related to multimedia playback.
This includes game programming on Windows and Xbox. If we focus on the most recent version, DirectX 12, one of the main differences is how they interact with the PC hardware. And it is that most of the games developed with DirectX 11 only use two or four CPU cores. One of these is dedicated to informing the GPU of what it has to do. On the other hand, DirectX 12 distributes the workload of the CPU between several cores and allows all of them to communicate with the GPU at the same time. In short, this most recent version of the libraries takes better advantage of the potential of the GPU.
In addition, in the latest version the PSOs arrived, objects that describe the state of the entire graphics channel to take better advantage of the GPU, again. This significantly reduces CPU overhead and improves gaming performance.
What libraries to use to play
It must be said that DirectX 11 was released in 2009, so thousands of games have been developed using these libraries until 2015. Hence, DirectX 11 is considered a high-level API. These are easier for developers to use making games stable and playable. On the other hand, DirectX 12 is a low-level API, it allows developers to further fine-tune optimization, but requires extensive knowledge to use.
This means that a game developed in DirectX 12 could end up with worse performance, all depending on the knowledge of the API that the creator of the title has. DirectX 12 includes improvements, but it all depends on how well the developer knows how to implement them. For this reason, many prefer to continue using the DirectX 11 high-level API. For those wondering which we should choose on PC, DirectX 11 or DirectX 12, let’s see the answer.
In reality, it depends on several factors, such as the game that we are going to run, since there are titles that, although they work with DirectX 11, do not allow us to select this option. Also, there are games that are compatible with both DirectX 11 and DirectX 12, such as Fortnite. So we can switch between both versions and test, depending on another key factor, our hardware.
Almost any modern GPU supports DirectX 12, but older ones don’t. In short, migrating from DirectX 11 to DirectX 12 is not as easy as it seems. It depends on factors such as the available hardware, the software, the operating system and if the game is compatible with both, although many times we can try the option that best suits us.
