Directx12 for 2.0

[Lee04]

As DirectX12 just arrived with portability, new features for preformance.
And support for current graphics cards.

Ogre2.0 designer should take a closer look of what benefits/performance DX12 allows for in a 3D engine.

It usually takes Ogre community two years to "react" to something new.

First they say... it's not yet supported, we have no hardware for it.

Then suddenly everyone has the hardware and Ogre isn't prepared for it...

This time around however we do have the hardware.

[Klaim]

I think it will more be a problem of work force: if you need to setup a new DX renderer plugin, who will write it? Also architectural changes in 2.0 are not stabilized yet so the team need to get past the CTP before focusing on these things.
Except if someone is free to do it.

[Kojack]

This time around however we do have the hardware.

However we don't have DX12 yet. Apparently it's not coming out until next year and will most likely require Windows 9 (due next year too).

[dark_sylinc]

Chill down. DX12 will be out in late 2015. That's two years from now on.

By that time we'll have GL3+ with indirect rendering up and running; and we'll probably ask ourselves (not only us, but other engine devs as well) if it's worth our time to bother with DX12. Unless DX12 happens to be impressively ground breaking.

I don't know what the **** happened in Microsoft this time. Their schedule and timing is waaay off.
I guess that's what you get for ignoring the calls from developers that a new DX was needed, there was full radio silence until Mantle came into scene. And now they're 2 years behind.

[Lee04]

Well the specs for it is here.

[TheSHEEEP]

By that time we'll have GL3+ with indirect rendering up and running; and we'll probably ask ourselves (not only us, but other engine devs as well) if it's worth our time to bother with DX12. Unless DX12 happens to be impressively ground breaking.

Exactly. I've been asking this question for some time (not primarily here) and the only answers I ever got were :

• "DX is faster than OpenGL", which is simply not true any more (in some cases it is even the other way around). Funny enough, it is true for Ogre, as the OpenGL renderer really does seem to be slower than the DX9 one (though not significantly enough to justify switching to DX on Windows, IMO). But with the GL3+ renderer and 2.0, this will very likely change
• "DX is better at bleeding edge tech", which is still true but completely irrelevant for game developers and most other applications
• "Driver support is bad for OpenGL", which is not true anymore on Windows (PC). It is still true on Linux (though getting better), but there is no alternative to OpenGL on Linux anyway, so you gotta deal with it.

(eh, the following is personal opinion, btw...)

So I think the only reasons to still use DirectX are if you really do need the very latest tech (for whatever reason) or if you develop for Xbox, or for Windows Phone - which will either have to adopt OpenGL or sink into obscurity for graphical applications anyway - nobody not using an engine that runs on Windows Phone will develop for it, and nobody with a budget limit will spend additional time on a platform with <5% market share.

Or, as dark_sylinc said, if DX12 somehow blows our minds. Which I seriously doubt.

But all of that said, DX11 will likely remain very usable for years to come (just as DX9), so I see no problem in not starting DX12 renderers before there is any hardware that supports it. Without the hardware, it would be impossible anyway. Specs alone are not too helpful.

[dark_sylinc]

Indeed. So far the biggest reason to go for DX11/DX12 is XBox One/WinPhone support and native support on Windows (DirectX is after all, the native graphics API behind the OS). It is a big reason though. And I wouldn't rule it out. But 2 years is a lot of time.

I don't know what you mean by the "the spec is here" though. Has MS released documentation about the API or something? Or where you referring to that the current HW generation is Dx12-compatible?

[Transporter]

I don't know what you mean by the "the spec is here" though. Has MS released documentation about the API or something? Or where you referring to that the current HW generation is Dx12-compatible?

There are no developer data available. I think he means the official announcement of Microsoft.

Q: Should I wait to buy a new PC or GPU?
A: No – if you buy a PC with supported graphics hardware (over 80% of gamer PCs currently being sold), you’ll be able to enjoy all the power of DirectX 12 games as soon as they are available.

Q: Does DirectX 12 include anything besides Direct3D 12?
A: Also new is a set of cutting-edge graphics tools for developers. Since this is a preview of DirectX 12 focused on Direct3D 12, other technologies may be previewed at a later date.

Q: When will I be able to get my hands on DirectX 12?
A: We are targeting Holiday 2015 games.

Q: What hardware will support Direct3D 12 / will my existing hardware support Direct3D 12?
A: We will link to our hardware partners’ websites as they announce their hardware support for Direct3D 12.

[Kojack]

Chill down. DX12 will be out in late 2015. That's two years from now on.

Q: When will I be able to get my hands on DirectX 12?
A: We are targeting Holiday 2015 games.

Note they said targeting holiday 2015 games, not holiday 2015 sdk release. If games being sold at the end of 2015 have dx12 then the sdk must be released before that.
So could be just a year.

[Zonder]

Chill down. DX12 will be out in late 2015. That's two years from now on.

Q: When will I be able to get my hands on DirectX 12?
A: We are targeting Holiday 2015 games.

Note they said targeting holiday 2015 games, not holiday 2015 sdk release. If games being sold at the end of 2015 have dx12 then the sdk must be released before that.
So could be just a year.

I would expect a preview release by the end of this year,

[maiakaat]

MIcrosoft release Most OS'es for the winter holiday season, most likely 2015 which is roughly the 18 months quoted, they very rarely deviate from this (I did a graph of DX and Windows releases as a projection for my own project predictions six months ago)

Any games ready will have been working in partnership with DX12 for at least 1 year and will have had access to the pre-release long before the OGRE Dev team (probably).

From the news reports it seems the excitement is around improved support on virtualized hardware at this point, I think we need to be realistic and appreciate the teams efforts and ambitions towards a quality DX11.2 OGL3+ renderer, with DX12 nowhere near the future support discussion until such time as good progress has been made on 2.X stable, and more significant features within DX12 are announced which would be rushed into commercial games.

It seems over five years on many indie and smaller budget games are nowhere near shader model 5, and commercial adoption of the full capability of the technology has been at times disappointingly narrow in focus by the big companies -in that it hasn't led to commercial innovation at the rate it would have done in the past (especially given the power of the new features)

My feeling is that the shader model 5 technology is sufficiently advanced that the artist/content pipelines are now in places hopelessly out of date, and the resistance to fundamental changes that may be needed within the content pipeline might be holding back some of the potential (especially if it costs money and a very different way of working), it's a complete guess, but if this is the case then Microsoft have no need to drastically change the current feature set beyond better support for virtualization and possibly compute.

But then I don't work and have never worked for a games company, so I am probably guessing completely wrong

[maiakaat]

DirectX12 has reportedly had a major architecture change which has resulted in significant performance gains in response to AMD's Mantle, so working in DX12 after a stable release of DX11 and GL4 in Ogre might be a significant feature if this turns out to be true, and other differences are minimal