You also won't get any of the other features such as DXR (DirectX Raytracing) on Windows 7. However, Microsoft has clarified that while this will enable developers to support DX12 on Windows 7, the best DX12 performance will still be found on Windows 10 as that OS was designed from the ground-up for this API.

While working with Blizzard, Microsoft decided to port over the D3D12 runtime over to Windows 7.

However, because many gamers are still on Windows 7 for whatever reason, they could only run the game at DX11, which is the latest version supported by that OS. When implemented properly, DX12 does show improved performance over DX11. Over the past couple of years, developers have been increasingly adding support for DirectX 12 in their titles. DirectX 12 titles are able to better leverage multi-core CPUs and also enable multi-GPU systems without requiring hardware vendor technologies such as CrossFire or SLi. It aims to improve performance and efficiency by reducing driver overhead. The company also announced that Blizzard Entertainment's hugely popular World of Warcraft will become the first title to support DirectX 12 on Windows 7.ĭirectX 12 is a low-level API launched alongside Windows 10. If 8.1 ever becomes unviable for me I'll likely migrating to a non Microsoft OS like some form of Linux in the future.Microsoft has announced that it is bringing DirectX 12 support for Windows 7. Data privacy and Microsoft's terrible Windows Update policy regarding that OS are just a couple of factors. There's a lot of issues I have with that OS. Eventually though I may attempt updating my current 7 install to that. I'm really only still on 7 currently because I have tons of apps I installed over the years that I'm just too lazy to reinstall + there's a few things that will probably not work in 8 that I may still want to use. You can install some third party tools to make the GUI (like the start menu) look more like 7's.

(Windows update on 8.1 is more like 7's). (Age of Empires Definitive Edition is one example of a game that will run in Windows 8.1 but not Windows 7).Ĩ.1 is closer to Win10 but without the terrible Windows Update BS that Win10 has. I suggest you at least upgrade to 8.1 even if it turns out if your game(s) still wont' work. Dont' recall if DX12 ever got support in Windows 8.1.

Dx12 win7