Items tagged with DirectX
Gaming graphics have been on a constant improvement trajectory since the early days, with new technologies leveling up the experience. Ray tracing has been one such focus that brings gorgeous lighting, better shadows, and more realistic game worlds to the forefront of gaming. Not without hurdles, the primary...
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CES 2025 brought us plenty of GPU tech to be excited about, much of it from NVIDIA. The GeForce RTX 50 series GPUs feature advanced AI tricks, with technologies such as DLSS 4 and neural rendering. Microsoft is also jumping on board the AI train for gaming, with DirectX support for neural rendering confirmed to be...
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For both hard-core PC gamers and hardware enthusiasts like your average HotHardware reader, it's no big deal to head into a game's settings and flip on whatever upscaling technology applies to their graphics card. Most people won't bother, though; if it isn't enabled by default, it isn't getting turned on. This isn't...
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So-called "Super Resolution" features first came about during the tail end of the 6th generation of game consoles, when developers started experimenting with spatial upscalers on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. The technology came into its own in PlayStation 4 games, which utilized features like checkerboarding to...
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The dreaded Blue Screen of Death, or BSOD, has been the bane of every Windows users' existence for every generation of the OS. With every new version of Windows, Microsoft has claimed that there will be fewer or no blue screens. Rarely has the company been correct about this, though. Even the Xbox has not been immune...
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Last year, Microsoft announced that it would be bringing DirectStorage to Windows PCs to “revolutionize PC gaming." Then, Microsoft showed how DirectStorage would improve the Windows 11 gaming experience back in June, but what about Windows 10? Since that announcement, the DirectX team has been hard at work, and the...
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Since the early 2000s, the DirectX API has been the primary go-between for game engines on the Windows platform and the hardware that drives them. With a new DirectX update announced earlier today, Microsoft has seemingly outed feature-level support for the RDNA2-based line of GPUs from AMD, Xe-HPG discrete GPUs from...
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If you want a trip down PC gaming memory lane, look no further than this MSDN blog post from this DirectX Developer Blog. DirectX has been around in one form or another since 1996, which is starting to really make us feel old. Over those 2+ decades, Microsoft's DirectX team has tested hundreds of graphics cards as...
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DirectX 12 is gaining momentum with both game developers, hardware manufacturers and, as a result, now gamers as well. The Windows 10 enabled low-level API is being adopted in more and more titles, with both legacy and cutting-edge game engines now taking advantage of its benefits. Using an ASUS STRIX Radeon R9 Fury...
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Futuremark is working on an update to its popular 3DMark benchmarking suite that will test the DirectX 12 capabilities of your gaming system. Called Time Spy, the new benchmark sports a "pure DirectX 12 engine" that was built from scratch to support the new features of DX12, including asynchronous compute, explicit...
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After last Wednesday's Windows 10 event, which we covered here and here, no one could have blamed you if you were anxious for Microsoft to release the next preview build. Fortunately, it didn't take long: it came out on Friday, and I think it's safe to say that it introduced even more than we were anticipating (but...
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One of the hot topics in the wake of Titanfall's launch has been whether or not DirectX 12 would make a difference to the game's sometimes jerky framerate and lower-than-expected 792p resolution. According to Titanfall developer Jon Shirling, the new Microsoft API isn't needed to improve the game's performance, and...
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At GDC a few weeks ago, NVIDIA teased a new set of drivers that it promised would offer huge scaling benefits for both single-GPU and SLI configurations. The new driver, 337.50 Beta, drops today -- so what kind of gains can users expect? If you own a high-end NVIDIA card, apparently quite a bit, especially if you game...
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We recently had the chance to sit down with some folks at NVIDIA to discuss high performance graphics APIs (Application Programming Interfaces). With all of the noise recently surrounding AMD’s Mantle, DirectX 12, DirectX 11 and even OpenGL, NVIDIA wanted to clear the air somewhat, and explain the...
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One of the most anticipated announcements of GDC this year has been Microsoft's unveiling of DirectX 12. The event today was light on some details, but didn't disappoint -- DirectX 12 looks like a huge step forward for gaming. The problem DX12 wants to solve is the same issue that drove Mantle. DirectX 11 isn't very...
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Earlier this month, Microsoft acknowledged that it would debut DirectX 12 at GDC this year, with promises that it would offer many of the same features as AMD's Mantle. Fast on the heels of that announcement came news that the API would also be deployed on the Xbox One, presumably as part of a future update. Now, a...
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Nvidia may have just announced GameWorks support will be baked into Unreal Engine 4, but the Red Team is firing back with its own announcement today: Upcoming versions of Cryengine will support AMD's Mantle API. Just to be clear, this announcement refers to an upcoming engine that hasn't been used for a shipping title...
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Buzz has been building for the last week that Microsoft would soon unveil the next version of DirectX at the upcoming Games Developer Conference (GDC). Microsoft has now confirmed that its discussion forums at the show won't just be to discuss updates to DX11, but that it's putting a full court press behind the...
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The mid-range graphics card market has seen a lot of action as of late, with an infusion of new products and the discontinuation of popular previous-gen products. Last week it was AMD’s turn to announce a new card—the $150 Radeon R7 265—and with its arrival also came a price cut on the Radeon R7 260X, which can now be had...
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The mid-range graphics card market has seen a lot of action as of late, with an infusion of new products and the discontinuation of popular previous-gen products. Last week it was AMD’s turn to announce a new card—the $150 Radeon R7 265—and with its arrival also came a price cut on the Radeon R7 260X, which can now be had...
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This has been an exciting few weeks in the GPU space, to say the least. AMD has released a new line-up of cards that cover the entire spectrum, from entry-level, affordable products, to ultra-powerful, high-end solutions, targeted at hardcore gamers. We’ve also seen NVIDIA react to AMD’s recent releases with significant price cuts...
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This has been an exciting few weeks in the GPU space, to say the least. AMD has released a new line-up of cards that cover the entire spectrum, from entry-level, affordable products, to ultra-powerful, high-end solutions, targeted at hardcore gamers. We’ve also seen NVIDIA react to AMD’s recent releases with significant price...
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