Monday, July 3rd 2017

NVIDIA Adds DirectX 12 Support to GeForce "Fermi" Architecture

With its latest GeForce 384 series graphics drivers, NVIDIA quietly added DirectX 12 API support for GPUs based on its "Fermi" architecture, as discovered by keen-eyed users on the Guru3D Forums. These include the GeForce 400-series and 500-series graphics cards. The support appears to be sufficient to run today's Direct3D feature-level 12_0 games or applications, and completes WDDM 2.2 compliance for GeForce "Fermi" graphics cards on Windows 10 Creators Update (version 1703), which could be NVIDIA's motivation for extending DirectX 12 support to these 5+ year old chips. Whether they meet your games' minimum system requirements is an entirely different matter.
Source: Guru3D Forums
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58 Comments on NVIDIA Adds DirectX 12 Support to GeForce "Fermi" Architecture

#51
GoldenX
0x4452I have one of those somewhere in the basement too. I got it second hand :)

To everyone saying AMD 7xxx supported DX12 from the start unlike Fermi. Fermi was released about the same time as AMD 5xxx series of GPUs, which still do not support DX12, fwiw.
They inmediately reported that only GCN would have support.
eidairaman1Who uses those hot bricks still?

Imho they rate with the 5800 and 2900.
Almost all of the low end Geforce cards are Fermi or Kepler rebrands, and with the Windows Store only supporting DX12, maybe Nvidia finally realized they should support what they most sell.
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#52
Cataclysm_ZA
@W1zzard will you possibly run a retro roundup of GPUs from the Fermi architecture to see how they stack up to today's cards? Would be super fun to read.
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#53
agent_x007
Cataclysm_ZA@W1zzard will you possibly run a retro roundup of GPUs from the Fermi architecture to see how they stack up to today's cards? Would be super fun to read.
Like this ?
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#54
Cataclysm_ZA
Like that, but done by someone with a much broader range of games and testing scenarios, only focusing on Fermi, and without DirectX 9 games.
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#55
PGHammer21A
It's not that Fermi isn't still out there - even with Windows 10. In fact, I still HAVE a Fermi-based GTX550Ti (easily the most popular of those Fermi GPUs still in battery out there) - and I didn't even purchase it new. EVGA *alone* sold several thousand refurbished/reconditioned Fermi GPUs just via MicroCenter and Fry's. Why? At the time, DX12 didn't exist except on drawing boards - the big push was, in fact, DX11 on the extremely cheap. (At the time Bush the Younger was President, Crysis 2 was the hot shooter, and Barack Obama was in the community-organizer track. Windows 8.1 was, in fact, in the Insider Preview stage, and I was still running a Celeron E1200 - the "Tabasco" E3400 was, in fact, a year away. I had, in fact, just bought an HD5450 to tag-team with said Celeron six months previous.) Fermi is STILL usable - especially in terms of e-sports - name ONE e-sports game that requires DX12 other than Quake Champions. (That's right - NONE of the current e-sport game crop - including Overwatch - that precedes Quake Champions - which is in CLOSED beta - requires DX12.) Before Ashes of the Singularity dropped DirectX altogether for Vulkan, you could run it on Fermi as well. Strategy titles (and especially RTSes and city-builders) don't require DX12, either. There are OTHER features in newer GPUs (mostly larger amounts of GPU RAM) that are driving upgrades - not necessarily DX12; look at the GTX1050 Ti - it has 4GB of GPU memory in standard trim, uses LESS system power than Fermi, can be as little as half Fermi's size, etc. It's also been problematical to purchase at a decent price - in a mere three calendar day period, I've seen prices on Amazon vacillate twenty-five percent - all because the two largest-volume resellers - one being Amazon itself - ran out of frigging STOCK. Yes - demand for Pascal is up; however, neither DirectX 12 or even Vulkan is a driver, for rather sensible reasons.
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#56
PGHammer21A
Cataclysm_ZALike that, but done by someone with a much broader range of games and testing scenarios, only focusing on Fermi, and without DirectX 9 games.
DX9 was relevant to GTX4xx - but nothing after that. Yes - that means that DX9 was not relevant to the meat of Fermi (GTX5xx and later) or even GT (not GTX) 5xx, either. What WAS relevant? DX11 - and especially in the case of GTX5xx and the later GT 5xx. Windows 7 was still relevant - but just barely; however, Windows Vista was not. (How many of you that bought Fermi-based GPUs bought them and ran Vista on those targeted PCs? I would bet that you largely didn't. DX10 was largely irrelevant to Windows 7 (DX10 was a one-OS trick - Vista; DX11 is, in fact, STILL relevant today, in an era of Windows 10 PCs). To be rather blunt, a lot of the resistance to DX12 is due to the Windows Store - it's like said Store has a designed-in aversion field. However, the REAL reason that the Store is hated is because it's not Steam (Origin and uPlay are hated for mostly the same reason) - how DARE something come along that is not Steam! There is the reality that the Store is actually pushing the technology envelope - which, to put it bluntly, Steam is NOT doing - however, how much good is it to do so when the userbase wants the equivalent of "comfort food"? That is what Steam is, to be honest - the gaming-service equivalent of comfort food. I use multiple gaming services - for me, it is NOT all about Steam; in fact, my last major game was not on sale ON Steam for what I was willing to pay; instead, it was on sale on uPlay. (Notice that the game was, in fact, available on Steam - it still is. However, uPlay was cheaper - price seals the deal - which is usually the case when I purchase a game. DX11 is still relevant - nowadays, it is largely because Steam itself is still relevant.
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#57
agent_x007
PGHammer21ADX9 was relevant to GTX4xx - but nothing after that. Yes - that means that DX9 was not relevant to the meat of Fermi (GTX5xx and later) or even GT (not GTX) 5xx, either. What WAS relevant? DX11 - and especially in the case of GTX5xx and the later GT 5xx. Windows 7 was still relevant - but just barely; however, Windows Vista was not. (How many of you that bought Fermi-based GPUs bought them and ran Vista on those targeted PCs? I would bet that you largely didn't. DX10 was largely irrelevant to Windows 7 (DX10 was a one-OS trick - Vista; DX11 is, in fact, STILL relevant today, in an era of Windows 10 PCs).
GTX 4xx = Fermi (duh ?).
DX9 runs fine on Fermi, but Radeons HD 5xx0/6xx0 have better perf/wat ratio for DX9 games.
You didn't ran DX10 games in Vista because games were not there (most supported DX9 and had DX10 patch on top), and when native DX10 finally showed up, we already had Windows 7 with DX11 support. Here's a list of DX10 games : LINK.
You don't need Windows Store to get DirectX 12 support (see 3DMark Time Spy).
Fetature Level 12_x of DirectX 12 will get utilised... someday, in few years.
But right now, you don't need it to run DX12 only titles.
PGHammer21AFermi is STILL usable - especially in terms of e-sports - name ONE e-sports game that requires DX12 other than Quake Champions. (That's right - NONE of the current e-sport game crop - including Overwatch - that precedes Quake Champions - which is in CLOSED beta - requires DX12.) Before Ashes of the Singularity dropped DirectX altogether for Vulkan, you could run it on Fermi as well. Strategy titles (and especially RTSes and city-builders) don't require DX12, either.
Fermi has DirectX 12 FL_11.0 support now, and it runs DX12 titles (like Gears of War 4), so... what's your problem ?
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