Microsoft Rolls Out DirectX 12 Feature-level 12_2: Turing and RDNA2 Support it

[btarunr]

Microsoft on Thursday rolled out the DirectX 12 feature-level 12_2 specification. This adds a set of new API-level features to DirectX 12 feature-level 12_1. It's important to understand that 12_2 is not DirectX 12 Ultimate, even though Microsoft explains in its developer blog that the four key features that make up DirectX 12 Ultimate logo requirements were important enough to be bundled into a new feature-level. At the same time, Ultimate isn't feature-level 12_1, either. The DirectX 12 Ultimate logo requirement consists of DirectX Raytracing, Mesh Shaders, Sampler Feedback, and Variable Rate Shading. These four, combined with an assortment of new features make up feature-level 12_2.

Among the updates introduced with feature-level 12_2 are DXR 1.1, Shader Model 6.5, Variable Rate Shading tier-2, Resource Binding tier-3, Tiled Resources tier-3, Conservative Rasterization tier-3, Root Signature tier-1.1, WriteBufferImmediateSupportFlags, GPU Virtual Address Bits resource expansion, among several other Direct3D raster rendering features. Feature-level 12_2 requires a WDDM 2.0 driver, and a compatible GPU. Currently, NVIDIA's "Turing" based GeForce RTX 20-series are the only GPUs capable of feature-level 12_2. Microsoft announced that AMD's upcoming RDNA2 architecture supports 12_2, too. NVIDIA's upcoming "Ampere" (RTX 20-series successors) may support it, too.



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[Vayra86]

Right so tons of overcomplication aside, all new GPUs will support the top feature level soon.

Good. Maybe now DX12 can finally get some true adoption rate and actual benefit for gaming. Man, what a mess this API has been so far.

 

[human_error]

I still don't think Microsoft should have allowed DX12 features to be optional - the whole ultimate vs non-ultimate seems silly. Any features (like raytracing) that don't have dedicated hardware should be enabled without the HW acceleration and should just have terrible performance - games could detect if there is HW support for such things and have them disabled by default if it would have terrible performance. It's just such a confusing mess on what's supported and what isn't supported with ultimate - they should also just call this DX12.2 and be done with it.

Still glad to hear RDNA2 is going to support this - a fortunate benefit from AMD and Microsoft working so closely together on the new Xbox.

 

[P4-630]

No windows updates for me this week...

 

[ZoneDymo]

BUT WHAT ABOUT DX12 MULTI GPU!!!

 

[DemonicRyzen666]

BUT WHAT ABOUT DX12 MULTI GPU!!!

Because everyone seems to think steam = "world" of gamers, developers said Lol a 0.1% of gamers use dual gpu, so why bother

I too am upset with this .

Microsoft do good, give developers low hanging fruit "insert Yao Ming disgusted face meme" = developers about MGPU on dx12
is really seems like the micro stutter was more akin to game engine limitations that actual use of AFR. Seem to be non-existing is scissor or title/super title mode.

 

[Bruno Vieira]

BUT WHAT ABOUT DX12 MULTI GPU!!!

never again, you should just leave this boat as everybody else.

 

[Vayra86]

BUT WHAT ABOUT DX12 MULTI GPU!!!

This would be sad if it wasn't so funny... or the other way around...

 

[kiriakost]

I have doubts if Microsoft does any in house testing of all that.
They simply open the doors at gaming industry software developers so them to use some new options.
But gaming industry software developers, they are the ones to decide of what to use and of what to trash.

High frame rate and stability, this is what a perfect game engine it should deliver.
If the recent Microsoft DirectX 12 Features they shown as GPU cycles hungry, they might never be adopted.

 

[damric]

Need dx12 in FS2020

 

[mouacyk]

BUT WHAT ABOUT DX12 MULTI GPU!!!

Given the trend of prices, we desperately need this to keep performance moving with value.

 

[R82]

Wow, I just bought a Rx 5700 a month ago It cost me around 450$ and you want to tell me that I don't get DirectX 12_2 Features? not to mention Nvidia is going released turning updates!!!

Microsoft Adds DirectX 12 Feature-level 12_2, and Turing, Ampere and RDNA2 Support it

I am so disappointed from AMD RED TEAM...

You guys screwing us again and again, and for what, for money? You developed RDNA1 With Xbox and PS5 and left Ray Tracing out So that you could charge us again after 1 year on gen2!! at least learn from Nvidia if u want consumer to pay prices that high out of respect for your business give us support for two years for New Features like "Hardware Scheduling Ray Tracing and Direct12_x" !!!

You are the One's that killing the Pc Hardware Industry and gaming Industry and I am in my late 30's...

It is a shame that every time the community needs to get evolve and beg for updates...

I will give you a reminder next year is 2021 and new player comes to town and it's name is "Intel".

The way it looks right now even RDNA2 will fall behind Nvidia and Intel in 2021!!!

 

[stimpy88]

So when will this be available to the end user?

Can we assume Windows 10 20H2?

Wow, I just bought a Rx 5700 a month ago It cost me around 450$ and you want to tell me that I don't get DirectX 12_2 Features? not to mention Nvidia is going released turning updates!!!

Microsoft Adds DirectX 12 Feature-level 12_2, and Turing, Ampere and RDNA2 Support it

I am so disappointed from AMD RED TEAM...

You guys screwing us again and again, and for what, for money? You developed RDNA1 With Xbox and PS5 and left Ray Tracing out So that you could charge us again after 1 year on gen2!! at least learn from Nvidia if u want consumer to pay prices that high out of respect for your business give us support for two years for New Features like "Hardware Scheduling Ray Tracing and Direct12_x" !!!

You are the One's that killing the Pc Hardware Industry and gaming Industry and I am in my late 30's...

It is a shame that every time the community needs to get evolve and beg for updates...

I will give you a reminder next year is 2021 and new player comes to town and it's name is "Intel".

The way it looks right now even RDNA2 will fall behind Nvidia and Intel in 2021!!!

What are you going on about? RDNA2 was what AMD developed for Sony and Microsoft, RDNA1 was simply the foundation which it was built on. But surely, you cannot be pissed about your card not having ray tracing? Nobody ever said that it did, or that it would magically get enabled.

Oh, and I think you need to forget about Intel and Raja's magic chip. Its going to be low to mid end, at best.

 

[R82]

So when will this be available to the end user?

Can we assume Windows 10 20H2?


What are you going on about? RDNA2 was what AMD developed for Sony and Microsoft, RDNA1 was simply the foundation which it was built on. But surely, you cannot be pissed about your card not having ray tracing? Nobody ever said that it did, or that it would magically get enabled.

Oh, and I think you need to forget about Intel and Raja's magic chip. Its going to be low to mid end, at best.

O.k let's forget for a moment from RAY TRACING...Can you please explain to me how come Nvidia is going to support DirectX 12_2 and AMD not (RTX vs Navi)?

Microsoft adds a new DirectX 12 feature level for next-gen graphics technology

Wonder what next-gen graphics developments Microsoft could possibly be preparing for... hmm...

www.pcgamesn.com

.

According to Microsoft it is "huge jump in visual and performance" and by the way from every site I've checked I find this statement:

"So, next-gen graphics API tech is separated into a new feature level in DX12, and Microsoft says there are a few hardware platforms that will support this feature level: Nvidia GeForce RTX and Quadro RTX GPUs, AMD RDNA 2 GPUs, Qualcomm Snapdragon SoCs, and upcoming discrete Intel GPUs (this serving pretty much as confirmation, as expected, that Intel Xe GPUs will have high-level DirectX capabilities)."

I think all Navi first gen owner's needs to wake up and understand what AMD did... IT is not possible to people buy new gpu every 1 year it is insane... I think it will be the end of Radeon at least for so called mid-high GPU'S...
With Nvidia u pay more at first but over time u get more for bucks if u look for updates and features not only fps...(which nvidia kind of win anyway most of the time)...
I am really disappointed...hope that the community will help with this.

 

[GoldenX]

More proof that RDNA1 was a bad deal.

 

[kapone32]

For those that are lamenting on RDNA all I can say is this. How many of the thousands of game are DX12 and on top of that the current Games that must be on every Gamer's radar are perfect according to the specs and gameplay of Marvel's Avengers, Crysis Remastered, Star Wars Squadrons, anything on the Humble Choice list, Cyberpunk 2077 and all Epic free games play perfectly well with RDNA. Though indeed they do struggle some with MS Flight Sim, there is no current card that plays that at high frame rates including the 2080TI. I also expect that if Big NAVI is 50% faster than the 5700XT with a price of $899 or $999 that, AMD will sell those cards to current RDNA users as it would make sense if you want ray tracing, among the other features they will support. Since Tahiti to Vega there was not a design that gave that jump in performance for AMD. I recently got into RDNA and all I will say is if you are building a 1440P High refresh Gaming PC the 5700 is not a choice you will rue. Let's keep in mind that the 1660 neither supports this API.

 

[Fluffmeister]

Well indeed, it's just funny because over the years DX12 was seen as some silver bullet that would unlock the potential of AMD's famously "future proof" hardware. The "Free our async" marketing and all that BS.

Not to mention... Respect their investment. "They wanted us to pay respect to the dollars they were giving us and do things in the architecture or transistors or APIs or ASync Compute, that provided a measure of 'futureproofness.' They wanted to be reassured that even if they're only spending $200 they'd feel secure in their investment for a couple years."

https://www.tweaktown.com/news/52550/amds-new-the-uprising-marketing-campaign-revealed/index.html

Chris Hook and Raja never failed to make us all laugh.

I'm sure if RDNA2 shines, these things will suddenly become important again.

 

[GoldenX]

For those that are lamenting on RDNA all I can say is this. How many of the thousands of game are DX12 and on top of that the current Games that must be on every Gamer's radar are perfect according to the specs and gameplay of Marvel's Avengers, Crysis Remastered, Star Wars Squadrons, anything on the Humble Choice list, Cyberpunk 2077 and all Epic free games play perfectly well with RDNA. Though indeed they do struggle some with MS Flight Sim, there is no current card that plays that at high frame rates including the 2080TI. I also expect that if Big NAVI is 50% faster than the 5700XT with a price of $899 or $999 that, AMD will sell those cards to current RDNA users as it would make sense if you want ray tracing, among the other features they will support. Since Tahiti to Vega there was not a design that gave that jump in performance for AMD. I recently got into RDNA and all I will say is if you are building a 1440P High refresh Gaming PC the 5700 is not a choice you will rue. Let's keep in mind that the 1660 neither supports this API.

The 1600 series is full fledged Turing, so it supports 12_2 fully, unlike RDNA.
Ultimate on the other hand, is a 2000 series/RDNA2 exclusive for now.

 

[R-T-B]

Good. Maybe now DX12 can finally get some true adoption rate and actual benefit for gaming. Man, what a mess this API has been so far.

It's not the gpu support holding it back. It's the fact that it's a low level API and like I've been saying since day 1, those are hard to code for. Don't expect much change there.

 

[Vayra86]

It's not the gpu support holding it back. It's the fact that it's a low level API and like I've been saying since day 1, those are hard to code for. Don't expect much change there.

Agreed, I was thinking about the actual feature levels though and what they contain, and to what degree those are and were in development. Early DX12 days really didn't offer much over DX11, from cost/benefit point of view.

 

[R82]

Can someone explain is simple words why all turing cards including 1600 series going to get directx 12_2 support and RDNA not?

Turing release date was September 2018 and NAVI 10 was july 2019!!!

Doesn't make any sense at all, expect AMD don't give a shit about updates and software...

If Navi 10 won't get support in six months it will become a 250$ nothing more...

vega 64 on paper much more stronger than navi 10 but falls behind in every game because it does not have the new features...

Navi 10 Owner's, make the conclusion by yourself This Cards won't worth much the minute the console's are out there in the end of the year...

 

[GoldenX]

Drawing a square in OpenGL can take just 3 lines, the same operation in Vulkan takes 200. The same happens with DirectX 12, plus Microsoft doesn't offer any type of cross-platform compatibility, similar to Metal. Developers will be more inclined to Vulkan than to DirectX, they can support Windows, Linux, Android, and even Apple stupid products with MoltenVK (I hope MoltenVK matures to be something useful some day).
What this shows us is how limited GCN and RDNA1 are. Microsoft, in the same way as Khronos does, talks to the vendors to decide the specification, they will always release standards that are achievable. So, AMD is basically saying that RDNA1 was DoA, all the effort is on RDNA2.

Well, they can always do what they did when the OpenGL 4.4 spec came out with Terascale, offer support via CPU emulation.

 

[ValenOne]

Can someone explain is simple words why all turing cards including 1600 series going to get directx 12_2 support and RDNA not?

Turing release date was September 2018 and NAVI 10 was july 2019!!!

Doesn't make any sense at all, expect AMD don't give a shit about updates and software...

If Navi 10 won't get support in six months it will become a 250$ nothing more...

vega 64 on paper much more stronger than navi 10 but falls behind in every game because it does not have the new features...

Navi 10 Owner's, make the conclusion by yourself This Cards won't worth much the minute the console's are out there in the end of the year...

NAVI 10 processes GCN instructions in 8 clock cycles and RDNA instructions in 7 clock cycles.
Vega 64/VII processes GCN instructions in 12 clock cycles.

At the same FLOPS, NAVI 10 has about 30% to 40% completion time advantage when compared to Vega.

For those that are lamenting on RDNA all I can say is this. How many of the thousands of game are DX12 and on top of that the current Games that must be on every Gamer's radar are perfect according to the specs and gameplay of Marvel's Avengers, Crysis Remastered, Star Wars Squadrons, anything on the Humble Choice list, Cyberpunk 2077 and all Epic free games play perfectly well with RDNA. Though indeed they do struggle some with MS Flight Sim, there is no current card that plays that at high frame rates including the 2080TI. I also expect that if Big NAVI is 50% faster than the 5700XT with a price of $899 or $999 that, AMD will sell those cards to current RDNA users as it would make sense if you want ray tracing, among the other features they will support. Since Tahiti to Vega there was not a design that gave that jump in performance for AMD. I recently got into RDNA and all I will say is if you are building a 1440P High refresh Gaming PC the 5700 is not a choice you will rue. Let's keep in mind that the 1660 neither supports this API.

New in DirectX— Feature Level 12_2 - DirectX Developer Blog

What’s a feature level? If you’re a game developer who has spent any amount of time with computer hardware, or perhaps a computer game which simulates working with it, you will know that graphics cards are not all the same. There’s differentiation. Differentiation not only of overall performance...

devblogs.microsoft.com

Q: Which hardware platforms will support feature level 12_2?
A: We’re absolutely pleased to inform that:

• Feature level 12_2 is supported on NVIDIA GeForce RTX and NVIDIA Quadro RTX GPUs.
• AMD’s upcoming RDNA 2 architecture based GPUs will include full feature level 12_2 support.
• Intel’s roadmap includes discrete GPUs that will empower developers to take full advantage of Feature Level 12_2.
• Microsoft is collaborating with Qualcomm to bring the benefits of DirectX feature level 12_2 to Snapdragon platforms.

Where Turing GTX's Feature level 12_2 level support?

 

[kapone32]

Because everyone seems to think steam = "world" of gamers, developers said Lol a 0.1% of gamers use dual gpu, so why bother

I too am upset with this .

Microsoft do good, give developers low hanging fruit "insert Yao Ming disgusted face meme" = developers about MGPU on dx12
is really seems like the micro stutter was more akin to game engine limitations that actual use of AFR. Seem to be non-existing is scissor or title/super title mode.

What sucks is that we got Games like AOTS and Strange Brigade that showed the true potential of Multi GPU. Having said that DOOM, Tomb Raider TW Warhammer and Jedi Fallen Order are all great examples of DX12 games that have Multi GPU support.

The 1600 series is full fledged Turing, so it supports 12_2 fully, unlike RDNA.
Ultimate on the other hand, is a 2000 series/RDNA2 exclusive for now.

Well that article states "Currently, NVIDIA's "Turing" based GeForce RTX 20-series are the only GPUs capable of feature-level 12_2."

 

[DemonicRyzen666]

What sucks is that we got Games like AOTS and Strange Brigade that showed the true potential of Multi GPU. Having said that DOOM, Tomb Raider TW Warhammer and Jedi Fallen Order are all great examples of DX12 games that have Multi GPU support.


Well that article states "Currently, NVIDIA's "Turing" based GeForce RTX 20-series are the only GPUs capable of feature-level 12_2."

the problem there is atos is old it and not "mainstream" AAA gaming now.
Not mention that the last of games with out mgpu support is much larger.
I stay away from DRM games anymore so the list for me is even smaller.