Microsoft has revealed that DirectX 12 will break apart from compatibility with Windows 7.
It wasn’t Microsoft, but AMD Chief Gaming Scientist Richard Huddy who made this revelation in a recent PDXLAN presentation. In the same presentation, he revealed that not only is Windows 7 in wide use, but is growing in popularity as a gaming OS.
Microsoft seems intent on using DirectX 12, which promises extensive performance improvements, to strongarm gamers to switch over to Windows 10, or at least Windows 8.1. They are dropping Windows 7 support as early as January 2015 as well. IMO, having given up ground to Steam, I this still isn’t enough of a compelling case to shift over, at least for gamers. Perhaps the long rumored Xbox streaming feature will do it, when Microsoft finally unveils it.
