DirectX 12 is coming next year, but it probably won’t help Xbox One games run at 1080p

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At this year’s Game Developers Conference, Microsoft laid out the plans for its upcoming DirectX 12 release for Windows and Xbox One. Developers will be able to use these new APIs to boost performance when DX12 is release in the fall of 2015, but will it make a meaningful difference? Is this the magic bullet the Xbox One needs for 1080p releases? Unfortunately, the men and women in the trenches don’t seem to think so.
In an interview with GamingBolt, CD Projekt RED’s Balázs Török expresses his skepticism in regard to DirectX 12′s impact on resolution. He claims that many games on the Xbox One fail to run smoothly at 1080p because of the “additional load on the shading units.” For games bottlenecked by the Xbox One’s limited number of GPU cores, Török maintains that the move to DirectX 12 “is not going to change anything.” Developers might be able to squeeze out better performance elsewhere, but there is only so much that can be done with the hardware they’re working with.
Török’s claims aren’t exactly controversial, mind you. Just last month, Xbox head Phil Spencer downplayed the potential performance boost we can expect to see out of DirectX 12 on the Xbox One. Better APIs will make developing for the Xbox One an easier task, but without a hardware upgrade, Microsoft’s console simply won’t stand up to the PS4 graphically.
The truth is, the PS4 is handily outperforming the Xbox One in terms of horsepower and unit sales. If Microsoft wants to turn the tables, it needs to forget about trying to keep up graphically with the PS4, and focus on making big-name exclusives for the Xbox One. As we’ve mentioned before, one of the most reliable ways to spike console sales is with the launch of AAA titles.
Redmond can’t rely on the Kinect to set itself apart from Sony anymore, so it all comes down to exclusive content. Multi-platform games like Call of Duty or Destiny are almost certainly going to perform better on the PS4, so Microsoft needs to double down on first-party content. Sure, Halo and Gears of War will definitely move consoles, but MS is going to need a lot more than a handful of old franchises for the Xbox One to be a long-term success. If we don’t see a glut of big announcements and a swift uptick in sales in the next year or so, Microsoft might just go down in history as the second company that Sony knocked out of the console market.
link:extremetech