Despite some beliefs to the contrary, Microsoft’s next gaming API is coming soon to your PC and mobile devices. Microsoft will officially unveil DirectX 12 at the Game Developers Conference in two weeks time.

Much like AMD’s Mantle API, Microsoft’s description for their DirectX 12 unveiling says that DirectX 12 will be “closer to the metal.” Presumably, that’s in the Mantle way of the API being capable of maximizing performance of your computer beyond what is currently possible with DirectX 11.

We don’t know much about DirectX 12 beyond that. Since DirectX 11.2 is a Windows 8 exclusive API, one would assume that it won’t be compatible with operating systems earlier than that. Also, we know it will be compatible with mobile games since their teaser site includes the logo for Qualcomm’s Snapdragon mobile processor in addition those of AMD, Intel and NVIDIA.

For the less tech inclined, DirectX is an application programming interface that is used to handle a number of multimedia tasks and is primarily used in video games. DirectX includes a number of Microsoft Direct pieces of software including Direct3D, DirectSound, DirectPlay, DirectMusic and DirectDraw. The DirectX API is used by the vast majority of games, though there are alternatives including OpenGL and AMD’s new Mantle API.

We’ll have to see how DirectX 12 works out when Microsoft unveils their new API on March 20th. I’m hoping that Microsoft makes it available for Windows 7 and newer but I’m not holding out hopes on that front.

Source: Ars Technica