Brad Wardell, the founder of Stardock, recently revealed new details about DirectX 12 on Twitter and in an interview with The Inner Circle Podcast. Brad stated that developers who claim “DirectX 12 might give up to a 40% boost” in performance are lying. His company has seen frame rate jumps of 300% to 500% during the early stages of development for their next project. This is a significant increase from what had been reported earlier.
Brad also revealed his thoughts on the level of detail you can expect from future games. He said that developers “can do the Star Wars prequels on Xbox One” when discussing the type of effects that were possible on the hardware. As is the case with every generation, developers get more comfortable programming for a machine the more they use it. Just look at the what Halo 4 was able to accomplish in comparison to a title like Perfect Dark Zero which came out close to the Xbox 360’s launch.
The topic of how DirectX 12 will affect the Xbox One is quite controversial right now. No one really knows what to expect from the new API on a console. Brad stated that DirectX 12 on Xbox One allows “developers can get access to the GPU more directly”. This can lead to better effects and frame rates. When asked about resolution differences and whether the new technology would help with that, he said that the console is more than capable of achieving 1080p at this moment. Brad added, “everyone is in a rush to get their games out so they don’t specifically code for the Xbox One to get their games to 1080p. That’s why you have resolution issues.” He things that DirectX 12 will make a significant difference on Xbox One, especially to developers, and the reason Phil Spencer downplays it is because he wants to “manage expectations”.
Lastly, the exact way DirectX 12 will improve games was also discussed. The API will show the best results on titles are that CPU-bound. CPU-bound means means that all your graphics are handled by one core. Many games are CPU-bound now because current tools don’t allow multiple cores to handle calculations efficiently. Brad stated that he “wants to have a thousand guys on-screen” and “every shot… every explosion” to cast its own light. This was not possible before but it is now through the tools available in DirectX 12. Brad believes that “you will be playing Lord of the Rings” on your Xbox One towards the end of its cycle.
After this interview, the Xbox One DirectX 12 team reached out to The Inner Circle Podcast and expressed interest in discussing DirectX 12 for Xbox One further. This seems like a response to some of the statements made by Brad about how DirectX 12 would affect the Xbox One during the interview. We will have to wait and see what they say and will keep you informed. Stayed tuned to XboxMAD and The Inner Circle Podcast for more interviews and analysis in the future.
Asher M is a games journalist, former News Writer (Gaming) at Windows Central. They contributed 18 articles to ICXM between 2014–2015, focused on game reviews, and Xbox news: one of several bylines used by Asher Madan during his time at ICXM.