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A tearful tech demo from the studio behind 'Final Fantasy'
Square Enix, the studio responsible for the famously pretty Final Fantasy series, routinely creates tech demos for the latest and greatest gaming systems, and this week it added one more to that repertoire. During Microsoft's BUILD dev conference, Square Enix showed off a real-time DirectX 12 tech demo called WITCH: Chapter 0 [cry]. True to its name, this demo includes a crying woman -- Agni from previous Square Enix tech demos -- and all of the wonky facial animations that come with such an activity. WITCH features 63 million polygons per scene, "six to 12 times more" than what was possible with DirectX 11, Microsoft says. Check out the real-time demo below and note that while the animations certainly are pretty, there isn't much going on in these scenes in terms of AI or NPC population.
Microsoft aims to power up PC and mobile games with DirectX 12
The time for teasing is over. Today at GDC, Microsoft pulled back the curtain on DirectX 12, a shiny new edition of its venerable graphics APIs that some lucky developers can start mucking around with later this year. Microsoft Graphics Development Manager Anuj Gosalia talked up a storm out in SF: he noted that DX12 would (among other things) yield performance boosts across all of Microsoft's platforms, including Xbox One and Windows Phone.
Microsoft teases DirectX 12 reveal for GDC, rumors pit it against AMD's Mantle
That death knell AMD has been ringing for DirectX? Microsoft's having none of it. The software giant is now teasing the next version of the Windows graphics API, inviting developers to join it at GDC for the official reveal of DirectX 12. The splash page reveals little besides the version's numeric and announcement time, but it does feature partner logos for Intel, Qualcomm, Nvidia and, of course, AMD. AMD's disdain for the platform helped birth Project Mantle -- a competing API that gives developers lower-level access (and as a result, more leverage over) PC graphics hardware. One of Microsoft's GDC sessions suggest that something similar is in the works for its own development platform: "You asked us to bring you even closer to the metal... ...so that you can squeeze every last drop of performance out of your PC, tablet, phone and console," reads the description for one of the firms DirectX presentations. "Come learn our plans to deliver." It sure sounds similar, and indeed, it meshes well with recent rumors. Sources close to ExtremeTech say that while the two APIs will have different implementations, both should offer the same benefits. They also say that Microsoft's "close to the metal" lower-level access API is a relatively new project in Redmond, meaning it probably won't muscle in on Mantle's territory until sometime next year. Between that, and the fact that Microsoft has recently taken to limiting Direct X upgrades to Windows upgrades, it's possible that we might not see DirectX 12 in access until we're installing Windows 9.
