DX12 and Xbox One. People are still somehow confused.
Well, it doesn't actually surprise me that people are confused. But, what does surprise me is the number of people on threads like this giving answers like they actually have a clue when they clearly don't.
One person actually said it wouldn't make a difference because it was just an API rewrite!?!?!?!?! What the F***? This is COMPLETELY wrong. DX12 is a fundamental rewrite of the entire DirectX stack. It is possibly the biggest such rewrite in the history of DirectX. The API likely changed as well... but this is NOT JUST an API rewrite.
Anyway, I'm going over this one AGAIN because it bothers me THAT much.
The first problem with these threads is people are asking whether or not they'll see a difference. See a difference in what? Only games built against DirectX12 will benefit from the improvements. Existing games, if not rebuilt against DX12 (and I'd actually be surprised if any AAA titles actually did this) would see NO BENEFIT AT ALL. So, exactly where do you expect to SEE a difference?
Why don't I think premium titles will be rebuilt? The are already released. They work enough for them to have been released. Not saying some couldn't benefit. But could they benefit enough to change sales? If they don't see it bringing in more sales, they aren't going to spend their own money on having their developers do the work.
The next problem is that the Xbox One won't benefit as much as the PC. And most people are focusing on only one area. The Xbox One XDX already exposes some of the DX12 features. So, the difference wouldn't be the same as going from pure DX11 to DX12 anyway. So that certainly muddies the numbers a bit. But, the Xbox One isn't pure DX12 either. So, the game on pure DX12 should in theory run better.
But, as hinted at, that isn't really the only thing muddying the waters. Console developers are actually able to get around DirectX entirely if they need to for many things. And code which isn't leveraging DirectX API calls is clearly not going to be improved even if the rest of the game is rebuilt against DX12.
All that being said... yes, I can say with almost complete certainty that any game that is REBUILT for DX12 (if any are) will see increased performance. But, those performance gains won't be the huge ones seen on desktop games rebuilt for DX12 (yes, they also need to be rebuilt to see the benefit) UNLESS, the game happens to be written entirely using DX11 API calls.
Reality will probably be closer to marginal gains though for any game where it might have mattered. Titles pushing the boundaries of what these systems can do would be either using the DX12 API's where possible, or writing non-DX12 calls if possible for any critical code. And that is why you won't see the near doubling in performance. I would estimate that the average Xbox One game might see between a 5-25% increase with the majority nearer the lower end. It really depends on how critical the parts of the system relying on DX11 code are and how much they are improved by DX12. Also, any changes to DX12 calls to improve performance in the final release could help a bit.
But none of the matters. You're not likely to ever SEE a difference. Most games will either be on pure DX12 or they won't be. The aggravating thing is, there will probably be one or two anomalies which do be upgraded and people will use these games to state that DX12 is X% faster. Which isn't the way to look at it. Due to the state of DirectX on the Xbox One, you could have games which would see a 0% increase in performance and there could be games which double in performance.
One person actually said it wouldn't make a difference because it was just an API rewrite!?!?!?!?! What the F***? This is COMPLETELY wrong. DX12 is a fundamental rewrite of the entire DirectX stack. It is possibly the biggest such rewrite in the history of DirectX. The API likely changed as well... but this is NOT JUST an API rewrite.
Anyway, I'm going over this one AGAIN because it bothers me THAT much.
The first problem with these threads is people are asking whether or not they'll see a difference. See a difference in what? Only games built against DirectX12 will benefit from the improvements. Existing games, if not rebuilt against DX12 (and I'd actually be surprised if any AAA titles actually did this) would see NO BENEFIT AT ALL. So, exactly where do you expect to SEE a difference?
Why don't I think premium titles will be rebuilt? The are already released. They work enough for them to have been released. Not saying some couldn't benefit. But could they benefit enough to change sales? If they don't see it bringing in more sales, they aren't going to spend their own money on having their developers do the work.
The next problem is that the Xbox One won't benefit as much as the PC. And most people are focusing on only one area. The Xbox One XDX already exposes some of the DX12 features. So, the difference wouldn't be the same as going from pure DX11 to DX12 anyway. So that certainly muddies the numbers a bit. But, the Xbox One isn't pure DX12 either. So, the game on pure DX12 should in theory run better.
But, as hinted at, that isn't really the only thing muddying the waters. Console developers are actually able to get around DirectX entirely if they need to for many things. And code which isn't leveraging DirectX API calls is clearly not going to be improved even if the rest of the game is rebuilt against DX12.
All that being said... yes, I can say with almost complete certainty that any game that is REBUILT for DX12 (if any are) will see increased performance. But, those performance gains won't be the huge ones seen on desktop games rebuilt for DX12 (yes, they also need to be rebuilt to see the benefit) UNLESS, the game happens to be written entirely using DX11 API calls.
Reality will probably be closer to marginal gains though for any game where it might have mattered. Titles pushing the boundaries of what these systems can do would be either using the DX12 API's where possible, or writing non-DX12 calls if possible for any critical code. And that is why you won't see the near doubling in performance. I would estimate that the average Xbox One game might see between a 5-25% increase with the majority nearer the lower end. It really depends on how critical the parts of the system relying on DX11 code are and how much they are improved by DX12. Also, any changes to DX12 calls to improve performance in the final release could help a bit.
But none of the matters. You're not likely to ever SEE a difference. Most games will either be on pure DX12 or they won't be. The aggravating thing is, there will probably be one or two anomalies which do be upgraded and people will use these games to state that DX12 is X% faster. Which isn't the way to look at it. Due to the state of DirectX on the Xbox One, you could have games which would see a 0% increase in performance and there could be games which double in performance.
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