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Windows 10 will ship with DirectX 12 says Microsoft

• Egon Kilin
• October 3rd, 2014

Windows 10 is already shaping up to be one of the best versions of the operating system we’ve had in years and it will only get better. Microsoft recently announced that Windows 10 will ship with DirectX 12 when it launches next year. Moreover, the current build of the operating system already features a developer-oriented version of DirectX 12. “The final version of Windows 10 will ship with DirectX 12, and we think it’s going to be awesome,” the DirectX team said in a recent blog post. The team encourages gamers to participate in the testing phase of the operating system by becoming a Windows Insider and trying out the Technical Preview of Windows 10. You can do so by visiting this page.

As for game developers, they will receive a few incentives to begin their work with Windows 10 and DirectX 12. “These game developers will receive everything they need to kickstart their DX12 development, including: updated runtime, API headers, drivers, documentation, and samples, all of which will work with the Windows 10 Technical Preview.” Developers will also receive access to the DirectX 12 port of Unreal Engine 4, which supports the latest publicly released version of the game engine, namely Unreal Engine 4.4. The team says that they also “have great working relationships with all graphics vendors” and they are already collaborating with Intel. The fruits of this collaboration can already bee seen as Intel released a DirectX 12 demo and developers who are part of the Early Access program can check it out here.

Thus far, DirectX 12 was only confirmed for Windows 10 so we don’t know if it will be available for older versions of Windows as well, but we’re bound to learn more details as we approach the release date. Speaking of the release date, Windows 10 was previously rumored to launch sometime in April 2015. However, Microsoft stated that the operating system will only arrive sometime later next year so we should only expected it during Q3 at the earliest. Since the operating system will ship with DirectX 12, the API will presumably launch around that time as well.