In an unexpected turn of events, Windows 7 receives DirectX 12 support in the form of Blizzard’s World of Warcraft. Back in late 2018, this decade-old game got a much deserved DirectX 12 update on Windows 10. This decade-old game got many noticeable improvements from the DirectX 12. The update improved on a lot of stuff over DirectX 11, largely in the performance department by allowing better use of modern hardware. Blizzard then decided that Windows 7 users should also benefit from the improvements.
Now World of Warcraft is the first to receive DirectX 12 support on Windows 7. Together with Microsoft, they have brought DirectX 12 to Windows 7 where it previously was not available. Microsoft has reportedly ported DirectX12 to Windows 7 which should allow developers of all games to add DirectX 12 support to the old Operating System. More games are expected to path DirectX 12 support to Windows 7 with Microsoft working with other game developers on the same task to achieve this.
Since DirectX 12 was developed with Windows 10 in mind and the Operating Systems has improvements over older iterations. It is safe to say that to experience the utmost benefits of Direct X 12 you may need to move over to Windows 10 as the Operating System has many other optimizations done under the hood that make it a very stable and fast operating system.
Microsoft was reluctant to add support for DirectX 12 to Windows 7 previously. This was due to the fact that Microsoft released DirectX 12 alongside Windows 10 in 2015 and wanted every one of its users to switch over it’s new Operating System. Microsoft tried to force this by making gamers switch over to the new operating system for DirectX 12 for new games. And they have succeeded as many pc gamers are on Windows 10 now.
According to Steam Hardware & Software Survey for Feb 2019, a whopping 64% of its users are on Windows 10 with only 25% being on Windows 7 and the rest being shared among other Operating Systems. Linux with the Vulkan API and Valve’s Proton may also be one of the reasons Microsoft decided to add DirectX 12 support to Windows 7. This may be to grab any users from transitioning over to Linux based Operating Systems and keeping all gamers under their own eco-system.
For those users who despise Microsoft because of their past and hate Windows with a passion, you have Linux based Operating Systems. Valve has made strides to make Linux based Operating Systems the go-to for PC users with its full support of Linux for all of its own titles and pushing out the Proton compatibility tool. Linux Operating Systems are better than windows because of their Open Source development for the Linux Kernel. This allows fixed and improvements on a better scale that are more stable and faster than Windows updates. You have the Vulkan API that challenges DirectX 12 directly. For games that are DirectX only you have Valve’s Proton that allows Windows DirectX games to run on Linux.
The only issue users see with Windows 10 is its lack of privacy and intrusive aspect. With the windows update pop-ups to all the background programs running that collected your data. Many users still opt to stay on Windows 7 just because of that. Granted Windows 10 has improved a lot since its initial launch. Microsoft just needs to listen to its consumers and improve on a few aspects of its operating system to really make Windows 10 a total hit.
