Em cada atualização do DX, há recursos que exigem novos hadware e recursos que são suportados pelo hardware já lançado. O DX12 não é uma exceção.
Por exemplo, aqui está o gráfico atual para o DX11
ThepurposeofthefeaturelevelfunctionistoallowdeveloperstotargetasingleAPIratherthandevelopingseparatecodebasesinparalleltoensurethatagamecanrunsmoothlyonmultiplegenerationsofGPUhardwareratherthanwritingseparatecodeforDX12,DX11,DX10,andsoon.ADirectX11GPUwithfeaturelevel9_3couldn’tmagicallyperformDirectX11effects,butitcouldrungamesinDirectX9modewithoutthedeveloperneedingtowriteanentirelyseparateengineimplementationtoallowforit.
AmaioriadossitesquecobremoDX12provavelmentefalamsobreosenormesaumentospotenciaisdedesempenhoquevirãocomoDX12.Seucartãoatualsuportaráessasalterações.
It’simportanttorememberthatthemulti-threadingandmulti-GPUcapabilitiesofDirectX12thatwe’veseenpreviewedto-date(anddemonstratedviaMantle)arestillcompletelyavailabletoeveryfeaturelevel.
Além disso:
No current Intel IGP supports DirectX 12_0, while only Nvidia’s Maxwell hardware supports 12_0 or 12_1.
O que é um pouco diferente com o DX12
To understand why Microsoft built DirectX 12 the way it did, consider the alternative. Prior to DirectX 11, every new DirectX version was tied to new hardware requirements. From time to time, AMD or Nvidia might implement a specific feature in hardware before it became part of a future DirectX standard, but graphics cards were fixed to the DirectX APIs they supported at launch.