Directx 12: The Future of Gaming APIs

DirectX 12 is an API owned and operated by Microsoft that is being phased in as Directx 11 ages. It offers great gains for performance, especially for CPUs. This is the same as Mantle, which can be a point of confusion for many people.

APIs are not entirely GPU-bound, but rather produce the largest overhead on low-end CPUs. Having a more efficient API like Mantle or DirectX 12 will allow users to buy lower-end CPUs, such as quad-core or dual-core CPUs, and still experience massive gains. The video card will take on some of that load, sharing it better with newer APIs.

In testing, DirectX 12 often has a 10x draw call per second improvement over Directx 11. It's about on par with Mantle, although Mantle does outperform it when using a quad-core or six-core or better CPU. DirectX 12 outperforms Mantle when using something with limited threads, like a G3258.

In the charts provided, two variables are used for the CPU - a low-end G3258 from Intel and a high-end, hyper-threaded quad-core CPU with eight threads, provided by Cyberpower. These CPUs show the biggest difference in terms of throttling with APIs. The GPUs used were a 290x because it's required or similar for Mantle, and a Titan X just for fun to test.

It's essential to emphasize that these tests are not comparable to one another. You cannot compare the 290x to the Titan X in terms of draw calls per second using this test. This test is not built for comparing video cards; it's strictly built to compare APIs and API performance.

Another reason why comparisons between these tests are challenging is that none of this is finalized yet; it's all still in development. The other smaller reason is that this test was built to test APIs, which includes a disclaimer stating what the test is looking at - draw calls per second.

The draw call per second will slowly stack up in the test as the CPU and GPU get loaded, and once the frame rate finally drops below 30 FPS, the test stops. What you're looking at are the draw calls per second made by each API, measured in thousands. If you see a number like 712 that's 712,000.

In testing with DirectX 12 and Mantle, we often use a high-end CPU, hitting in excess of 14-15-18 million draw calls per second using the newer APIs. This is a massive gain over Directx 11, which can be seen in these charts. You can see why everyone's excited about the new APIs because it will effectively unlock potential in your hardware that you weren't able to take advantage of before due to the overhead produced by these APIs during draw calls.

In contrast, using a low-end G3258 as a CPU shows almost 10x or greater gains in some cases. This is because the CPU is so thread-limited with a low-end CPU that moving any amount of load from it to the GPU has a huge impact.

The takeaway here is that DirectX 12 is very important to the world of gaming, and Mantle will effectively be defunct by the time Directx 12 ships. No game developers who are noteworthy are using it going forward. It's being deprecated, and DirectX 12 is critical to the advancement of hardware utilization.

If you want to run this test yourself, you can check out the article linked in the description below. I ran the whole test, including some brief technical details on how draw calls work and where the bottlenecks are, and how you can run the test yourself. You need to use Windows 10 Preview for that.

That's all for this test. Please check out the channel if you like this content; we're getting heavy into the hardware analytical content these days. This really helps us out if you subscribe, and I will see you all next time.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey everyone today we're talking about one of the most important topics in gaming as it pertains to hardware we are talking about api overhead and this is the limiting factor when it comes to hardware performance it's why our cpus and gpus underperform versus what their spec would otherwise suggest when it comes to gaming apis are things like directx 11 directx 12 and amd mantel there are all kinds of apis out in the world but specifically for gaming these are the three we're talking about today an api is an application programming interface in the case of dx1112 and mantel it is what enables game developers to hook into the hardware and the operating system of the host computer this makes their lives easier for programming and it even enables things like better backwards compatibility on hardware when you're playing older games so directx 11 has a very heavy overhead when it comes to something called a draw call if you're not familiar with what that is a draw call is effectively when the cpu asks the gpu to draw a new object to the screen or new geometry it is not including things like shading and other special effects lighting stuff like that it's strictly geometry and object calls to the gpu from the cpu this causes a large bottleneck and one of the biggest limiters in pc performance is the bottleneck produced by apis in fact it can be up to 10 times different with directx 12 versus directx 11 the current one that you're most likely all using and we'll talk about this more in a second so first of all it's worth noting that amd mantel has been phased out and has been publicly stated by amd's developers that it is falling into disuse they are urging game developers to move to directx 12 as mantle is being adapted into opengl and will effectively be no longer used in its current state directx 12 is an api owned developed and operated by microsoft and it is being phased in as directx 11 ages dx12 offers great gains for performance especially for cpus this is the same as mantle and this is a point of confusion for a lot of people apis although often associated with video cards are not entirely gpu bound in fact an api produces the largest overhead on low end cpus so having a more efficient api like mantel or dx12 will actually allow you to buy a lower end cpu like a quad core or dual core cpu even the g3258 will see massive gains from an api like the x12 or mantle and the video card will take on some of that load it shares a little bit better with newer apis so in our testing we see that directx 12 often has a 10x draw call per second improvement over directx 11. it's about on par with mantle although mantle does outperform it when using a quad core six core or better cpu and dx12 outperforms mantle when using something with more limited threads like a g3258 so in these charts i'm showing you you'll see a few different things you'll see two variables for the cpu that's the g3258 which is a low end 70 cpu from intel and a 4790k provided by cyberpower which is a high-end uh hyper-threaded quad-core intel cpu with eight threads so these are two cpus these are where we'll see the biggest difference in terms of throttling with apis the gpus we used a 290x strictly because it is required or similar for mantle and we use the titan x just because it's new and fun to test i want to very heavily emphasize that these tests are not comparable to one another you cannot compare the 290x to the titan x in terms of draw calls per second using this test is not built for that it is not built to compare video cards it is strictly built to compare apis and api performance that'd be dx1112 and mantel so although one video card may outperform the other in some tests you really can't look at it that way uh for various reasons and one of the smaller ones is that none of this is really finalized yet it's all still in development the other one is that this test was built to test apis that disclaimer stated what we're looking at here are draw calls per second so the draw calls per second will slowly stack up in the test as the cpu and gpu get loaded and once the frame rate finally drops below 30 fps you will see the the test stops so once it hits 30 fps it's concluded and the results are in so we count the number of draw calls made in the thousands and millions and then and then put that in these charts so what you're looking at is the draw calls per second made by each api and it is measured in thousands here so if you see the number uh 712 that's 712 000 and likewise for the items in the millions so with directx 12 and mantle we're often using a 4790k hitting in excess of 14 15 18 million draw calls per second using the newer apis and this is a massive gain over directx 11 so you can see why everyone's so excited about the new apis because it will effectively unlock potential in your hardware that you weren't able to take advantage of before because of the overhead produced by these during draw calls in other tests using the g3258 as you can see in these charts the the gains are almost 10x or greater in some cases and that's because the the cpu is so thread limited with a low end cpu that moving any amount of load from it to the gpu has huge impact so the takeaway here is that directx 12 is very important to the world of gaming mantel is dead forget about mantle it's shown here for comparison purposes with the other apis but it will effectively be defunct by the time directx 12 ships no game developers uh that are noteworthy are using it going forward it is being deprecated directx 12 is critical to the advancement of hardware utilization and you can see that in these results pretty exciting stuff if you want to run this test yourself you can check out our article linked in the description below i ran the whole test i described some very brief technical detail on how draw calls work and where the bottlenecks are and how you can run the test yourself you need to use windows 10 preview so that is all for this test please check out the channel subscribe if you like this content we're getting heavy into the hardware analytical content these days so we want you coming back to check it out really helps us out if you subscribe and i will see you all next time youhey everyone today we're talking about one of the most important topics in gaming as it pertains to hardware we are talking about api overhead and this is the limiting factor when it comes to hardware performance it's why our cpus and gpus underperform versus what their spec would otherwise suggest when it comes to gaming apis are things like directx 11 directx 12 and amd mantel there are all kinds of apis out in the world but specifically for gaming these are the three we're talking about today an api is an application programming interface in the case of dx1112 and mantel it is what enables game developers to hook into the hardware and the operating system of the host computer this makes their lives easier for programming and it even enables things like better backwards compatibility on hardware when you're playing older games so directx 11 has a very heavy overhead when it comes to something called a draw call if you're not familiar with what that is a draw call is effectively when the cpu asks the gpu to draw a new object to the screen or new geometry it is not including things like shading and other special effects lighting stuff like that it's strictly geometry and object calls to the gpu from the cpu this causes a large bottleneck and one of the biggest limiters in pc performance is the bottleneck produced by apis in fact it can be up to 10 times different with directx 12 versus directx 11 the current one that you're most likely all using and we'll talk about this more in a second so first of all it's worth noting that amd mantel has been phased out and has been publicly stated by amd's developers that it is falling into disuse they are urging game developers to move to directx 12 as mantle is being adapted into opengl and will effectively be no longer used in its current state directx 12 is an api owned developed and operated by microsoft and it is being phased in as directx 11 ages dx12 offers great gains for performance especially for cpus this is the same as mantle and this is a point of confusion for a lot of people apis although often associated with video cards are not entirely gpu bound in fact an api produces the largest overhead on low end cpus so having a more efficient api like mantel or dx12 will actually allow you to buy a lower end cpu like a quad core or dual core cpu even the g3258 will see massive gains from an api like the x12 or mantle and the video card will take on some of that load it shares a little bit better with newer apis so in our testing we see that directx 12 often has a 10x draw call per second improvement over directx 11. it's about on par with mantle although mantle does outperform it when using a quad core six core or better cpu and dx12 outperforms mantle when using something with more limited threads like a g3258 so in these charts i'm showing you you'll see a few different things you'll see two variables for the cpu that's the g3258 which is a low end 70 cpu from intel and a 4790k provided by cyberpower which is a high-end uh hyper-threaded quad-core intel cpu with eight threads so these are two cpus these are where we'll see the biggest difference in terms of throttling with apis the gpus we used a 290x strictly because it is required or similar for mantle and we use the titan x just because it's new and fun to test i want to very heavily emphasize that these tests are not comparable to one another you cannot compare the 290x to the titan x in terms of draw calls per second using this test is not built for that it is not built to compare video cards it is strictly built to compare apis and api performance that'd be dx1112 and mantel so although one video card may outperform the other in some tests you really can't look at it that way uh for various reasons and one of the smaller ones is that none of this is really finalized yet it's all still in development the other one is that this test was built to test apis that disclaimer stated what we're looking at here are draw calls per second so the draw calls per second will slowly stack up in the test as the cpu and gpu get loaded and once the frame rate finally drops below 30 fps you will see the the test stops so once it hits 30 fps it's concluded and the results are in so we count the number of draw calls made in the thousands and millions and then and then put that in these charts so what you're looking at is the draw calls per second made by each api and it is measured in thousands here so if you see the number uh 712 that's 712 000 and likewise for the items in the millions so with directx 12 and mantle we're often using a 4790k hitting in excess of 14 15 18 million draw calls per second using the newer apis and this is a massive gain over directx 11 so you can see why everyone's so excited about the new apis because it will effectively unlock potential in your hardware that you weren't able to take advantage of before because of the overhead produced by these during draw calls in other tests using the g3258 as you can see in these charts the the gains are almost 10x or greater in some cases and that's because the the cpu is so thread limited with a low end cpu that moving any amount of load from it to the gpu has huge impact so the takeaway here is that directx 12 is very important to the world of gaming mantel is dead forget about mantle it's shown here for comparison purposes with the other apis but it will effectively be defunct by the time directx 12 ships no game developers uh that are noteworthy are using it going forward it is being deprecated directx 12 is critical to the advancement of hardware utilization and you can see that in these results pretty exciting stuff if you want to run this test yourself you can check out our article linked in the description below i ran the whole test i described some very brief technical detail on how draw calls work and where the bottlenecks are and how you can run the test yourself you need to use windows 10 preview so that is all for this test please check out the channel subscribe if you like this content we're getting heavy into the hardware analytical content these days so we want you coming back to check it out really helps us out if you subscribe and i will see you all next time you\n"