DirectX 12: First DX12 games to hit the market around holiday 2015, says Microsoft

Microsoft revealed DirectX 12 at its GDC 2014 session today, as promised, during which it was announced the updated version of its graphics API would work across all of Microsoft platforms.

DirectX 12 offers a lower level access to hardware and it will "spread the workload on the CPU and GPU" to better balance threads thanks to increased performance, reports Neowin.

Turn 10 Studios took the stage during the presentation to showcase Forza 5 running on PC with Direct3D 12 and Nvidia tech running at 60fps. The studio said it took a four-man team four months to port the title onto PC using the tech.

Microsoft said during the session that DX12 games would be provided with a "significant performance boost" on Xbox One.

Intel, NVIDIA AMD and Qualcomm will all support DX12 in upcoming and future products. Microsoft said by the end of 2015, 100% of new GPUs and 80% of new gaming PCs would be using the tech.

Microsoft said to expect the first DX12 games to be made available around "holiday 2015", when "50% of all new PC games will be DX12 compatible.

The firm wouldn't comment on whether Windows 7 would support DirectX 12, but if history is repeated with this version, it will be exclusive to Windows 8.