Jan 4th 2024 Microsoft Copilot Becomes a Dedicated Key on Windows-Powered PC Keyboards (52).Jan 2nd 2024 Steam Ends Windows 7 and Windows 8/8.1 Support (71).Feb 19th 2024 Windows 11 24H2 Instruction Requirement Affects Older/Incompatible CPUs (85).Dec 11th 2023 Microsoft Announces October 2025 Date for Windows 10 End of Support (102).Oct 1st 2023 Microsoft Ending Windows Activations Using Windows 7 and 8 Keys (41).Feb 26th 2024 Microsoft DirectX Team to Introduce "DirectSR" at GDC 2024 (12).Dec 6th 2023 Set Your Calendars: Windows 12 is Coming in June 2024 with Arm Support and AI Features (163).Nov 1st 2023 Microsoft Windows 11 23H2 Major Update Begins Rolling Out, Bets Big on Generative AI (84).Jan 19th 2024 Windows 12 Might be a Windows 11 24H2 Update, Still Carries AI-Centric Features (102).How true this is remains to be seen, but for many curmudgeons still holding out on Windows 7, this will likely be seen as a form of vindication for sticking with the now venerable OS. Microsoft, of course, has taken it upon themselves to remind everyone that the best possible performance with DirectX 12 will still be had on Windows 10 due to numerous OS optimizations. However, they will not be the last as more developers are working on porting DirectX 12 games to Windows 7 with more announcements to follow. To achieve this Microsoft decided to port the user mode D3D12 runtime to Windows 7, which will unblock developers, thereby allows them to take advantage of the latest improvements that the DirectX 12 API offers while still giving full support to customers on older operating systems.įor now, World of Warcraft is the first game to run in DirectX 12 on Windows 7 with the latest 8.1.5 patch. To facilitate this, they began talking with Microsoft who after getting a great deal of feedback from Blizzard decided to act on it. You might be wondering how that is possible? Well after seeing massive performance gains in WoW when Blizzard released their DirectX 12 update for Windows 10 in late 2018, resulted in the company wanting to bring those performance improvements to gamers still holding out on Windows 7.
In what is likely to create a good deal of controversy along with a few cheers, Blizzard will be adding DirectX 12 support to World of Warcraft on Windows 7 thanks to a bit of effort from Microsoft.