How is this possible

[Od1sseas]

How can a GPU "support" DX12? I mean, how can hardware support something that is software based? Same thing with CPU and their "instructions" (When a CPU doesn't support SSE4.1 for example)

[Skiiwee29]

Just like a CPU, the instruction sets need to be coded into the GPU to be able to support it. If the GPU doesnt know what its looking at and dealing with, it wont work.. just like you try and open an unsupported extension in an application, it wont know what to do with it and how to interpret it and ignore it and say hey.. I have no clue what this is and say its not working. 

[Od1sseas]

1 minute ago, Skiiwee29 said:

Just like a CPU, the instruction sets need to be coded into the GPU to be able to support it. If the GPU doesnt know what its looking at and dealing with, it wont work.. just like you try and open an unsupported extension in an application, it wont know what to do with it and how to interpret it and ignore it and say hey.. I have no clue what this is and say its not working. 

So should't a driver update be enough? Because that's imposible i think

[Skiiwee29]

Just now, Od1sseas said:

So should't a driver update be enough? Because that's imposible i think

no, the coding language is hard baked into the architecture of the chip. 

[NeuesTestament]

1 minute ago, Od1sseas said:

So should't a driver update be enough? Because that's imposible i think

This happens below the driver level. Theoretically you could use a driver update to teach the GPU how to intepret it but it will not be as fast.

[Canada EH]

17 minutes ago, Od1sseas said:

How can

Its all in the programming and code my friend.

[emosun]

hardware advancements create support

add or modify the hardware and now it can support the software needed to run it.

if the hardware didn't exist , you in theory could have software try to emulate it which would be very inefficient and slow compared to just using the right hardware in the first place.

in theory a directx 9 card could render a directx 12 game provided you wrote a massive peice of software that took a huge work around and a lot of time to accomplish.