DirectX 11.1 and Windows 7

[Stefan]

DirectX 11.1 and Windows 7
Chuck Walbourn - MSFT
13 Nov 2012 4:34 PM

Windows 8 includes an updated "DirectX 11.1 Runtime" that supports Direct3D 11.1, updates Direct2D and DirectWrite, DXGI 1.2, and a revision of the Windows Imaging Component (WIC).

Portions of the "DirectX 11.1 Runtime" are being made available on Windows 7 Service Pack 1 via the Platform Update for Windows 7 Service Pack 1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (KB 2670838) included with the Internet Explorer 10 Release Preview for Windows 7. This includes the updated components above, but is limited to WDDM 1.1 drivers on Windows 7.

The KB 2670838 update adds the following support to Windows 7 Service Pack 1 / Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1:

    ID3D11Device1, ID2D1Factory1, IDWriteFactory1, IDXGIFactory2, IWICImagingFactory2, ID3DUserDefinedAnnotation and related APIs are available
    Improved Direct3D 11 device interoperability via ID3DDeviceContextState, including the improved interop with Direct2D/DirectWrite
    D3D11_FEATURE_DATA_D3D9_OPTIONS feature detection
    In addition to the new Windows 8 WIC features, this update also fixes decoding of 96bpp floating-point TIFF images.

The following features are Windows 8 / Windows Server 2012 only:

    Feature Level 11.1 hardware
    All D3D11_FEATURE_DATA_D3D11_OPTIONS features for Feature Level 10.x/11.0 devices
    16bpp format support (DXGI_FORMAT_B5G6R5_UNORM, DXGI_FORMAT_B5G5R5A1_UNORM, DXGI_FORMAT_B4G4R4A4_UNORM)
    Tile-based Deferred Renderer optimizations (D3D11_FEATURE_DATA_ARCHITECTURE_INFO)
    HLSL minimum precision shader optimizations (D3D11_FEATURE_SHADER_MIN_PRECISION_SUPPORT)
    DXGI 1.2 features for Stereo, Occlusion status notifications, Desktop Duplication, and NT Handle shared resources
    Windows Store app ICoreWindow features of DXGI 1.2
    WARP support for Feature Levels 11.0 and 11.1
    Direct3D hardware support in Session 0
    The DirectComposition API

Notes for users of the DirectX SDK

The updated headers and link libraries needed to target the new components on Windows 8 and Windows 7 are in the Windows 8.0 SDK as indicated in previous posts (see Where is the DirectX SDK?). See MSDN for details on 'mixing' the Windows 8.0 SDK and legacy DirectX SDK if needed.

It is also important to note that the updated "Debug Runtime" components in the Windows 8. 0 SDK are required on Windows 7 once KB 2670838 is installed. The legacy DirectX SDK (June 2010) "Debug Runtime" for Direct3D 10.x and Direct3D 11.x is not compatible with Windows 8 or Windows 7 once this update is applied.

The legacy PIX for Windows tool in the DirectX SDK (June 2010) release does not support Direct3D 10.x or Direct3D 11.x applications on Windows 8, and after this update is applied it will no longer support these applications on Windows 7. Direct3D 9 application debugging continues to function. Visual Studio 2012's Graphics Debugger supports Direct3D 11.x applications on Windows 7 and Windows 8.

[ljbade]

Looks like the huge negative blowback from developers over the previous no-DX11.1 for Win 7 forced them to rethink.

Time to start adding DX11.1 to my project!

UPDATE:
Hmm looks like I can create a DX11.1 device, but it only supports DX11.0 features.

Guess we will need to wait for an updated Windows 7 driver that implements the DX11.1 features.

UPDATE 2:
AMD just told me that no DX11.1 features are supported on Windows 7 (even if chip supports it), only the API has been ported but you can't actually use any of the new functions.