If you have gone ahead and installed Windows 10 and have a DirectX 12 compatible graphics card you might want to give the new software/hardware system a workout to see what it can do. There's been a number of announcements of DirectX 12 games in development but we are still waiting for any to arrive. With DirectX 12 trumpeted as an almost 'revolutionary' part of the Windows 10 experience it's a bit like Microsoft has given us a new toy but there are no batteries in the box…
Now PC games modder, Unreal Engine 4 project creator, and performance tester CryZENx has published a version of the Unreal Engine 4 [4.9] Elemental Demo ported with DirectX 12 support. CryZENx has made the demo in question downloadable (about 1GB) and also posted some videos on his own channel, showing the Unreal Engine 4 Elemental Demo on his system.
In the video, above, you can see the UE4 Elemental Demo running with DX12. The demo has an FPS overlay in the upper right portion of the screen. Among the components in the PC system in use are; an Intel i7-4790K CPU @ 4.8Ghz, an EVGA Nvidia GTX 980 Ti @ 1366mhz core / 4100mhz memory and 32GB of DDR3-2400 quad RAM.
In the video comments CryZENx says that while the DirectX 12 version of the demo runs consistently at around 60fps, the DirectX 11 version fps sometimes drops as low as 42fps. This is on the same system, hardware, settings etc.
Other testers of the demo are having mixed results. Some have noted great uplifts in frame rates, like CryZENx, but others have not fared so well. Some people can't run the demo, despite seemingly having the requisite software/hardware. Such is the nature of test/in-development software.
CryZENx's work has been in the news recently as he has recreated several Nintendo games in Unreal Engine 4. If you are/were a Nintendo games fan it's probably worth a look at his YouTube channel to see UE4 Super Mario, Legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong and more.
