Microsoft surprises with DirectX 12 on Windows 7 for World of Warcraft
Microsoft is making a very surprising addition to Windows 7 this week, with the support of DirectX 12 for the nearly 10-year-old operating system. While Windows 7 support will end in less than a year and Microsoft will start sending notifications to PCs next month, the company is allowing some game developers to implement DirectX 12. The first game to appear with DirectX 12 support on Windows 7 is Blizzard’s World of Warcraft.
Microsoft heard feedback from Blizzard that features like multi-threading in DirectX 12 were bringing substantial framerate improvements to World of Warcraft on Windows 10. Blizzard wanted these same features on Windows 7, presumably because it still has a large base of players on this older OS. Microsoft...