Microsoft has published some details on its upcoming DirectX 12_2 feature level and which companies will be supporting these new capabilities in upcoming GPUs. If you’re wondering how DirectX 12_2 and DirectX 12 Ultimate relate to each other, they’re the same thing — if a GPU supports DX12U, it’ll also support 12_2 and the reverse appears to also be true.
A DirectX feature level is Microsoft’s way of defining what specific capabilities a GPU is capable of. A GPU that can only handle DX 12_0 or 12_1, for example, would support the low-latency command structures and performance-improving aspects of DX12 as an API, but would offer no support for Microsoft’s DXR (DirectX ray tracing) technology. Microsoft typically only puts a major brand push behind whole-integer updates (DirectX 10, 11, 12), but the company is making a bit of an exception with DirectX 12_2, which is where the “DirectX 12 Ultimate” concept comes from.
Whose Getting 12_2 Support?
Article: Microsoft Reveals DirectX 12_2 Features for AMD, Intel, Nvidia, Qualcomm GPUs - ExtremeTech
