Starting today (July 29th) Windows 10 will be available for download for anyone already running Windows 7 or 8 and get this, the upgrade is completely free! According to an article released on Time’s website this morning, Microsoft 10 is “an interface overhaul rife with snazzy new features and tantalizing curiosities, many of them aimed squarely at gamers.” Now in order to answer some of the most pressing questions that gamers might come up with regarding Windows 10, Time Magazine’s Matt Peckham sat down with Brad Wardell the CEO of Stardock and the mind behind PC games such as Galactic Civilizations 3 and Sorcerer King.
During the interview one of the first things Wardell discusses is DirectX and the crucial part that it plays during gaming. Direct X is the language silently spoken between games and your CPU. Previously all Windows servers ran on a form of DirectX that were specifically designed before multicore CPU’s existed. According to Wardell’s statements in the article
“At the end of the day, all your games were talking to your video card via one core. That, for modern CPUs now readily sporting four, six or eight cores, creates an enormous bottleneck. However fast your video card might be, that single-core limitation means games often wind up log-jammed by the CPU. It’s a head-scratcher.”
But according to Wardell, Microsoft has solved this dilemma with DirectX 12 which is an integral part of Windows 10.
One integral thing to keep in mind here, a game would have to be written for DirectX 12 in order to be compatible with the system and most games simply aren’t currently which stands as a major setback. But Wardell believes that we can expect will see major companies make the jump in the near future as the conversion isn’t difficult. According to his statement
“These high-end games, like Unreal Engine or CryEngine, you know, your first-person shooters and such, they will probably have DirectX 12 versions very shortly. And when they arrive, we’re talking about a pretty huge, instantaneous performance boost.”
A few of the other highlights for Windows 10 covered in article include:
- DirectX 12 uses much less power than previous systems
- Xbox One is scheduled to receive WIndows 10 later this year
- Windows 10 will run much faster than Windows 7
- Gamers will be able to stream Xbox One games to Windows 10 PC
- The new system handles windowed gaming much more efficiently than Windows 7
Check out the full article from Time here for more details
If you are interested in in downloading Windows 10 for free you can find the link here