Addons and DX12 Update

[AimHawk 8]

Does anyone have any insider info on if addons will work on day 1 when Sim Update V(Xbox Series X/S Release) arrives on July 27th? Will developers need to re-compile each addon and possibly make us pay to upgrade to DX12 versions like they did in Prepar3D?

[Tuskin38 6,491]

They haven't said anything.

[wim123 762]

its like with every update, most addons will work, a few will have to be updated.

[kaha 205]

What bothers me a bit is that we will have to update regardless if addons work or not.

Karl

[wim123 762]

8 minutes ago, kaha said:

What bothers me a bit is that we will have to update regardless if addons work or not.

Karl

thats unavoidable, i wonder if they let a choice of dx11 still exist..some cards are not dx12.

[Der Zeitgeist 1,575]

10 minutes ago, wim123 said:

thats unavoidable, i wonder if they let a choice of dx11 still exist..some cards are not dx12.

But these cards won't be capable to run MSFS at an acceptable level anyway. I don't think many people are playing it with a GPU below, say, a GTX970. That is DX12-capable, and it came out almost seven years ago.

[Colonel X 1,430]

Usually, games keep the DX11 mode as an option for compatibility. Downside of this is, any tutorial that goes something like "MSFS: How to fix..." will include the step "Switch to DX11"...

[bobcat999 8,479]

3 hours ago, Der Zeitgeist said:

But these cards won't be capable to run MSFS at an acceptable level anyway. I don't think many people are playing it with a GPU below, say, a GTX970. That is DX12-capable, and it came out almost seven years ago.

True, but I just feel sorry for the people who will need to buy a new GPU.  The prices and supply are terrible at the moment.

Edited June 20, 2021 by bobcat999

[abrams_tank 7,416]

I've never heard of add-ons needing to be recompiled just because the graphics library is being upgraded to DirectX.  If there is a technical reason why a recompile is required for add-ons, I would like to know what is that technical reason.

From my understanding as a software developer and my limited experience working with a 2D library for DirectX and basic 3D for OpenGL, the add-ons typically contain data and/or code that is run.  Any code that needs to be run that talks to the MSFS engine needs to go through the SDK.  If it goes through the SDK, the MSFS engine will know how to handle the communication with the add-on (in effect, my guess is the MSFS engine is a layer between the add-on and the outputted graphics).  As for the data, the MSFS engine simply reads that data to generate whatever the add-on is intending to do.

In software development, we talk about adding layers in software architecture because a properly done layer can abstract the underlying layers beneath it from the complexity in the layers above it (or abstract the complexities of the layers below from the layers above).

A properly done layer with the MSFS engine should abstract the add-ons from whatever graphics library is being used - this means that whether MSFS changes to DirectX 12, DirectX 13, DirectX 14, etc, there shouldn't be any requirement to recompile any add-on.  But maybe there is a technical reason why the add-ons would require recompiling when MSFS changes to DirectX 12 - maybe one of the 3rd party developers or someone from the Working Title team could give a more detailed answer.

Edited June 20, 2021 by abrams_tank

[kaha 205]

2 hours ago, wim123 said:

thats unavoidable, i wonder if they let a choice of dx11 still exist..some cards are not dx12.

MSFS min specs list the GTX770 which is DX12 capable. Also DX12 is fully backward compatible to DX11, I think.

Karl

[wim123 762]

1 hour ago, kaha said:

MSFS min specs list the GTX770 which is DX12 capable. Also DX12 is fully backward compatible to DX11, I think.

Karl

https://www.nvidia.com/nl-nl/geforce/technologies/dx12/

this is interesting, no mention of a 9xx compatible card there, there are 2 versions of dx12, as long as they only use functions

from version 1 i see no problems, but with 2...well thats update time then.

as with everyting in the future, we will see.

[Der Zeitgeist 1,575]

17 minutes ago, wim123 said:

https://www.nvidia.com/nl-nl/geforce/technologies/dx12/

this is interesting, no mention of a 9xx compatible card there, there are 2 versions of dx12, as long as they only use functions

from version 1 i see no problems, but with 2...well thats update time then.

as with everyting in the future, we will see.

For DX12 compatibility, you shouldn't just check the page of a company that wants to sell graphics cards to you. MSFS won't have all of these raytracing shenanigans anyway. As was explained in this thread already, DX12 support for Nvidia GPUs goes back to the 900 or even 700 series cards, so there's nothing to worry about if your current setup supports MSFS at an acceptable level.

[Colonel X 1,430]

Nobody needs to buy a new GPU unless it's really ancient and in that case you wouldn't be able to run MSFS anyways. And nobody wants to miss out on the (hopefully noticeable) performance improvements. Substantial performance improvements if DLSS is supported, which is highly likely. 

[Tuskin38 6,491]

I doubt they want to support DLSS, since it’s an Nvidia only feature. They’ll probably want to keep things hardware agnostic.

 

The June 30th Q&A will discuss DX12

Edited June 20, 2021 by Tuskin38

[MattNischan 3,778]

No third parties should have to recompile their packages for DX12. 🙂

-Matt