The advancement of video games in terms of graphics has been spectacular, and judging by some of the demos we've seen recently, everything will be even better in the near future. However, that progress forces us to leave behind many components that lack compatibility or special instructions to run new titles. The latest releases require verifying the 'real' DirectX support in a graphics card, and to do that, all we need is a very popular application...
If you're a frequent Steam user, you've probably come across the PC edition launch of Death Stranding, the last big project by Hideo Kojima, with Norman Reedus and Mads Mikkelsen at the helm. When exploring the game's technical details, we discovered it uses the Decima Engine, the same graphics engine adopted by Horizon Zero Dawn (which will also arrive on Steam on August 7), and by what will be its sequel, Horizon Forbidden West
The available reviews confirm that Death Stranding doesn't present major performance issues. Quite the opposite: reaching 60 FPS isn't impossible, and considering the game's general pace, the experience is acceptable even at 30 FPS. However, many users received unexpected error messages with certain graphics cards. The game isn't particularly clear about its minimum hardware recommendations, but it does confirm “DirectX 12” as mandatory. The problem is... that some “DirectX 12” cards don't work.
An example is the Radeon R9 270X with 4GB, a card technically above the minimum. In the case of Nvidia, owners of a GeForce GTX 750 Ti also had no luck. The explanation lies in the real levels of DirectX support. Death Stranding requires the feature level 12_0, while cards like the 270X and the 750 Ti are stuck at 11_1 and 11_2. Unless developers make a low-level change, Death Stranding won't run on that hardware.
So the question is: how to verify DirectX support? Easy: download a copy of GPU-Z. The same program we recommend for measuring temperature and reading GPU sensors presents all the relevant information about real DirectX support. The value appears below the detected PCI Express value, and the program explains that final availability depends on the operating system. In other words, DirectX 12 is exclusive to Windows 10 (Windows 7 only received partial support at the request of some developers).
https://old.neoteo.com/directx-12-ultimate-microsoft/And that's it. Just as happened with many processors, some graphics cards begin to bite the dust not due to lack of resources, but due to the absence of specific features. Do you have a GPU replacement planned? Do you plan to play Horizon Zero Dawn or Death Stranding soon? Leave a comment!
For the official GPU-Z website and download, click here
