DirectX12

[KoopaKlaw]

Is it worth it upgrading to a DirectX12 enabled graphics card for Dolphin and gaming in general? Is the difference in FPS that high when compared to D3D11?

[JonnyH]

Dolphin does not support DX12 any more. It was removed as it was no longer being maintained, and the "vulkan" backend offered pretty much the same advantages, and was being maintained and improved by active developers.

As far as I'm aware, there's not really much that the DX12 API required in extra features from the GPU over dx11, and dolphin doesn't really use any of those features anyway. The main advantage is a simplification of the driver model, allowing the possibility of lower CPU use for the same effects being rendered on the GPU.

So for dolphin, there's not really any reason to change GPU based on if it supports DX12 or not.

If you're not CPU limited, there's also not much reason to update to DX12 generally either. As I said, it doesn't really add many more GPU features, but attempts to allow apps to access those features in a more CPU-efficient manner.

[Helios]

I'm going to talk about Vulkan because it's basically the same thing (At least as far as any AMD engineer is concerned, cough) and that's what Dolphin supports.

For Dolphin, Vulkan runs a good deal better on AMD than OpenGL, our default. Probably better than D3D11 as well but after D3D11, you're splitting hairs at that point. You're likely already full speed so whatever.

For games, I haven't seen any titles not on AMD that performs better on D3D12. Mostly because engine devs can't seem to beat how fucking efficient nvidia's D3D11 drivers are. (since D3D12/Vulkan is just 'do the work yourself')

Finally, it really depends what GPU you upgrade to. A low end current gen card is going to be slower on any API than a current gen high end card on any API.