DirectX 11.2 promises to bring a host of new features such as the new "Tiled Resources" technique that will (unsurprisingly) be exclusive to the Xbox One and Windows 8.1.

At this year’s Build Developers Conference, Microsoft unveiled its latest version of DirectX, demonstrated the new "Tiled Resources" technique, and made the announcement that the update will be exclusive to Windows 8.1 and the Xbox One.

"Tiled Resources" allows for significant enhancement of in-game textures by making it possible to simultaneously access GPU and traditional RAM memory and create a single large buffer where large textures can be stored. This technique was demonstrated with a model of Mars which displayed a 3 GB texture using just 16 MB of GPU memory and in Graphine’s Granite Flight Simulator that showed "a remarkably detailed island with gliders constructed out of 64 megapixels."

DirectX 11.2 also promises to deliver a large number of other improvements such as more responsive improvements through reduced delay for applications run on top of an API, pre-compiling of HLSL shaders, GPU overlay support and frame buffer scaling.

We can’t say we’re particularly surprised by the announcement since Microsoft is clearly hoping this exclusivity will increase sales of the upcoming Xbox One console and motivate gamers to make the switch over to Windows 8.1.

From Tom's Hardware

Unsurprising.

I see this as being pretty important news and there's 1 reply wow.

I just posted here otherwise tonymarraffa's feelings are hurt...

lol I bet if this was good news about ps4 there'd be 227 replies by tomorrow.

And?

It's pretty awesome!

No it's not, since this basically means that no developer in his right mind will put a lot effort into it, if any at all.

It's not. This could run on Windows 7 just fine.

indeed, and ironically the biggest feature they discuss is regarding ram usage...   that wont benefit the xbox one since it doesnt have seperate system and gpu ram... thats a pc characteristic.

op sorry but this news is really nothing to get excited about, and certainly not a reason to suddently change opinions about the xbox one, if anything all it does is make microsoft worse because theyre locking out new features to specific os's purely to boost adoption and not in any way down to previous os's being unable to run said software, its pathetic behaviour on microsofts part, even win8 owners gave no option but to upgrade ti utilize said features.

thankfully its not a hardware requirement, so someone will provably hack up the dx release to run on win7 like people did with xp when microsoft pulled the same directx shit with vista.