Microsoft is expected to reveal DirectX 12’s surprising features at the GDC 2015 earlier next month. We’ve got a glimpse on its performance with the help of StarDock’s CEO, and now it appears the API will feature graphics cards from AMD and Nvidia to work together seamlessly.
DirectX 12 is set to be revealed at GDC 2015
Current APIs such as DirectX 11 and the former ones, features Alternate Frame Rendering to take Two or more identical cards to work together. Basically, Card_1 renders this frame and Card_2 renders the next frame but both are outputing the same renderings from frames 1 to 2. Sounds great, but the limitation is there, since AFR requires both card’s frame buffer to work simultaneously. What this means is that both cards are limited to their memory capacity configurations. Hence, a dual GTX Radeon 6900Ti with 4GB of memory will feature 4GB of memory. 4+4 = 4 is the logic.
What DirectX 12 will support though according to reports is Explicit Asynchronous Multi-GPU capability, or Split Frame Rendering. SFR works similar to AFR, but it splits the resources needed so Card_1 will render this frame, while Card_2 renders the next one and always the next one so to speak. It enables both frame buffers of the card fully utilized. 4 + 4 = 8 is the logic.
SFR appears to bring multi-GPU configurations from different brands to work together, since it does not require both card’s frame buffer to be identically filled in. This allows for better flexibility, should you say… fancy AMD’s features and Nvidia’s features simultaneously.
