Microsoft had a surprise for Windows 7 users – the operating system received DirectX 12 support, and it seems to be related to World of Warcraft. That is weird timing, especially since Windows 7 support will end in less than a year. However, since numerous Windows users continue to use this version, it does make sense that Microsoft listened to their feedback.
Windows 7 gets DirectX 12 support thanks to World of Warcraft players
World of Warcraft is the first game to appear with DirectX 12 support. This change is supposed to offer several framerate improvements to the game. That is something that already happened with Direct X 12 on Windows 10. Since there were many World of Warcraft players that still used Windows 7, Blizzard wanted to make the same features available for everyone.
“At Microsoft, we make every effort to respond to customer feedback, so when we received this feedback from Blizzard and other developers, we decided to act on it,” explained DirectX program manager Jianye Lu. “Microsoft is pleased to announce that we have ported the user mode D3D12 runtime to Windows 7. That unblocks developers who want to take full advantage of the latest improvements in D3D12 while still supporting customers on older operating systems.”
How to get DirectX 12 on Windows 7
To enable DirectX12 support, you will need to get the latest World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth 8.1.5 patch. It appears that World of Warcraft won’t be the only game to receive this treatment.
“We are currently working with a few other game developers to port their D3D12 games to Windows 7,” added Lu.
In the past, DirectX features were used by Microsoft to convince users to get the latest Windows version. That is another reason why it is surprising to see Microsoft add the new DirectX 12 features to Windows 7 just one year before the company shuts down its support for this operating system.
Daniel Kiss is the senior editor for News Lair. Daniel was working as a writer since he finished high-school, first for local papers then he started online, nowadays he likes to write about the latest games and tech innovations.
