# DirectX 12 on Windows 7?



## MetoMeto (Sep 28, 2020)

Simple question: *How to install DX12 on Windows 7 (64-bit)?*



Currently i have DX11 when i checked "dxdiag", but i want to upgrade to DX12...
Idk if it matters but my GPU is "GTX 1650 super OC 4GB".


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## Lacius (Sep 28, 2020)

Why are you on Windows 7?


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## ShroomKing (Sep 29, 2020)

You can't. Only a few games use DirectX12 on Windows 7. To get full DX12 support you need Windows 10 unfortunately.



Lacius said:


> Why are you on Windows 7?


Cause windows 8&10 fucking suck


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## Lacius (Sep 29, 2020)

ShroomKing said:


> Cause windows 8&10 fucking suck


Windows 10 is highly recommended.


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## Alexander1970 (Sep 29, 2020)

Hello.



MetoMeto said:


> Simple question: *How to install DX12 on Windows 7 (64-bit)?*
> Currently i have DX11 when i checked "dxdiag", but i want to upgrade to DX12...
> Idk if it matters but my GPU is "GTX 1650 super OC 4GB".


Yes,you can:
https://devblogs.microsoft.com/directx/porting-directx-12-games-to-windows-7/

You can try it from here:
https://www.nuget.org/packages/Microsoft.Direct3D.D3D12On7

Good Luck
Thank you.


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## ShroomKing (Sep 29, 2020)

Lacius said:


> Windows 10 is highly recommended.


Yeah sure but windows 10 has way too many bugs compared to windows 7.



alexander1970 said:


> Hello.
> 
> 
> Yes,you can:
> ...


What you linked are developer files. For DirectX12 to work on windows 7 the developers need to update their game.


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## Alexander1970 (Sep 29, 2020)

ShroomKing said:


> Yeah sure but windows 10 has way too many bugs compared to windows 7.
> 
> 
> What you linked are developer files. For DirectX12 to work on windows 7 the developers need to update their game.


Yes,no other Solution really works.
The Games has to be "customized".



https://devblogs.microsoft.com/directx/world-of-warcraft-uses-directx-12-running-on-windows-7/


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## Lacius (Sep 29, 2020)

ShroomKing said:


> Yeah sure but windows 10 has way too many bugs compared to windows 7.


I'd disagree. It's pretty stable. In addition, Windows 7 no longer receives security support.

There's no reason not to update to Windows 10 if your computer supports it, and it will make topics like this thread's a lot simpler.


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## ShroomKing (Sep 29, 2020)

Lacius said:


> I'd disagree. It's pretty stable. In addition, Windows 7 no longer receives security support.
> 
> There's no reason not to update to Windows 10 if your computer supports it, and it will make topics like this thread's a lot simpler.


It's "stable" but some things just don't work properly. They still haven't fixed the start menu search which used to work perfectly in windows 7. It keeps automatically installing software from the Microsoft Store, and there's plenty of other issues and Microsoft BS that didn't exist in 7.
Another thing is: some laptop drivers only work up to Win7. Also, Win10 is optimized to run on SSDs and as a result, runs poorly on HDDs.

My point is some people have reasons to not run Win10 so maybe just don't ask why they haven't upgraded but instead focus on answering OPs question?


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## Lacius (Sep 29, 2020)

ShroomKing said:


> It's "stable" but some things just don't work properly. They still haven't fixed the start menu search which used to work perfectly in windows 7. It keeps automatically installing software from the Microsoft Store, and there's plenty of other issues and Microsoft BS that didn't exist in 7.
> Another thing is: some laptop drivers only work up to Win7. Also, Win10 is optimized to run on SSDs and as a result, runs poorly on HDDs.
> 
> My point is some people have reasons to not run Win10 so maybe just don't ask why they haven't upgraded but instead focus on answering OPs question?



Start menu search works fine for me.
You can uninstall the preinstalled apps, and many of the preinstalls are just placeholders, not actual preinstalls.
If drivers for your hardware only exist for Windows 7 and aren't compatible with Windows 10, that's a legitimate issue, and the computer might not be compatible.
Windows 10 is not any less optimized to run on HDDs than Windows 8 or 7. That's a myth.
If a computer is compatible, it is highly recommended that you update it to Windows 10 or a good Linux distro. There's probably no reason for anything else.


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## Apache Thunder (Sep 29, 2020)

Dont' recall if DX12 ever got support in Windows 8.1. I suggest you at least upgrade to 8.1 even if it turns out if your game(s) still wont' work. (Age of Empires Definitive Edition is one example of a game that will run in Windows 8.1 but not Windows 7).

8.1 is closer to Win10 but without the terrible Windows Update BS that Win10 has. (Windows update on 8.1 is more like 7's). You can install some third party tools to make the GUI (like the start menu) look more like 7's. I'm really only still on 7 currently because I have tons of apps I installed over the years that I'm just too lazy to reinstall + there's a few things that will probably not work in 8 that I may still want to use. Eventually though I may attempt updating my current 7 install to that. Definitely not touching 10 though. There's a lot of issues I have with that OS. Data privacy and Microsoft's terrible Windows Update policy regarding that OS are just a couple of factors.

If 8.1 ever becomes unviable for me I'll likely migrating to a non Microsoft OS like some form of Linux in the future.


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## MetoMeto (Sep 29, 2020)

Lacius said:


> Windows 10 is highly recommended.


He's right, It does suck though....

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------



alexander1970 said:


> Hello.
> 
> 
> Yes,you can:
> ...


Thanks for that! So what are benefits of DX12 on windows 7 games vise?
I kinda wanted dx12 cause i heard its better for games and performance, also i presume i would be able to play dx12 games on wisdows 7 like Forza 4 for example...correct?


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## ShroomKing (Sep 29, 2020)

Lacius said:


> Start menu search works fine for me.
> You can uninstall the preinstalled apps, and many of the preinstalls are just placeholders, not actual preinstalls.
> If drivers for your hardware only exist for Windows 7 and aren't compatible with Windows 10, that's a legitimate issue, and the computer might not be compatible.
> Windows 10 is not any less optimized to run on HDDs than Windows 8 or 7. That's a myth.
> If a computer is compatible, it is highly recommended that you update it to Windows 10 or a good Linux distro. There's probably no reason for anything else.



1. Great it works for you. It only works sometimes when it feels like it for me, most of the time it hangs and can't find the program or file I'm trying to open and goes to Websearch. I've had this problem for years on every single machine I installed it on and it's not fixed yet.

2. Yeah, that's the thing, why do I have to do that in the first place? Sometimes they're placeholders but most of the time they aren't. Every time I do a major windows update or run updates after a fresh install it downloads OneDrive, Xing, Candy Crush, and some other random apps.

3, It doesn't happen that often to be fair but usually it's just some audio drivers that never got updated cause the company went bankrupt or something.

4. It's not a myth, Windows 10 uses swapfiles very aggressively and does tons of caching in the background which is fine on SSDs but it hits HDDs way too hard and they end up being too slow.

but this is kinda offtopic anyway


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## yuyuyup (Sep 29, 2020)

$75k bounty


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## Physix (Sep 30, 2020)

You are missing an important point. Just because the game uses DX12, doesn*t mean it will run better performance wise than if it would be built using DX11.
DX12 is just an updated 3D library provided by MS/Windows with new and/or updated features. But it's still up to the dev/programmer on how he makes use of this API. There a good and bad performing games, doesnt matter if they use DX9/11/12.

In my opinion DX12 is overrated/overhyped, you can achieve everything on DX11 with almost zero performance loss if done correctly. And to be honest switching to win10 just for DX12 is not worth, there are only few games out there which soleley rely on DX12.

If you're happy with win7, stick to it. I won't upgrade either :3


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## Joom (Oct 4, 2020)

Late to the party here, but with recent developments toward Proton and how much Valve is dedicating to bring gaming to Linux, Windows is going to be a thing of the past in the coming years. There's even talks of Microsoft dumping Windows entirely, and turning it into a compatibility layer (like WINE) that sits on top of the Linux kernel. Windows 10 is terrible for gaming, and it's too dangerous to use 7, so people might want to start making the move to a Linux distro.


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## MetoMeto (Jun 26, 2021)

Joom said:


> Late to the party here, but with recent developments toward Proton and how much Valve is dedicating to bring gaming to Linux, Windows is going to be a thing of the past in the coming years. There's even talks of Microsoft dumping Windows entirely, and turning it into a compatibility layer (like WINE) that sits on top of the Linux kernel. Windows 10 is terrible for gaming, and it's too dangerous to use 7, so people might want to start making the move to a Linux distro.



Windows 7 is great for games imho, and it has ton of games. My only issue is DX12 non support. The only danger is if youre online by the way, other than that its perfectly safe.
As for gaming,  there are ton of old and new games compatible with windows 7 and windows is easy to use.

Till linux becomes mainstream and everything win can do linux can do also, i dont see a reason for linux.


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## simbin (Jun 26, 2021)

Look into VFIO if you value your privacy and just want a Windows 10 sandbox for gaming. Almost zero performance loss or lag when configured properly.. nothing you're going to notice on modern hardware anyway.


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## Cyberat (Dec 3, 2021)

Let's Go Windows 7 !


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## Cyberat (Dec 3, 2021)

ShroomKing said:


> 1. Great it works for you. It only works sometimes when it feels like it for me, most of the time it hangs and can't find the program or file I'm trying to open and goes to Websearch. I've had this problem for years on every single machine I installed it on and it's not fixed yet.
> 
> 2. Yeah, that's the thing, why do I have to do that in the first place? Sometimes they're placeholders but most of the time they aren't. Every time I do a major windows update or run updates after a fresh install it downloads OneDrive, Xing, Candy Crush, and some other random apps.
> 
> ...


4) I have read from professional people and from my own professional view that SSDs get trashed by pagefile swapping just as much as HDD (though minus the huge performance loss). I disabled that defunct technology since XP and my systems ran smooth and fast. Definitely something to do in Windows 7. Get rid of the memory leak built-in, it's not for gaming systems with plenty of Ram. Some of the heaviest games occupy 12-14gb of Ram at peak, if you're running with 16gb, kill it.
Windows 7 as last Windows OS. Already running Linux on non-gamer machines.


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