DirectX 11.1

Direct X 11.1 will be exclusive to Windows 8: Is Microsoft forcing gamers to upgrade?

 

If you’re on the fence about upgrading to Windows 8 and its formerly-known-as-Metro tablet-style user interface, Microsoft may have just made the decision a little easier. The company has announced that the next incremental upgrade to DirectX, version 11.1 — and presumably every new version thereafter — will be exclusive to Windows 8.
Microsoft touts Direct X 11.1 as a piece of Windows 8, likening its exclusivity to Windows 8 (and Windows RT and Windows Server 2012) to how DirectX 11 was built specifically for Windows 7. However, if you were a Vista user, you may remember Direct X 11 being retrofitted for Vista, whereas Microsoft has made it clear that — at the moment, at least — Direct X 11.1 will be exclusive to Windows 8 without any plans to bring it to older operating systems.
Some Windows users may feel like Microsoft is constructing an artificial reason for people to switch to their new operating system, and a quick glance at the Direct X 11.1 features list will probably confirm their stance. Perhaps the biggest addition to come with the new version is native stereoscopic 3D support, a feature of which most gamers probably don’t take too much advantage. Before this addition, developers could only add stereoscopic 3D support to software by intentionally programming it with specific graphics cards that support it in mind.
As of now, unless you’re running a bunch of 3D software, you most likely don’t need to worry too much about upgrading to Windows 8 in order to nab DirectX 11.1. However, if there are no plans to retrofit 11.1, then it wouldn’t be surprising if future versions of DirectX with more significant upgrades were also not available for anything below Windows 8, eventually forcing an upgrade to access more significant features.
It’s also possible that, with DX11.1, Microsoft is testing out — or at least laying the groundwork — for the Xbox 720′s implementation of DirectX. Remember, the “X” in “Xbox” actually stands for the “X” in “DirectX” — an early codename for the Xbox was the lengthier “DirectXbox.” Currently, there’s no word if the next Xbox — or any upcoming console — will employ the exclusive DirectX 11.1, and as any PC Skyrim player will note with a frown and a sigh, games tend to be built for consoles then ported to PC nowadays, so they might not be built with a new DirectX in mind anyway.
One must also wonder if Microsoft is using this seemingly artificial exclusivity as an attempt to drum up sales for the recently released Windows 8, which has been met with mixed reviews. Though the operating system isn’t even three weeks old, hard sales figures haven’t yet been revealed, and normally a company would want to shout fantastic sales from the rooftops whenever possible.
Of course, if Microsoft really is using DirectX 11.1 to artificially force its user base to switch to Windows 8, it can only do so much. A large part of the power lies with the developers — if they don’t actually use any of the new DX11.1 features in their software, then there’s little reason to actually need those features.