DirectX 11.1 could be locked to Windows 8

Uh oh, it’s a technical news story about DirectX.  Well, I’ll do my best.

Ok, so, according to a post made by a Microsoft employee on a tangentially related tech support thread (something about C++), the company has “no plan” to make DirectX 11.1 available for Windows 7. That means the next iteration of the DirectX platform will only be appearing on Windows 8; at least, for now.

“DirectX 11.1 is part of Windows 8, just like DirectX 11 was part of Windows 7. DirectX 11 was made available for Vista, but at this point there is no plan for DirectX 11.1 to be made available on Windows 7,” the relevant passage reads.

If that remains the case, and if forthcoming games eventually start making exclusive use of DirectX 11.1, those games would only run on the Windows 8 operating system.

DirectX 11.1 doesn’t appear to be a huge jump from DirectX 11 (here’s what it offers), so hopefully games developers will stick with DX11 for a bit. Or, if they do use DX11.1, include a DX11 mode as an option.