1 minute ago, MJP said:since there's Win7 machines out there with older GPU's
There is a link in the image 'DX10/11/12-SYSTEMS'. Clicking this there are many details: https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/directx/
So OS and GPU percentage for each. Lots of numbers, but of course i don't know how accurate they really are.
It really depends on your target audience. The audience might correlate with some game genres.
A) Hardcore gamers? They will have Windows 10 + DX12 GPUs + up-to-date drivers => Vulkan/DirectX12
B) Casual gamers? They might still have Windows 7 + DX11 => DirectX11
C) Support everyone? => DirectX11
If you're trying to have a multi-platform engine, you'll want to support DirectX11. If not and your product targets non-hardcore gamers, you'll still want to support DirectX11.
Also, it's always easier to "retrofit" a DirectX11 backend into a Vulkan-styled rendering engine, than vice-versa, but you surely know this.
It is worth if you do not need or want to deal with manual synchronizations and memory management of D3D12/Vulkan. Also, when you are using Direct2D you are implicating using Direct3D 11. Direct3D 11 Video extension is also used in a lot of video multimedia back-ends (although there is a D3D12 Video extension too now). You will probably deal with DirectX 11 graphics APIs anyway, even if you do not want to use is as backend in you main rendering system.
On 2/4/2019 at 8:07 PM, pcmaster said:A) Hardcore gamers? They will have Windows 10 + DX12 GPUs + up-to-date drivers => Vulkan/DirectX12
most of "hardcore gamers" play on minimal setting to have 120+fps, that means "OGL2.0/DX8 graphic level"
in that situation, OpenGL4/DX11 overhead ~5-10% (with overall GPU load less then 50%(in most of AAA games on min settings on 1080+GPU))... does not rly matter
I agree to posts above.
if you need simple "print texture(shaders) on polygons"...then OGL4/DX11 more then enought (even game engine like Unity and Godot "roll back" to OGL3 for WebGL compatibility)
