One of the features of Windows 10 that many gamers are eagerly anticipating is Microsoft’s latest collection of APIs for multimedia and gaming, DirectX 12. Today WindowsCentral spotted that, starting next week, PC gamers will be able to play the first DirectX 12 game on Windows 10 with an alpha build of “Ashes of Singularity,” a next generation RTS (real-time strategy game) set in a sci-fi universe.
To gain access to this alpha build and see how a DirectX 12 game performs on your Windows 10 PC, you need to join the “Ashes of Singularity” Founder’s program. The Founder’s program is priced at $44.99 for the regular version, and $99.99 for the Lifetime Edition which includes access to all future expansions and DLC for the lifetime of the game. The codes for the game will also be provided through Steam after your purchase of access to the Founder’s program.
If you are considering testing out this alpha build first head over to the “Ashes of Singularity” announcement to review the absolute minimum system requirements, which are quite a high bar as this is an early, and doomed to be buggy, version of the game. The requirements are:
- A 64-bit PC
- 8 GB of memory
- A DirectX 11 video card with at least 2GB of memory on it (if you’re not certain, you don’t have it)
- 1920×1080 minimum resolution
- High-speed Internet
But if you gaming rig can handle it, and you are a fan of RTS genre games, it might be worth it to get in early and test out DirectX 12 to see how the new APIs stack up to expectations.
The reason for some of the high expectations of DirectX 12 is that the first time DirectX will fully utilize mutli-core CPUs. Currently, even if you have 4, 6, 8 or more cores on your CPU, only one core of the CPU has been able to talk to the GPU at a time. But with DirectX 12, all of your CPU’s core will be able to be utilized to increase game performance, as Microsoft has already demonstrated on 3DMark tests that DirectX 12 improves multi-thread scaling and increases CPU utilization by 50%.
So if you are interested in trying it out for yourself, and have the patience to deal with not just a game that is in early development, but an OS and DirectX 12 that is in development as well, pick up your copy of “Ashes of Singularity” through their Founder’s program.
