AMD Radeon HD 7000 supports DirectX 11.2

The first major update to Windows 8 not only provides an updated user interface but also delivers some news under the hood. One of these is DirectX 11.2, which will also be part of the new Xbox One game console. That includes tiled resources, a kind of virtual memory that makes it possible to dynamically switch in and out textures from the physical video memory.

Previous reports have suggested that the Radeon HD 7000 series will not support all the features of the new graphics library, but not because of the hardware itself but because Microsoft made minor changes to the specifications, which AMD’s driver developers did not predict.

The Radeon HD 7000 series hardware architecture is fully DirectX 11.2-capable when used with a driver that enables this feature. AMD is planning to enable DirectX 11.2 with a driver update in the Windows 8.1 launch timeframe in October, when DirectX 11.2 ships.

In a statement, AMD now confirms that although the Radeon HD 7000 series does not currently support DirectX 11.2, it will be delivered in full compatibility with a new driver, which will be available in connection with the official launch of Windows 8.1 in October.

It is currently unclear whether competitor Nvidia’s existing graphics cards in the Geforce GTX 600 and 700 series also support all features of DirectX 11.2. Microsoft demonstrated, however tiled resources with a Geforce GTX 770 at the Build conference in June and said that Nvidia had a hand in the development, which shows that at least this feature works with the architecture Kepler.