DirectX 12 now on Windows 7, starts with World of Warcraft

DX12 finds a new home in Windows 7, with its first DX12-supported game in World of Warcraft.

@anthony256

Published Mar 12, 2019 11:31 PM CDT
Updated Nov 3, 2020 12:49 PM CST

43 seconds read time

I still remember the hype train from Microsoft and game developers around DirectX 12 and its push away from previous versions of Windows and into the arms of Windows 10. Yeah well, DX12 has just found a new home in Windows 7 and don't check your calendar, because it's not April 1.

DirectX 12 now on Windows 7, starts with World of Warcraft | TweakTown.com

Microsoft has announced that Blizzard is riding shotgun with DX12 being unleashed into Windows 7 with gamers now able to play World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth powered by DX12. Why? Because DirectX 12 has support for multi-threading so even gamers with older rigs will see a performance boost, which will start with Wow: Battle for Azeroth.

Even though Windows 7 will see its support end in 2020, 11 years after its launch, it's still a mega-popular OS. According to Net Applications, the aging operating system is still home to 36.9% of the desktop OS market, compared to a smidge more with 39.22% using Windows 10. Microsoft adds that "if you enjoy your favorite games running with DirectX 12 on Windows 7, you should check how those games run even better on Windows 10!"

Anthony Garreffa

Anthony joined the TweakTown team in 2010 and has since reviewed 100s of graphics cards. Anthony is a long time PC enthusiast with a passion of hate for games built around consoles. FPS gaming since the pre-Quake days, where you were insulted if you used a mouse to aim, he has been addicted to gaming and hardware ever since. Working in IT retail for 10 years gave him great experience with custom-built PCs. His addiction to GPU tech is unwavering and has recently taken a keen interest in artificial intelligence (AI) hardware.