Whether you’re a gamer, videophile, or just a demanding Windows user who wants things working lickety-split, Microsoft’s latest DirectX release is gonna give your PC a measurable octane boost.

A key component in Microsoft’s Windows 7, DirectX 11 boasts a trio of new features—tessellation, multi-threading, and DirectCompute—that will collectively redraw your Windows graphic environment. Of the three, DirectCompute promises the most benefits for PC graphics aficionados.

“DirectCompute enables game developers to implement sophisticated and complex effects that contribute to an overall more immersive high-definition gaming experience,” states Mike Angiulo, Microsoft's General Manager for Windows Product Planning and PC Ecosystem. “Effects like accurate representations of depth of field, tracking of an infinite-seeming number of dynamic light sources that produce the most realistic shadows and highlights, realistic transparency of objects, or sophisticated ambient occlusion algorithms all contribute to a more realistic and lifelike gaming experience, at great performance.”

Gamers aren’t the only ones getting payback. “Almost any type of application that has to deal with large amounts of data benefits from DirectCompute,” Angiulo continues. Whether you’re simply encoding/transcoding your latest HD vacation video to share with friends and family on YouTube or working with sophisticated and specialized vertical industry applications like automotive-crash or aerodynamic-performance simulations, the speed bump is significant.

Tessellation (or tiling) delivers further benefits, albeit mostly for gamers (see
EVGA video). “Tessellation provides a functionality, implemented and supported by a DX11 compatible graphics card, to dynamically subdivide the wireframes of 3D objects,” Angiulo explains. “So what does that mean when you’re using your PC? Tessellation—in combination with High Definition Displacement Maps—can significantly increase the level of detail of objects; like surfaces with rounded edges, objects with high ridge details like roof tiles, cobblestones, character details, and faces. Key to our dynamic tessellation implementation is that tessellation can be programmed to occur differently for different distances, where objects that are rendered to appear in the distance need less detail than objects that are rendered in a close-up view. [This makes] the game—or map, or other graphic—more realistic and of better quality while, behind the scenes, ensuring the best possible performance.”

Anyone who takes their personal computing seriously—gamers or power users—likely junked their single-core CPUs for a spiffy new Dual or Quad-Core arrangement some time ago. DX11’s multi-threading enhancement provides the ability to scale across multi-core CPUs, allowing developers to take better advantage of the multiple cores.

So, you're likely more than fine with the CPU horsepower you have right now. This, however, begs the question: What sort of GPU should consumers buy to take full advantage of DirectCompute and DX11's GPU computing? “You need a DirectX 11–compatible graphics card for the best experience,” Mike Angiulo responds. “But, DirectCompute is also supported on many of the over 200 million plus DirectX 10– and 10.1–compatible GPUs already installed in customers’ machines.” Good to know, but if you’re looking for Lamborghini speed, you’ll probably want to trade in that old hunk of silicon for something fresher.

While Windows Vista–powered machines will also see a performance bump with DX11, Angiulo cautions, “To reap the maximum benefits from DX11 you need to have Windows 7 and a DirectX 11–compatible graphics card installed. However, through the ‘Platform Update for Windows Vista’ certain DX11 Graphics Library Updates—including DirectCompute—are made available on Windows Vista SP2 with DX10 or 10.1.” (Windows XP troglodytes won’t see anything new as the older OS ended its DX journey at version 9.0c.)

Another nifty DX11 component is High Definition Ambient Occlusion. HDAO is a DirectCompute accelerated algorithm for shading low points of objects. HDAO normally requires a lot of computing power because it repeatedly samples the depth buffer. DirectCompute can accelerate this algorithm, however, by reducing the number of calls to the GPU’s texture buffers. The net result is cleaner and more accurate lighting and shadow effects without a heavy hit to frame rate. DirectX11 also supports 64-bit HDR (High Dynamic Range) lighting with 16 bits per channel for smoother, more accurate bloom lighting enhancements in DX11-compatible games.

Some of these upgrades are subtle and others are more obvious when applied to next-gen PC gaming titles, but the cumulative effect is visually apparent—and striking. DirectX 11 delivers a significant performance upgrade on previous DirectX versions and Angiulo has a clear opinion as to which component is the MVP.

“Hands down it’s DirectCompute. DirectCompute opens the doors for game developers to deliver more and higher quality effects without impacting performance. And the fact that it goes beyond gaming to empower developers to enrich a very broad set of applications—from consumer to specialized enterprise apps—to deliver greater functionality with greatly increased performance makes it very exciting.”

If you want to join the DX11 party then you’d best ditch that XP or Vista OS for Windows 7 and start shopping around for a next-gen DX11 video card. Your pixel-chewing games and apps will thank you.