DX12’s Reduced CPU Overhead & Multithreading Gains Are Exciting, May Not Be Beneficial To Indies

DrinkBox Studios will be releasing the Guacamelee: Super Turbo Championship Edition across the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox 360, and Wii U. The content of this game will be similar to the Gold Edition that was released on the PC with all the extra goodies like DLC and boss fights.

GamingBolt recently got in touch with Greg Lesky, Lead Designer at DrinkBox Studios and since the studio has already worked on PC games before we decided ask his take on Microsoft’s latest API that is due for release next year. Given that the API will help the AAA studios in pushing games with even more better graphics, but what about the indies? Greg believes that he is unsure how DX12 can help indies as those small studios are more focused on improving gameplay mechanics.

“Hmmm. I’m not sure there are big benefits to indies,” he says. “Small studios aren’t focused on the latest and greatest tech – they’re more interested in having a stable, portable, and easy-to-use tech base so they can focus on making the game. That’s why you see a lot of indie devs using Unity, OpenGL and GameMaker. Upgrading to a new API that’s Windows-only where a lot of the benefits are on the performance side (something small games aren’t usually constrained by) doesn’t sound like something indies will get excited about.”

However he is personally excited about it since it will allow coding closer to the metal. “Having said all that, I’m personally excited about the reduced CPU overhead and the improvements to multithreading. Having worked on consoles, I like anything that brings the API closer to the hardware, and DX12 sounds like it’s doing that.”

Guacamelee: Super Turbo Championship Edition is expected to release sometime later this year.

This is just a snippet of our interview with DrinkBox Studios and we will have more in the coming days.