like for example “GPU XXX Suports DX12”. which is touted as a feature on the retail box as well.
from what I understand the API is standardized for a certain graphical pipeline to draw various stuff on screen (polygon pipeline, brightness of a pixel pipeline…etc.) and it’s hardware agonistic, and it’s up to GPU manufacturers to “optimise” the workflow of said pipeline.
You can go into some detail, ELI10 if you will lol
In: Technology
standardization mostly.
if there was no API mediating the interaction between OS and GPU then every single application that required access to the GPU would need ot be coded acccounting for every possible GPU the developer wanted ot support. This is a huge hassle for developers but aloso for the users that would experience cryptic errors due ot compatibility.
having an API mediating the GPU programming allows the developer ot develop their application towards a specific Feature set instead, the API woudl then make a number of API calls available that if the hardware doesnt support then it would not be compliant to tht feature set(ie: Dx12 having SM 5.1, but SM5.1 requires hardware support, if the gpu doesnt have that, then its not Dx12 compliant and ita assumed it cannot run applications requiring Dx12)
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