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
The API is a standard way to talk to a GPU – API support means the GPU can listen, and respond, to that. Back around the time Half-Life 2 came out a lot of GPUs were DX7-level and known as “fixed function”: you sent them triangles and they would draw and shade them in one specific way. Later versions of DX allowed you to send along a small program called a “shader” that determines the color of every individual pixel. Back then when a GPU advertised DX8 or DX9 support that meant it can understand and apply those shader programs and color the pixels in non-traditional ways. That’s how you got all these exotic, interesting looking materials like the water and stained-glass in HL2.
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