Microsoft DX12 Port Support Adds Ray Tracing to Windows 7

With the ray tracing technology largely being locked to Windows 10 via DirectX 12, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Microsoft wouldn’t be in any particular hurry (nor indeed any despite) to bring support to Windows 7. The operating system is, after all, two-generations old now and, more so, is set to be officially discontinued (or more accurately, support will end) in 6 months.

In a report via PCGamesN, however, Microsoft has provided new DX12 port support resources that will potentially allow game developers to bring ray tracing support to games running on Windows 7.

Ray Tracing Options Available In Windows 7

The adoption of Windows 10 has been a long-fought battle for Microsoft. Quite frankly, even now many people are still reluctant to move to the operating system. As such, logically, there must be a number of people who have a Nvidia 20XX graphics cards but can’t access the ray tracing features due to the operating system ‘lock-out’. How many though? We suspect not a lot!

Despite that, and them possibly catering to a market that is set to decrease even further when official support ends, some developers may take up this option to bring ray tracing support to their games on the older operating system. It’s possible… but we’re not sure how likely it is!

What Do We Think?

It’s honestly surprising that Microsoft has decided to do this. Windows 7 is finally in decline after years of them trying to get everyone to adopt Windows 10. In addition, I can’t help but feel that the number of Nvidia 20XX owners using Windows 7 must be small. I’m talking 4-10% and possibly less!

As such, while it’s nice that they have introduced it, I’m not entirely sure why they did. Let alone if any developers will actually take this option up.

What do you think? Do you own a Nvidia 20XX graphics card? If so, what operating system do you use? – Let us know in the comments!