Microsoft's BUILD 2014 conference will be starting tomorrow, and in case you missed it, the session schedule is up now. It is an interesting list of topics, and a number of them very relevant for the DirectX crowd. The session list can be found here: http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2014?sort=sequential&direction=desc#theSessions. The videos from each session should be posted 24-48 hours after they occur, and I think there will be live streaming of some of the sessions while they are occurring - so if you have the time, be sure to check them out!

Here are a few highlights that I saw - some are DirectX related, others are just of general interest to me:

Developing Apps Using the Common XAML UI Framework - Sounds like a subset of XAML that allows for common development across Windows and Windows Phone.

The New Windows Phone Application Model - The title says it all I suppose. There should be quite a bit of interesting WP content here.

Building Games for Windows - Sounds like an overview of all the available technologies for making games on Windows.

Direct3D 12 API Preview - This is probably the most anticipated talk for me, so hopefully we will find out more about the low level details on D3D12...

3D Printing with Windows - This sounds pretty cool, especially the part where it says you can integrate the printing into your apps. That could be really cool for game scenarios.

Windows Desktop Development Platform Advancements - Everyone is afraid of what might end up happening to the desktop, but this talk seems to indicate that features are still being added to desktop app development... For an old school developer like me, this sounds promising.

Kinect 101 - Everyone's favorite body tracker, covering version 2 of the device.

Innovations in High Performance 2D Graphics with DirectX Across Windows and Windows Phone - Sounds like a discussion on D2D performance.

Using Orleans to Build Halo 4’s Distributed Cloud Services in Azure - Cloud services are going to be bigger and bigger in game development, so hearing about examples like these sounds like an interesting topic.

DirectX Graphics Development with Visual Studio 2013 - Sounds like an overview of the VS2013 graphics tools.

Modern C++: What You Need To Know - A talk by the always entertaining and informative Herb Sutter about modern C++.

Developing Neural Networks with Visual Studio - I am generally interested in learning algorithms, so neural networks are always of interest. They also hint at a future product, so perhaps more information about a new library or product might be revealed there...

Understanding the Xbox One Game Platform Built on Windows - This sounds like a description of how Xbox One is using Windows, which could be an interesting topic.

Cutting Edge Graphics in HTML5 - Sounds like a discussion of the WebGL support in Internet Explorer. WebGL is a viable option for browser based tools now that all of the major browsers support it, so this could be interesting.

Happy watching, and if any other ones jump out at you, please feel free to add them in comments below!

Direct3D 12 API Preview - This is probably the most anticipated talk for me, so hopefully we will find out more about the low level details on D3D12...

It's the talk I gave at GDC two weeks ago, just for the BUILD audience. I didn't have a cold at GDC so I thought I did better the first time :).

the slides of d3d12 preview are up...

so finally goodbye to device context : D

Direct3D 12 API Preview - This is probably the most anticipated talk for me, so hopefully we will find out more about the low level details on D3D12...

It's the talk I gave at GDC two weeks ago, just for the BUILD audience. I didn't have a cold at GDC so I thought I did better the first time .

Didn't notice the cold; you did well.

I think we all are eagerly waiting to see the eventual answer to that backport to Windows 7 question ;)

Do people still think they will target Windows 7?

Not think; hope.

Win7 remains the largest market for AAA games on Steam, people are not jumping to Win8 and will probably continue to resist to even with the update, and while Win9 is around the same time period that might not see a huge jump either; thus DX12 support needs to go back downstream to Win7 from a AAA point of view - failure to do so will just result in a lot of people sighing loudly and continuing with DX11.

Now, this doesn't mean that WDDM2 needs to be back ported; I could see a situation where D3D12 sits on top of the WDDM version on Windows which means D3D12 is still limited to the exposed feature set of that OS; Win7 = D3D12_FEATURE_LEVEL_11 at most, Win8 = D3D12_FEATURE_LEVEL_11_1 and so on. I think most people would accept that as a pragmatic way forward (although I'd like to see things like multidrawindirect appear as that is useful to have in the pocket) even if the WDDM submission part takes a bit longer on the older OSes/versions.

Yes, this is the ideal and realistic best-case scenario. I don't think anyone would really expect WDDM 2 to be backported. What one would hope to expect is to be able to use the same API (i.e D3D12) for the bulk of one's program, excepting some D3D12-specific features (of which it seems there are relatively few), with only the DXGI layer being appreciatively different.

One would also expect that the performance improvements would come through even in cases where it's running on WDDM 1.x, otherwise it also seems pointless. A D3D12 that runs at the same performance as 11 but with considerably more cost in code complexity on ~80% to ~90% of one's target audience isn't going to get much uptake.

One would also expect that the performance improvements would come through even in cases where it's running on WDDM 1.x, otherwise it also seems pointless. A D3D12 that runs at the same performance as 11 but with considerably more cost in code complexity on ~80% to ~90% of one's target audience isn't going to get much uptake.

You should still, in theory, get most of the performance improvement by virtue of the drivers being simpler, doing less work, going wide and all that so I don't see any issue there; sure on a trace the WDDM portion on Win7 might be (makes up number) 5% bigger than Win9/WDDM2.0 but that's not going to massively hurt you so you still get the wins

I'd be happy with just being able to shove in a few tens-of-thousands (equivalent of) draw calls without needing to do any complex sorting or batching to be honest. And on reflection, a D3D12 that let me do that at even 75% the perf of a complex sorted/batched D3D11 would even be acceptable. Everything else would be gravy.

There have been multiple people from Microsoft that publicly acknowledged the fact that Win7 is highly in demand for D3D12 - so I think the message is getting through. Now we have to wait and see what happens...