Epic Games had previously announced that its Unreal Engine 4 tools would support Microsoft's DirectX 12 API in Windows 10. The developer has released an updated version of Unreal Engine 4 that allows anyone to make DirectX 12-based games with the tools.
The new Unreal Engine 4.9 still uses DirectX 12 as an "experimental" feature. Epic Games says:
"DirectX 12 offers a much lower-level rendering API that is more efficient and allows for rendering commands to be submitted in parallel across many threads, a feature inspired by console rendering APIs. Going forward, we'll continue to improve support for DirectX 12 and look for ways to leverage the new API in upcoming versions of the engine."
Microsoft and Epic previously offered DirectX 12 support for Unreal Engine 4 to a limited number of developers, but this launch will expand that access to all game creators. Unreal Engine 4 is free to download and use to make commercial games, with Epic taking a 5% royalty on revenues. Microsoft's upcoming free-to-play game Fable Legends for Windows 10 and the Xbox One will use both Unreal Engine 4 and DirectX 12.
Source: Unreal Engine
