In a way, this means that Intel has completely handed over the handling of DirectX 9 to Microsoft. However, one side effect of using this emulation process might be an increase in CPU usage. In some cases, the performance might even be equal to native DX9. While the performance may not be quite as good as natively supporting DX9, it should be close. Microsoft also seems quite optimistic about the emulation tech in general, claiming that it has become a decent implementation of DirectX 9. Seeing as DirectX 9 is even older, having launched twenty years ago, it should hardly be a priority for Intel going forward. We’ve already known that Intel Arc GPUs heavily favor DirectX 12, with performance being halved when DirectX 11 is in use. The response to this change has been a bit of a mixed bag, but the change in itself should not be surprising. It kind of replaces the GPU driver here, which would usually handle DirectX 9 calls, and acts as a bridge between the two technologies. This will be done through emulation using an open-source conversion layer that Microsoft itself has prepared, known as “D3D9On12.” The way it works is that it sends 3D DirectX 9 graphics commands straight to D3D9On12, which then converts these D9 calls into DirectX 12 commands.

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