Nvidia originally promised DirectX 12 support for Fermi, Maxwell and Kepler based graphic cards. While Maxwell and Kepler were supported from the get go, Fermi support was delayed till the end of the year in an official statement by Nvidia. We have been asking Nvidia for updates throughout the way and their answer remained the same – that it was coming by the end of the year. Since 2015 is over and support has yet to arrive (unless they release it tomorrow), I thought it was time to do an official status update.

Nvidia Fermi GPUs still don’t have DX12 support

DirectX 12 is a game changing API. It is not only a performance booster – but unlocks advanced features for game engines as well. That said, we also know thanks to white papers that Fermi barely qualifies for DX12 support. Infact, it does not fully support major features (if at all) – like Async Compute. It is because of this that we originally expected Fermi to not qualify for the same but at the time of release the company made the following comments:

For gamers, Windows 10’s DirectX 12 is the focus of attention, enabling the creation of new, more advanced visual effects, and higher performance in DirectX 12-optimized games. With the Game Ready driver, Maxwell and Kepler GPUs offer complete support for DirectX 12. Fermi-based GPUs will gain support for DirectX 12 titles later this year, around the arrival of the first wave of DirectX 12 content. And of course, we’ll be ready and waiting with Game Ready drivers to add performance optimizations, SLI profiles, and much, much more.

Nvidia mentioned that the support would be arriving sometime by the end of this year and by the time the first wave of DX12 content lands. 2015 is practically over and there still hasn’t been any word from green. To be fair to them however, DX12 content is still scarce – so it is entirely possible that they are waiting for some actual titles to land before rolling out support for Fermi GPUs. There have been rumors that the low end offerings of the Geforce 900 series will come in Fermi flavors as well – and if those turn out to be true it will mean that the company has 900 series graphic cards without DX12 support

Here is a complete list of graphic cards from Nvidia that were promised the DX12 status:

Nvidia Graphic Cards List Notes:

• Nvidia has a total of 50 base models promised with DX12 API support but only 30 base models currently supporting DX12 API. (Nvidia has yet to make on its promise of DX12 support for Fermi cards.)
• Use the horizontal slider to view the complete feature specifications including the various hardware features.