It feels like an afterthought, but if your system doesn’t qualify for DirectX 12 Ultimate (as my Surface Laptop doesn’t), a link connects you to Microsoft’s blog post on the subject, where its goals become clear. The DirectX 12 Ultimate checker is the more understated addition to Game Bar, yet it’s the most interesting. The DirectX 12 Ultimate checker can be found within Settings under Gaming Features. Like all of the other Xbox widgets, they can be accessed from the bulleted widget menu icon just to the right of the system clock. (The expanded view shown in our screenshot above does away with the color coding.) In other words, there’s no real need to add this particular widget, except for those who want to keep a sharp eye on any runaway apps that might impact frame rate. To be fair, the new Resources functionality is found within Windows’ own Task Manager, though that interface doesn’t highlight offending apps. Contains support for DirectX 12 Ultimate and Shader Model 6.6.

Microsoft’s Game Bar announcement is actually tied to a new Resources widget, which allows you to keep an eye on what other apps are sucking up memory and CPU power. Even though PC gaming has evolved well past the days of configuring autoexec.bat and himem.sys, gamers know that performance is tied to minimizing the resources sucked up by other apps. This package contains a copy of the DirectX 12 Agility SDK.

Install directx 12 ultimate