DX12 adding 20% performance increase on PC, even more on Xbox One

Gamezone had the privilege to sit down and speak with Dylan Browne of Incandescent Imaging about their upcoming game Caffeine. It's a first person, exploration horror game based in puzzles that is in development for PC, Xbox One and PS4.  Development initially began in 2014 on Unreal Engine 3 but Mr. Browne has since moved to Unreal Engine 4.  During our conversation, we spoke of the game's inspiration, gameplay setup, background as well as any developmental problems that have arisen so far.

We asked Mr. Browne if he has seen any changes performance wise on PC and Xbox One with the addition of DX12, and his answer was actually quite surprising.

"Oh it should help a lot. I've been in the DirectX 12 developer program for a while. So, I've been playing around with a lot of those builds of Unreal Engine and seeing how they play out. Usually you're seeing a 20-ish% performance increase in most cases. So it definitely boosts the FPS which would allow to increase, especially on Xbox, which is a little more underpowered obviously than you're PS4".

Mr. Browne continued, "On Xbox, it might allow me to do things like have the soft chatters that I have on PC which I didn't originally enable when I started to port to Xbox mainly because it was cut out due to performance, but it performs pretty well. I could actually probably enable them on the current build but when I get a Direct X12 build I'll be looking into more ways to up the resolution and things like that".

I clarified and asked "When you say 20% you mean 20% increase in FPS?" His response — "Yes, yeah".

The 20% increase he mentioned was also only for PC, with the Xbox One seeing a higher percentage. The reason he cited was because all Xbox Ones are the same where as PCs need to account for different drivers and other internal hardware that may have counter productive impacts.

Caffeine is currently due out for PC in three different segments with part one being released by the end of the year. Console versions for PS4 and Xbox One will most likely be in 2016.  The full transcription of the interview will be up soon, but either way whether you are a fan of either system PS4 or Xbox One, it's good to see the industry in general improving