@sendpaws @phnt @TTimo When you use DX you're not talking directly to the GPU, you're talking to a library that then figures out how to do that for you.

Pulling a random comment from an old HN thread because the forum links with more details are dead, sadly:

> But you are also wrong in the larger picture. Direct3D and OpenGL are first and foremost abstraction layers to access the GPU. Since in a console the hardware is immutable, you can gain a lot of performance by skipping (or trimming the fat of) these abstractions.
> The XBox 360 version of DirectX is very different from the PC version: it's much much closer to the metal and exposes pretty much all the GPU functionalities.

also:

> "Sony is building its CPU on what it's calling an extended DirectX 11.1+ feature set, including extra debugging support that is not available on PC platforms. This system will also give developers more direct access to the shader pipeline than they had on the PS3 or through DirectX itself. "This is access you're not used to getting on the PC, and as a result you can do a lot more cool things and have a lot more access to the power of the system," Norden said. A low-level API will also let coders talk directly with the hardware in a way that's "much lower-level than DirectX and OpenGL," but still not quite at the driver level."

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/03/sony-dives-deep-into-the-ps4s-hardware-power-controller-features-at-gdc/

On the PS4 there was an API called the GNM; PS3 had one called the GCM.

> "At the lowest level there's an API called GNM. That gives you nearly full control of the GPU. It gives you a lot of potential power and flexibility on how you program things. Driving the GPU at that level means more work."

https://www.eurogamer.net/digitalfoundry-how-the-crew-was-ported-to-playstation-4


Could you make all of this possible on a PC? Yes. But since a PC is a general purpose computer/OS you are opening a can of security worms