Imagination Teases PowerVR GPU Running on Windows with DirectX 11 Support

Imagination Technologies has demonstrated 3DMark Fire Strike running on its D-Series GPU using the DirectX 11 API. While this might seem like a minor achievement, it is a significant milestone for the company. Imagination Technologies aims to make its entire GPU IP family compatible with the Windows ecosystem and support Windows gaming seamlessly. Since DirectX is the most influential graphics API, the company is focused on achieving full DirectX 11 support, which has now been successfully implemented on D-Series GPUs based on the PowerVR architecture. For those unfamiliar, the PowerVR GPU architecture was initially used in Apple SoCs, which later evolved into a fully custom Apple solution. This GPU architecture is one of the most influential, alongside AMD’s GCN and NVIDIA’s CUDA.

3DMark Fire Strike is a DirectX 11 benchmark, so getting it to run on the D-Series is a promising indication that the GPU IP can handle real desktop-style workloads and gaming, rather than just lightweight or embedded graphics tasks. Imagination has described DXD as its first D-Series product with hardware-based DirectX 11 Feature Level 11_0 support. The company aims to demonstrate that its GPUs can manage demanding DirectX workloads in actual silicon. Imagination states that DXD is designed for desktop graphics and cloud gaming, supporting DirectX 11, DirectX 12, Vulkan 1.4, OpenGL 4.6, and OpenCL 3.0. This gives it a much broader software target compared to older mobile-first GPU designs. Imagination also offers E-Series GPU IP, which includes DirectX 12 Feature Level 11_0 support. This suggests that we might see more DirectX 12 enablement once most of the DirectX 11 functionality is complete.

Some Chinese GPU manufacturers have already adapted Imagination’s GPU IP into different formats. For example, Imagination presented its DXTP architecture, which was designed for efficiency in smartphones and other power-constrained platforms. Nine months later, a derivative of this technology appeared in discrete formats, targeting workstation applications. At the recently concluded International Conference on Computer-Aided Design (ICCAD) 2025 expo, Xiang Dixian showcased their Fuxi A0 graphics card. Demo units were on display at November 2025 event, set up and running within a working system. A localized version of the Lenovo New Vision Z-engine 3D platform was operational on the demo hardware. For a demo of the IMG D-Series GPU running 3DMark Fire Strike with DirectX 11 API, the video is linked below.