Proposal: Remove D3D11 support

[chrisd-work]

After a discussion with @manuelkNVDA, a lot of the problems with this API not having modern support for synchronization stems from the fact that we have to support Direct3D 11. It does not support modern synchronization methods. Because of this we cannot expose modern synchronization elements to the user, without breaking D3D11 support.

Since Direct3D 12 was released in 2015, it is now over 10 years old. This does mean that users of Windows 7 and 8 would no longer be able to run applications moving forward. This thread is designed as a forum for people to interject about why removing Direct3D 11 support would be a problem.

[unvestigate]

I understand the motivation behind this and I fully support keeping NVRHI up-to-date with current standards and APIs. However, I hope you aren't planning on making NVRHI a lot more explicit (ie. closer to Vk/D3D12), at least without some kind of optional helper functionality. There is a not insignificant number of people who just want to target a well-supported graphics API, perhaps with a basic single-threaded renderer, without having to jump through all the extra hoops modern explicit APIs bring, and right now NVRHI is a pretty nice API to target for that kind of project.

Conceptually, something like jambuttenshaw's (#113 (comment)) optional lifetime manager approach sounds like a good way forward. Giving users more control sounds good, but try to make it opt-in if at all possible.

As for dropping D3D11 support, I think it is a reasonable thing to do at this point. We can always fork the current version and keep D3D11 working that way.

[albertrodriguezclo]

I wish, now getting rid of the oldest api, you did something towards this direction: https://www.sebastianaaltonen.com/blog/no-graphics-api