Didn't notice this game requires DX11 until I already bought it :/

Any way to get int running under DX10?

It needs a DX11 card as a minimum requirement, a DX10 card will not be able to play the game, I'm afraid.
Not 100% sure in this case though (as sometimes they can run, depending on the calls), something to do with Dx11 tessellation and shader model 5, but you can try?

There's no way to play it without DX 11, because it's entirely made of DX 11.

And, honestly, I don't really like the choice. Seems like they wanted to make a game with only "new" technology to show something, er, new. This could be made in an entirely different way and look better and less heavy on resources.

The biggest advantage of DX10 and later DX11 on top of that, is that they are much more efficient, and so are in fact "less heavy on resources" than DX9 used to be. There isn't much you can do with them that DX9 strictly cannot, however DX9 definitely could not do the same things without performance drastically suffering. The reason you're seeing games skip from DX9 to DX11 is that the last console generation lasted as long as it did, with DX10 almost never being used in the middle because the consoles didn't support it. You only had added DX10 features in certain PC games with high-end graphics, such as Metro 2033.

I understand the disappointment that you can't play the game because of your older GPU. However, it's been more than 5 years since DX11 has been available (along with the release of Windows 7) , so I feel it's about damn time it's been made full use of. Any graphics card that doesn't support DX11 is going to be lacking in horsepower anyway, to the point where it wouldn't work very well with any modern game, not just a DX11-exclusive like the Witcher 3. For reference, the GeForce 400 series and Radeon 5000 series were the first to support it, and those are practically dinosaurs in the world of technology now. ;)

DX12 is already coming soon with the release of Windows 10, and who knows what will be possible with games built on that. Interestingly, though, any GeForce card that supports DX11 (so, 400 series onward) will also support DX12, so if you want to upgrade for this game now, you don't have to worry about upgrading again just for that. For Radeon, you need one using GCN architecture to support DX12.

Indeed, what the Gentlemen above said. Dx9 is heavy on resources and Dx11 is faster. Dx12 is said to be even faster so that is good news indeed. If you have a PC, you are covered. Not that difficult to upgrade. You can always go for a lower spec card. They should be cheap enough to enable you to play the game. Or, like others suggested, upgrade with more modern hardware.

I liked how Nvidia made DX 11 cards that just don't have the power to handle DX 11.

And DX 12 won't save anything since it's annoying to use for most developers. Probably some will use it to add features, but it won't be used as standalone for games like W3.

Well "power" is relative. I had a GT 450 to replace my 9800GT yonks back. Did it's job by having more muscle whilst being more effeceint, it could handle most Dx11 games back then with no tess without too many problems.

Your Question is somewhat vague. Is it that your Card is not DX11 compliant, or that you donot have DX11 installed ( you can check by clicking on START then typing dxdiag in the box and hit enter ).

Err... Have you seen FF XV? It looks just great, and it's being made using DX 12.

No, that's just a "tech demo" that shows potential. FF XV is not made with DX 12. It's also still in development, and this began time ago, with no DX 12.

You also need 4 Titan X GPUs to make that demo run. I haven't played a single DX 11 game efficently with my DX 11 Nvidia video card. Only "pieces" of DX 11 that were heavy or badly implemented. DX 11 is heavy. Period. *That* technology on DX 9 would be worse, but basic stuffs are fine on DX 9.

I like how you never gave us the information on WHICH DX11 card you own(ed). Wich card gave you such fits? Many low end cards have the dx11 only for compatability with drivers. These low end cards are for people who want video acceleration and general processing - NOT for gaming. If your card was one of these low end cards and you failed to research what the capabilities were then that is your fault, not the manufacturer.

Ok, forget about FF XV, but look at Deus Ex: Mankind Divided then! It won't be a DX12-only, sure, but having a DX 12 GPU will have a huge impact on performance.

I thought I'd come back to add that there are AMD GPUs older than the Rx 200 series that will support DX12. I was going by the feature listing on Wikipedia, but today found out that any of their cards using the GCN architecture will be compatible. This includes some from the HD 7000 series and HD 8000 series, as well.

Also, the major new features of DX12 are aimed at increasing performance, for sure. But you have to think about what that means for game development... Take consoles for example, where they have a set configuration of hardware with a finite number of resources that they have to make the best use of. You have a "performance budget," which say you'll calibrate so that you end up running the game at 1080p with 60fps. You design the game and everything in it to look good, play well, and still be able to be run at that target resolution and speed. You might have to cut down on things like draw distance or number of NPCs visible at a time in order to meet that target, to come in "under budget." Or if you decide you can't cut back anything, you adjust your budget at the last minute, lol, which is why you see so many games running at sub-HD resolutions on consoles... They went over-budget, and had to adjust that to compensate and keep performance up.

Anyway, imagine if you could do everything you were doing, but suddenly you save a huge chunk of performance just by being able to do that stuff more efficiently. That is what they've been focusing on with the last few iterations of DirectX. The power of modern GPUs is insane, for what they're made to do they are tens or even hundreds of times more powerful than your CPU, a general purpose processor that has to handle so many other broad things. And they're only getting more powerful every year, exponentially so in some cases. The problem is that there are bottlenecks, and your GPU is not running at full capacity, not doing everything it could be doing all the time. Look at these charts (they're animated), borrowed from an article on AMD's website where they talk about such features in DX12:

Asynchronous shader operations - http://i.imgur.com/XgiOwNI.gif

Multi-threaded command buffer - http://i.imgur.com/jYWEEtY.gif

By letting the GPU do multiple things at once, as well as FINALLY taking advantage of multi-core CPUs to feed data and commands to the GPU, DX12 is supposed to drastically increase performance. That means much larger "performance budgets" for game developers to work with. More and better graphics effects, more stuff on screen, more power leftover for behind the scenes stuff like AI and physics, higher detail everything... All while maintaining good performance. This is how games get better, we need advances like this.

DX 12 is more near to machine language. Not a lot of huge games will use that; it's just too hard. And some DX 12 features are only for more graphics. Doesn't matter if these are not heavy, it's always something more to handle. If it's not full DX 12, it's not lightweight (and I still believe it won't be anyway).

People are too optimistic about DirectX 12. And, I don't believe in Microsoft, Nvidia and AMD being suddenly so uncaring about their hardware profit.

Uhm, I never said that it's anybodys fault, did I somewhere?

Anyways, thanks for all the helpful answers, guess I'll have to upgrade then :)