Shadow Play
Shadow Play
Nothing gets rid of the memory leak issue that randomly plagues people in Windows 8. Nothing gets rid of the fact that the Desktop is just an "app" and there is no actually desktop mode that you can switch to. Nothing changes the fact that you can't just install some drivers, like printer drivers, and are forced to pair them with special Apps from directly from MS for them to work. Also, the latest DX is only DX 11.2, which offers no significant performance gains. It's also compatible with Windows 7, but MS is intentionally withholding it to try and push Windows 8 adoption.
I haven't encountered any memory leaks or driver issues before. There seems to be a desktop version available, and I'm sure more DirectX updates will come. You'll need to upgrade eventually.
The memory issue isn't universal, yet it still exists. Search online for "windows 8 low memory when gaming" and you'll find discussions on various forums. Avoid dismissing the driver problems; I personally experienced the print driver issue. My system uses Windows 8.1, but installing the printer driver wasn't as straightforward as with my two Windows 7 machines. HP provides specific drivers for 8.1, but they weren't sufficient. To access features like scanner functions, I had to download a special app from Microsoft's store—not an HP-specific one. Also, you're not operating in "desktop mode"—that's a myth. Your desktop remains just an application layer. The desktop mode only mimics a desktop environment, making it impossible to run Windows 8 or 8.1 fully with all apps disabled and using only a traditional setup. Regarding updates, Microsoft has mentioned DX12 support for Windows 7, but I'll wait to see if they move forward with Windows 9.
It's commonly believed that DirectX 12 will be available on Windows 7. However, games using it won't appear until the end of 2015, and Windows 9 is expected to be released afterward.