The hardware seems separate from the software interface. Projects like WINE can convert DirectX calls to OpenGL or Vulkan calls, so it seems like a driver update could support a newer interface if needed.
For something that isn't supported at all like raytracing, those API calls would have to be dropped so you'd get a blank screen or only a UI. But something polygon-based, maybe you could drop the resolution and polygon count and that could be translated to the newer API.
This isn’t entirely true. The software that a GPU supports (DX version, etc) is directly tied to certain specifics about the hardware. Have a look at the “Shader model comparisons” to see an example of this. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Level_Shader_Language
Probably not as long as you don't trample any implementation specific patents. But the point was more about how it is much harder than just porting an old design to a newer process node to get good performance in modern games, modern hardware is fundamentally different than hardware of even the Geforce 7000 series.
For something that isn't supported at all like raytracing, those API calls would have to be dropped so you'd get a blank screen or only a UI. But something polygon-based, maybe you could drop the resolution and polygon count and that could be translated to the newer API.