Microsoft adds new features to DirectX API

Microsoft will soon add new features to DirectX 12. For example, the company will come up with some features that should lead to less texture pop-in and better performance, among other things. With DXR Tier 1.1, Microsoft is also adding some new ray tracing features to the api.

The new DirectX 12 update is currently only available to developers. In the future, the new functions will undoubtedly be applied in new games. The new DirectX API is available to developers in the latest Windows 10 Insider Preview build. Users must also download the latest DirectX Shader Compiler and request drivers with support for the new features from GPU manufacturers.

Microsoft is adding DirectX Sampler Feedback, among other things. This is a new feature for next-gen games. Game worlds are becoming exponentially larger and more detailed, sometimes requiring developers to downgrade assets or load textures during gameplay. The latter can have a pop-in effect and is therefore undesirable. With texture pop-in, textures are not loaded correctly, so they have a low resolution or are completely missing. It often takes a few seconds for this to be resolved. This is especially a problem at high resolutions like 4k.

Sampler Feedback should solve this problem with texture streaming and texture-space shading, among other things. These are two applications that run at the hardware level and can, for example, ‘record’ when certain textures are loaded in a certain part of the game. This data can be used to ensure that shader calculations are not continuously redone. It is also possible to determine exactly when a texture should be loaded. This should reduce texture pop-in and ensure texture quality.

DirectX Raytracing, also known as DXR, is also getting new features in DirectX Raytracing Tier 1.1. This new superset allows developers to add additional shaders to existing ray tracing pipeline state objects, among other things. Ray tracing also now has support for ExecuteIndirect, where the ray tracing algorithm adjusts the number of simulated light rays to the execution timeline of a GPU. There is also now support for inline ray tracing. This provides more direct control over the ray traversal algorithm and shader scheduling.

Microsoft moves forward with DirectX Mesh Shader. According to Microsoft, a mesh shader is a new generation of technology that enables the processing of geometry via a GPU. In short, this technology bundles different stages of shading into a few small packages. This should simplify the process and make it more powerful. Developers should be able to create more complex geometric details without having a major effect on the frame rate.

Mesh shaders greatly simplify the shading process