They’re mainly for developers to optimize games beyond what they could do in DirectX 12 or DirectX 11. Sampler feedback feeds samples of what could happen without actually executing the instruction, allowing games to make better decisions about what assets to stream in.Īlthough DirectX 12 Ultimate has many new features, you don’t need to worry about them.

Sampler feedback: Modern games stream assets into the game world, and the game is forced to predict what to stream next based on what the player is doing.

This avoids passing between your CPU and RAM when drawing meshes, which improves performance.

Mesh shaders: Mesh shaders are a complex topic, but they essentially combine multiple shader steps into a single process.

The idea is to boost performance by focusing on the most important areas of a scene, which saves resources in less demanding areas.

Variable rate shading (VRS): Allows the GPU to allocate different amounts of power to different areas in a frame.

DirectX ray tracing (DXR): An early version of ray tracing introduced in games like Fortnite and Battlefield V. Most titles that support ray tracing do so through DXR (though Vulkan has its own ray tracing support, as well).

Here are all of the additional features in DirectX 12 Ultimate: Microsoft describes it as “additive” to DirectX 12, bringing features like ray tracing and variable rate shading to Windows and Xbox consoles. The most recent version of DirectX is DirectX 12 Ultimate, which is available on Windows 10, Windows 11, and Xbox Series X/S. It’s exclusive to Windows, however, while open-source APIs like Vulkan provide cross-platform support. Graphics APIs also enable features like hardware-accelerated ray tracing, and they can boost performance through various optimizations.ĭirectX isn’t the only graphics API, but it’s the main one you’ll encounter. APIs like DirectX are standardized, which allows your AMD or Nvidia drivers to do everything regardless of what graphics card you have.

In years past, game developers would need to write drivers for multiple graphics cards.

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