DirectX Raytracing 1.2: Boost your game up to 2.3x faster! ⚡🎮

This week, Microsoft advertisement its new application programming interface, DirectX Raytracing (DXR) 1.2, which brings significant improvements in visual quality and rendering performance, up to 2.3 times faster! Companies like AMD, Intel, Nvidia, and Qualcomm, along with video game developers like Remedy, are already working to integrate these DXR 1.2 technologies into the gaming hardware and software of the future. 🎮✨

The DirectX Raytracing 1.2 update incorporates two technologies: Opacity Micromaps (OMM) and Shader Execution Reordering (SER), which optimize performance in ray-traced games, increasing efficiency from 2x (SER) to 2.3x (OMM). It's critical to implement these technologies in games or game engines to take advantage of the performance benefits. 🔧⚡️

2X – 2.3X performance increase

One of the main challenges with alpha-tested geometry (such as foliage, fences, and hair) in ray tracing is the additional calculations required to determine whether the light hits a surface or passes through it. Opacity Micromaps (OMM) They improve the processing of this geometry by applying a texture with an alpha channel to a flat surface and removing pixels below a certain transparency threshold. This reduces the number of shaders needed, resulting in improved performance and efficiency.

In the best-case scenario, Microsoft claims a 2.3x improvement can be achieved. However, it's important to consider that not all games and scenes include many elements such as foliage and fences. For example, while STALKER 2 It has a lot of grass, leaves and fences in virtually every scene, Cyberpunk 2077 It barely has any leaves. 🌿🚧

Shader Execution Reordering (SER) It's presented as a more universal feature, as it reorganizes the way shaders execute to prevent divergence. This divergence occurs when nearby pixels require shaders to perform different tasks, a common situation in scenes with complex ray-traced effects, such as realistic lighting, detailed shadows, and accurate reflections. 🌈✨

GPUs process shaders in parallel threads organized into groups called warps or wavefronts. Ideally, all threads within a group execute identical instructions simultaneously, maximizing GPU efficiency. Shader divergence occurs when threads in the same warp or wavefront need to execute different instructions. In this case, simultaneous execution becomes impossible, forcing the GPU to handle each instruction path separately, leaving some threads idle and increasing latency.

According to Microsoft, SER groups or organizes similar shader workloads, reducing divergence, maximizing GPU utilization, and speeding up rendering by up to 2x. 🔥

Hardware support

As for hardware support, the situation is varied, which is common with new API features.

All Nvidia GPUs since the Turing architecture (GeForce RTX 20) support Opacity Micromaps (OMM), so these graphics cards could see a performance boost once game developers implement them in their titles. Intel announced that its upcoming next-gen Celestial (Xe3) GPUs will also support OMM. 🌟

Nvidia GPUs have supported Shader Execution Reordering (SER), starting with the GeForce RTX 40-series Ada Lovelace family. Intel said it hopes to support SER "when it becomes available in a future Agility SDK." However, it's unclear whether it will be supported on Intel's Arc 'Alchemist' or 'Battlemage' GPUs (or both). 🤔

For its part, AMD doesn't appear to support OMM or SER on its RDNA 2/3/4 GPUs, though Microsoft stated that the company is working toward widespread adoption of these technologies. Additionally, AMD has some programming optimizations that can mimic how SER works, so if game developers take the time to optimize for Radeon GPUs, they could benefit from some speed increases. ⏩

Qualcomm also doesn't support OMM or SER, but mentioned it will do so in its next generations of integrated GPUs. 🏆

The DXR 1.2 preview version will be released in April 2025. 🗓️

In summary, the arrival of DirectX Raytracing 1.2 🎮 represents a significant advance in the evolution of ray tracing in video games, offering important improvements in performance ⚡ and visual quality 👁️ thanks to innovative technologies such as Opacity Micromaps (OMM) and the Shader Execution Reordering (SER).

Although hardware adoption and support varies between manufacturers, the commitment of large companies such as Nvidia, Intel, AMD and Qualcomm, as well as key developers, indicates that these improvements will be gradually integrated into future titles and devices 🚀.

With a launch planned for April 2025, DXR 1.2 promises to optimize the gaming experience, benefiting both developers and players through more efficient and realistic rendering 🎯.

Without a doubt, this update will mark an important step towards the future of gaming with advanced ray tracing 🌟.