DirectX 12 Ultimate was detailed by Microsoft overnight, described by the company as “the culmination of the best graphics technology in the world, including DirectX Raytracing, Variable Rate Shading, Sampler Feedback, and the newly announced Mesh Shader.”
Long story short, the technology aims to make ray tracing and other visual effects more flexible and efficient, allowing for greater control over lighting effects while at the same time taking load off a CPU. At least, that’s this layman’s take on the subject.
In a blog post, Microsoft’s Shawn Hargreaves writes that, “DirectX Raytracing (DXR) brings a new level of graphics realism to video games, previously only achievable in the movie industry. The effects achievable by DXR feel more real, because in a sense they are more real: DXR traces paths of light with true-to-life physics calculations, which is a far more accurate simulation than the heuristics based calculations used previously.”
On the subject of Variable Rate Shading, Hargreaves says that the tech “lets [devs] ‘dial up’ the GPU power in more importance parts of the game for better visuals and ‘dial back’ the GPU power in less important areas of a game for better speed.”
As you can probably tell, you’re better off heading over to the blog post if you’re a tech-head that wants all the goss. If you’re like me and just like to see pretty things, take a look at DirectX 12 Ultimate demos from Nvidia and AMD below.
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