DirectX Developer Blog

Agility SDK 1.608.0: Enhanced Barriers and more

November 18, 2022 Nov 18, 2022 11/18/22

Jacques van Rhyn, Bill Kristiansen, Giancarlo Devich

We’ve published another Agility SDK, version 1.608.0. This Agility SDK has support for Enhanced Barriers, and a few minor DX12 features. That’s right: these features no longer require developer mode to run on your machine! Head to Agility SDK Downloads to grab it. Enhanced Barriers For an overview of Enhanced Barriers, please see ...

DirectStorage 1.1 Now Available

November 7, 2022 Nov 7, 2022 11/7/22

Cassie Hoef, Damyan Pepper

The DirectStorage team is pleased to share that GPU decompression with DirectStorage 1.1 is available now. This new version of DirectStorage contains everything a developer needs to get started with GPU decompression. For more information on this feature and how it benefits gamers, check out our previous blog post: DirectStorage 1.1 Coming ...

Opening HLSL Planning

October 20, 2022 Oct 20, 2022 10/20/22

Chris Bieneman

Since early 2017, the DirectX Shader Compiler (DXC) has been open source and available on GitHub. DXC is based on the LLVM 3.7 release of Clang, which enables compiler-driven IDE integrations, powerful language tooling, and has empowered HLSL to grow as a language to include highly requested features like C++ templates and operator ...

DirectStorage 1.1 Coming Soon

October 13, 2022 Oct 13, 2022 10/13/22

Cassie Hoef

When we shared our first public release of DirectStorage on Windows to reduce CPU overhead and increase IO throughput, we also shared that GPU decompression was next on our roadmap. We are now in the final stretch of development and plan to release DirectStorage 1.1 with GPU Decompression to developers by the end of 2022. This is one of our ...

Advancing the State of Color Management in Windows

October 12, 2022 Oct 12, 2022 10/12/22

Ana Marta Carvalho

If you're an app developer who cares about color accuracy, this is the right place to learn about some changes we made in the Windows 11 2022 Update! Let’s start by talking about color management – it is the technology and practice of ensuring accurate and consistent color reproduction across devices. If you're a creative professional/...

Announcing WARP preview with Shader Model 6.7 support

October 11, 2022 Oct 11, 2022 10/11/22

Luke Olsen, Jesse Natalie

The D3D team is pleased to announce the availability of a downloadable preview version of WARP, also known as Microsoft Basic Render Adapter. What is WARP? This software rasterizer is a key component of Windows and is leveraged for rendering 2D and 3D graphics on Windows PCs that don’t have any GPU available or don’t have a suitable GPU ...

Celebrating 20 Years of DirectX 9

September 26, 2022 Sep 26, 2022 09/26/22

Cassie Hoef

The last 20 years have brought countless hours of play to millions of gamers via the DirectX 9 graphics API, with 2,500+ games still being enjoyed today. For the first time, developers experienced the power of high-level shader language (HLSL) combined with pixel and vertex shaders, paving the way for the future of DirectX Raytracing and high-...

The Windows HDR Calibration app is here

September 20, 2022 Sep 20, 2022 09/20/22

Ana Marta Carvalho

The wait for the Windows HDR Calibration app is over! If you're on Windows 11 and want to calibrate your HDR-capable device, you can now go to the Microsoft Store and download the app. 😊 As we shared in our announcement blog post, the Windows HDR Calibration app will feature three test patterns which will help you calibrate your display ...

Announcing our summer Agility SDKs

July 14, 2022 Jul 14, 2022 07/14/22

Jacques van Rhyn

We’re pleased to announce that we have two new Agility SDKs available today! Agility SDK 1.606.3 contains support for Shader Model 6.7, which we announced was in the works earlier this year. Today, Shader Model 6.7 is ready for you to try! We also have another preview Agility SDK out today: 1.706.3-preview, see here for our blog. In ...

Agility SDK 1.606.3: Shader Model 6.7 is now publicly available!