DirectX Developer Blog
The latest news on Microsoft's Graphics and Display technology
Latest posts
DirectX 12 Ultimate for Holiday 2020
DirectX 12 Ultimate is the new gold standard for gaming graphics on both PC and the next generation of Xbox consoles. In this blog post, we will show PC gamers which hardware fully support DX12 Ultimate, how to use Xbox Game Bar to check for DX12 Ultimate support, and where to find games utilizing DX12 Ultimate features.
D3D12 Debug Layer Message Callback
Finally, D3D12 messages that you can easily integrate with your own application logs! The D3D12 InfoQueue Message Callback feature allows developers to capture debug messages, with stack context, providing yet another essential debugging tool for error analysis. To date, D3D12 has had ID3D12InfoQueue API. However, developers always wants there to be message callback feature, which allows them to more easily investigate callstacks of live errors and to instrument customized error accounting and reporting mechanisms. If you have ever felt frustrated when you get DXGI_ERROR_DEVICE_REMOVED HRESULT from some much-late...
D3D12 Debug Object Auto-Naming
As of Windows 10 Release Preview 20236, there is now an option to enable automatic naming of D3D12 objects. Debug Object Auto-Names are unique, and descriptive, and are easy to enable programmatically or using d3dconfig.
DirectStorage is coming to PC
Earlier this year, Microsoft showed the world how the Xbox Series X, with its portfolio of technology innovations, will introduce a new era of no-compromise gameplay. Alongside the actual console announcements, we unveiled the Xbox Velocity Architecture, a key part of how the Xbox Series X will deliver next generation gaming experiences. We’re excited to bring DirectStorage, an API in the DirectX family originally designed for the Velocity Architecture to Windows PCs! DirectStorage will bring best-in-class IO tech to both PC and console just as DirectX 12 Ultimate does with rendering tech. With a DirectStorag...
New in DirectX— Feature Level 12_2
What’s a feature level? If you’re a game developer who has spent any amount of time with computer hardware, or perhaps a computer game which simulates working with it, you will know that graphics cards are not all the same. There’s differentiation. Differentiation not only of overall performance characteristics, but the kinds of available functionality. Of course, Direct3D 12 provides a set of functionalities that are guaranteed for any graphics card with a Direct3D 12 driver on Windows. That kind of standardization is hugely valuable and has made life easier for everyone who writes graphical applications on ...
Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling
Abstract You may have noticed a mysterious new optional feature called Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling appear in the advanced graphics settings page with the Windows 10 May 2020 update. The purpose of this blog is to give some background on this new feature and how we are introducing it. It is intended for folks curious about Windows internals. Remaining on the cutting edge of hardware innovation has always been a critical aspect of our graphics platform. Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling enables more efficient GPU scheduling between applications. For most users, this transition will be transparent. It is ...
Iterating on Variable Rate Shading in Gears Tactics
Gears Tactics is the very first game to ship with support for DirectX 12 Variable Rate Shading (VRS), one of the major features in DirectX 12 Ultimate. VRS let Gears Tactics achieve large performance gains – up to 18.9% (!) – on a wide range of hardware with a minimal impact on visual quality. Check out this guest post where Jacob Nelson and Cam McRae share implementation details, performance data and future ways to expand VRS. Iterating on Variable Rate Shading in Gears Tactics Jacob Nelson, Programmer at Disbelief Cam McRae, Technical Director at The Coalition Gears Tactics is a fast-paced, tur...
DirectX ❤ Linux
Overview of the upcoming support for DX12, NVIDIA CUDA, OpenGL and OpenCL acceleration in the Windows Subsystem for Linux.
In the works: OpenCL™ and OpenGL® mapping layers to DirectX
Building on our previous work with the D3D12 Translation Layer library as well as the D3D11On12 and D3D9On12 mapping layers, we’re happy to share that we are working on two new projects: OpenCL and OpenGL mapping layers to D3D12.