DirectX Developer Blog

DirectX 12 and Fortnite

Jacques van RhynNovember 20, 2019Nov 20, 201911/20/19

On Monday, Epic Games announced that DirectX 12 support is coming to Fortnite. And today, the wait is over: anyone updating to the v11.20 patch has the option to try out Fortnite’s beta DX12 path! What does this all mean? Let's see if we can help!   What’s wrong with DX11? Nothing! We at the DirectX team designed Direct

CPU- and GPU-boundedness

Jacques van RhynNovember 20, 2019Nov 20, 201911/20/19

We wrote this article to explain two key terms: CPU-bound and GPU-bound. There's some misinformation about this terms, and we're hoping this article can help fix this problem. Even though applications run on the CPU, many modern-day applications require a lot of GPU support. These apps generate a list of rendering instructions (i.e. the

Coming to DirectX 12: D3D9On12 and D3D11On12 Resource Interop APIs

Randy TiddNovember 13, 2019Nov 13, 201911/13/19

D3D is introducing D3D9on12 with resource interop APIs and adding similar resource interop APIs to D3D11on12.  With this new support, callers can now retrieve the underlying D3D12 resource from the D3D11 or D3D9 resource object even when the resource was created with D3D11 or D3D9 API.   The new D3D9On12 API can be found in the insider SDK

Coming to DirectX 12: More control over memory allocation

Jesse NatalieNovember 11, 2019Nov 11, 201911/11/19

In the next update to Windows, D3D12 will be adding two new flags to the D3D12_HEAP_FLAG enumeration. These new flags are “impermanent” properties, which don’t affect the resulting memory itself, but rather the way in which it’s allocated. This gives app developers more control and flexibility.

Coming to DirectX 12— Mesh Shaders and Amplification Shaders: Reinventing the Geometry Pipeline  

Sarah JobaliaNovember 8, 2019Nov 8, 201911/8/19

D3D12 is adding two new shader stages: the Mesh Shader and the Amplification Shader. These additions will streamline the rendering pipeline, while simultaneously boosting flexibility and efficiency.  In this new and improved pre-rasterization pipeline, Mesh and Amplification Shaders will optionally replace the section of the pipel

DirectX Raytracing (DXR) Tier 1.1

Amar PatelNovember 6, 2019Nov 6, 201911/6/19

An overview of features in DXR Tier 1.1.

Coming to DirectX 12— Sampler Feedback: some useful once-hidden data, unlocked

Claire AndrewsNovember 4, 2019Nov 4, 201911/4/19

Why Feedback: A Streaming Scenario Suppose you are shading a complicated 3D scene. The camera moves swiftly throughout the scene, causing some objects to be moved into different levels of detail. Since you need to aggressively optimize for memory, you bind resources to cope with the demand for different LODs. Perhaps you use a texture streami

Dev Preview of New DirectX 12 Features

Jianye LuOctober 28, 2019Oct 28, 201910/28/19

In this blog post, we will preview a suite of new DirectX 12 features, including DirectX Raytracing tier 1.1, Mesh Shader, and Sampler Feedback. All these features are currently available in Windows 10 Insider Preview Builds (20H1).

A Look Inside D3D12 Resource State Barriers

Bill KristiansenOctober 22, 2019Oct 22, 201910/22/19

Many D3D12 developers have become accustomed to managing resource state transitions and read/write hazards themselves using the ResourceBarrier API. Prior to D3D12, such details were handled internally by the driver.  However, D3D12 command lists cannot provide the same deterministic state tracking as D3D10 and D3D11 device contexts.  Theref

DRED v1.2 supports PIX marker and event strings in Auto-Breadcrumbs

Bill KristiansenSeptember 11, 2019Sep 11, 201909/11/19

In Windows 10 1903, DRED 1.1 provided D3D12 developers with the ability to diagnose device removed events using GPU page fault data and automatic breadcrumbs. As a result, TDR debugging pain has been greatly reduced.  Hooray!  Unfortunately, developers still struggle to pinpoint which specific GPU workloads triggered the error.  So, we've m