DirectX Developer Blog

DirectX 12 and Fortnite

Jacques van Rhyn November 20, 2019 Nov 20, 2019 11/20/19

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 ...

CPU- and GPU-boundedness

Jacques van Rhyn November 20, 2019 Nov 20, 2019 11/20/19

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 Tidd November 13, 2019 Nov 13, 2019 11/13/19

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 Natalie November 11, 2019 Nov 11, 2019 11/11/19

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 Jobalia November 8, 2019 Nov 8, 2019 11/8/19

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 ...

DirectX Raytracing (DXR) Tier 1.1

Amar Patel November 6, 2019 Nov 6, 2019 11/6/19

An overview of features in DXR Tier 1.1.

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

Claire Andrews November 4, 2019 Nov 4, 2019 11/4/19

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 ...

Dev Preview of New DirectX 12 Features

Jianye Lu October 28, 2019 Oct 28, 2019 10/28/19

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 Kristiansen October 22, 2019 Oct 22, 2019 10/22/19

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.  ...

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

Bill Kristiansen September 11, 2019 Sep 11, 2019 09/11/19

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 ...