DirectX Developer Blog

DirectML at GDC 2019

March 21, 2019 Mar 21, 2019 03/21/19

Cassie H

Introduction Last year at GDC, we shared our excitement about the many possibilities for using machine learning in game development. If you’re unfamiliar with machine learning or neural networks, I strongly encourage you to check out our blog post from last year, which is a primer for many of the topics discussed in this post. This year...

Variable Rate Shading: a scalpel in a world of sledgehammers

March 18, 2019 Mar 18, 2019 03/18/19

Jacques v

One of the sides in the picture below is 14% faster when rendered on the same hardware, thanks to a new graphics feature available only on DirectX 12. Can you spot a difference in rendering quality? Neither can we. Which is why we’re very excited to announce that DirectX 12 is the first graphics API to offer broad hardware support ...

World of Warcraft uses DirectX 12 running on Windows 7

March 12, 2019 Mar 12, 2019 03/12/19

Jianye L

Today, with game patch 8.1.5 for World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth, Blizzard becomes the first game developer to use DirectX 12 for Windows 7! Now, Windows 7 WoW gamers can run the game using DirectX 12 and enjoy a framerate boost.

Direct3D 11 on 12 Updates

February 5, 2019 Feb 5, 2019 02/5/19

Jesse Natalie

It’s been quite a while since we last talked about D3D11On12, which enables incremental porting of an application from D3D11 to D3D12 by allowing developers to use D3D11 interfaces and objects to drive the D3D12 API. Since that time, there’s been quite a few changes, and I’d like to touch upon some things that you can expect when you use...

New in D3D12 – DRED helps developers diagnose GPU faults

January 24, 2019 Jan 24, 2019 01/24/19

Bill K

DRED stands for Device Removed Extended Data. DRED is an evolving set of diagnostic features designed to help identify the cause of unexpected device removal errors, delivering automatic breadcrumbs and GPU-page fault reporting on hardware that supports the necessary features (more about that later). DRED version 1.1 is available today in ...

Direct3D team office has a Wall of GPU History

January 7, 2019 Jan 7, 2019 01/7/19

Shawn H

When you are the team behind something like Direct3D, you need many different graphics cards to test on. And when you’ve been doing this for as long as we have, you’ll inevitably accumulate a LOT of cards left over from years gone by. What to do with them all? One option would be to store boxes in someone’s office: But...

DirectX Raytracing and the Windows 10 October 2018 Update

October 2, 2018 Oct 2, 2018 10/2/18

Jacques v

DirectX Raytracing and the Windows 10 October 2018 Update The wait is finally over: we’re taking DirectX Raytracing (DXR) out of experimental mode! Today, once you update to the next release of Windows 10, DirectX Raytracing will work out-of-box on supported hardware. And speaking of hardware, the first generation of graphics cards with ...

For best performance, use DXGI flip model

April 9, 2018 Apr 9, 2018 04/9/18

Shawn H

This document picks up where the MSDN “DXGI flip model” article and YouTube DirectX 12: Presentation Modes In Windows 10 and Presentation Enhancements in Windows 10: An Early Look videos left off. It provides developer guidance on how to maximize performance and efficiency in the presentation stack on modern versions of Windows. ...

Gaming with Windows ML

March 19, 2018 Mar 19, 2018 03/19/18

Cassie H

Neural Networks Will Revolutionize Gaming Earlier this month, Microsoft announced the availability of Windows Machine Learning. We mentioned the wide-ranging applications of WinML on areas as diverse as security, productivity, and the internet of things. We even showed how WinML can be used to help cameras detect faulty chips during hardware ...

Announcing Microsoft DirectX Raytracing!