Announcing DirectX 12 Ultimate

Armenius

Armenius

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In a blog post Microsoft announced an additive layer to DirectX 12 supporting new features teased during the new console reveals this week, including variable rate shading and sampler feedback. Along with the API update comes DirectX Raytracing 1.1. Unfortunately no mention of DirectStorage, the feature called "Xbox Velocity Architecture" in the forthcoming Xbox Series X. Both AMD and NVIDIA have also made press releases stating their support for the updated API. Microsoft touts this update as, "unifying the graphics platform across PC and Xbox Series X."

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/directx/announcing-directx-12-ultimate/
https://community.amd.com/community...suals-with-amd-rdna-2-and-directx-12-ultimate
https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/news/geforce-rtx-ready-for-directx-12-ultimate

Amplifying a Virtuous Cycle​
As any gamer would attest, there are few higher virtues than the appreciation of a well-crafted and beautiful game. DX12 Ultimate creates unprecedented opportunities for the entire gaming ecosystem, creating a self-reinforcing virtuous cycle that results in better gaming experiences!​
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The cycle below describes the general graphics improvement process in games that has occurred for many years. As new hardware (or a new console generation) slowly reaches market saturation, the number of addressable sockets with next-generation capable graphics features increases. As the number of sockets with these features increases, the number of game studios willing to adopt the new features likewise increases, until finally, market saturation of hardware occurs, and most game studios adopt the features.​
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Prior to DX12 Ultimate, there was limited overlap between these two cycles. Even when hardware was similar, the software interfaces were quite dissimilar, discouraging aligned adoption by developers.​
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By unifying the graphics platform across PC and Xbox Series X, DX12 Ultimate serves as a force multiplier for the entire gaming ecosystem. No longer do the cycles operate independently! Instead, they now combine synergistically: when Xbox Series X releases, there will already be many millions of DX12 Ultimate PC graphics cards in the world with the same feature set, catalyzing a rapid adoption of new features, and when Xbox Series X brings a wave of new console gamers, PC will likewise benefit from this vast surge of new DX12 Ultimate capable hardware!​
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The result? An adrenaline shot to new feature adoption, groundbreaking graphics in the hands of gamers more quickly than ever before!​
 
So Virtuous!
1584640567541.png
 
Is that the first RT footage from an AMD card?

I admit the art wasn't great (and it looked like 30fps) but the reflections did look nice.
 
Yeah, that was the video I was talking about (it's in the article from the OP).
 
Armenius said:
when Xbox Series X releases, there will already be many millions of DX12 Ultimate PC graphics cards in the world with the same feature set, catalyzing a rapid adoption of new features, and when Xbox Series X brings a wave of new console gamers, PC will likewise benefit from this vast surge of new DX12 Ultimate capable hardware!​
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Which will all be NVidia Turing cards, since AMD will only support DX12 Ultimate with RDNA2 cards.
 
KingGlade said:
Thank you both! Checking out the list now. I can't wait for a ray-tracing card. I wonder how those nvidia games will run on AMD hardware.
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Should be fine as Microsoft based their implementations of it in DX12 off the nVidia hardware as that is who could get them the hardware to start developing on. Many of the features in DX12 Ultimate were already available in DX12 but as extensions with limited degrees of support, with this they are rolling those features in and adding new ones and giving it an official support package.
 
Lakados said:
Should be fine as Microsoft based their implementations of it in DX12 off the nVidia hardware as that is who could get them the hardware to start developing on. Many of the features in DX12 Ultimate were already available in DX12 but as extensions with limited degrees of support, with this they are rolling those features in and adding new ones and giving it an official support package.
Click to expand...
Mentioned in another thread that variable shading and sampler feedback have already been used in games as the hardware already supports it. New graphic features are often used in games before becoming officially supported in the API. I remember experimenting with hardware instancing in OpenGL with my 8800 GTX before it was added officially in version 3.2.
 
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