Xbox Series X to harness the power of Direct X 12 Ultimate ray tracing
Along with the latest AMD and Nvidia graphics cards
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
MicrosoftandNvidiahave announced DirectX 12 Ultimate, a new application programming interface (API) that will bring next-gen graphics features toWindows 10PCs and theXbox Series X.
Shown off during a virtualGDC 2020press conference on Thursday, DirectX 12 Ultimate – which Microsoft is touting as “the culmination of 25 years of work on DirectX”, is the first universal graphics API designed to work across consoles and PCs and aims to bring “unprecedented alignment” betweenWindows 10and Xbox Series X gaming.
Its headline feature is DirectX Ray Tracing 1.1, which has been built by Nvidia in conjunction with Microsoft andAMD. This upgrade toray tracingrendering will bring better lighting, reflection, and shadow effects to a greater number of future games. It’s also slated to make a number of current games look better, with Minecraft listed as one of the big-name examples.
“Scenarios with many complex shaders will run better with dynamic-shader-based ray tracing, as opposed to using massive inline ray tracing uber-shaders,” writes Microsoft. “Meanwhile, scenarios that have a minimal shading complexity and/or very few shaders will run better with inline ray tracing.”
DirectX 12 Ultimate also includes mesh shaders, which enables the GPU to control how it manages the level-of-detail, along with sampler feedback to reduce load times and stuttering by more efficiently loading in assets.
Maximum compatibility
During Thursday’s virtual presser, Nvidia announced that DirectX 12 Ultimate games will be fully compatible with itsGeForce RTX technology.
Separately, AMD - which will power Microsoft’s next-generation Xbox - has said that it has also worked closely with Microsoft on the development of DirectX 12 Ultimate, and confirmed that its forthcoming RDNA2-based Radeon graphics cardswill also support hardware ray tracing and the new standard.
Get the best Black Friday deals direct to your inbox, plus news, reviews, and more.
Sign up to be the first to know about unmissable Black Friday deals on top tech, plus get all your favorite TechRadar content.
“With DirectX 12 Ultimate, advanced effects such as ray tracing are expected to reach more games sooner, and it makes developers’ lives easier by allowing them to create games using the same common graphics API and graphics architecture for both PCs and consoles,” Team Red said in a statement.
For gamers, DirectX 12 Ultimate but it should lead to games with more life-like visuals and smoother gameplay. Or, as Microsoft describes it, the standard will make things easier for developers while also providing gamers with “assurance that their hardware meets the highest bar for feature support in next-generation games.”
What’s more, next-generation games that use DirectX 12 Ultimate features will still be able to run on non-DX12 Ultimate hardware, albeit with some of the newer features disabled.
Microsoft hasn’t yet said when it’ll release DirectX 12 Ultimate, but it’s no secret that it will be a big part of its Xbox Series X console, which will make its official debut later this year.
Carly Page is a Freelance journalist, copywriter and editor specialising in Consumer/B2B technology. She has written for a range of titles including Computer Shopper, Expert Reviews, IT Pro, the Metro, PC Pro, TechRadar and Tes.
ICYMI: the week’s 7 biggest tech stories, from Kindle Colorsoft yellowing woes to our PS5 Pro and Mac M4 reviews
I review TVs for a living and this record-low price on the Hisense U8N is one of the best early Black Friday deals I’ve seen
This can’t get any better for Black Friday – LG’s B4 OLED TV drops to just $649.99
