Microsoft DirectX Team to Introduce "DirectSR" at GDC 2024

[T0@st]

According to a Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2024 schedule page, Microsoft is planning to present next-gen technologies with their upcoming "DirectX State of the Union Ft. Work Graphs and Introducing DirectSR" presentation. Shawn Hargreaves, Direct3D's Development Manager and Austin Kinross (PIX Developer Lead, Microsoft) are scheduled to discuss matters with representatives from NVIDIA and AMD. Wessam Bahnassi, a "20-year veteran in 3D engine design and optimization," is Team Green's Principal Engineer of Developer Technology. Rob Martin, a Fellow Software Engineer, will be representing all things Team Red—where he leads development on implementations for GPU Work Graphs. According to GDC, the intended audience will be: "graphics developers or technical directors from game studios or engine companies."

Earlier this month, an "Automatic super resolution" feature was discovered in Windows 11 Insider Preview build (24H2)—the captioned part stated: "use AI to make supported games play more smoothly with enhanced details," although further interface options granted usage in desktop applications as well. Initial analysis and user impressions indicated that Microsoft engineers had created a proprietary model, separate from familiar technologies: NVIDIA DLSS, AMD FSR and Intel XeSS. It is interesting to note that Team Blue is not participating in the upcoming March 21 "DirectX State of the Union" panel discussion (a sponsored session). GDC's event description states (in full): "The DirectX team will showcase the latest updates, demos, and best practices for game development with key partners from AMD and NVIDIA. Work graphs are the newest way to take full advantage of GPU hardware and parallelize workloads. Microsoft will provide a preview into DirectSR, making it easier than ever for game devs to scale super resolution support across Windows devices. Finally, dive into the latest tooling updates for PIX."



View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source

 

[matar]

Nice addition to windows most likely you will need a supported DX12 Ultimate GPU for this i think.

 

[theouto]

Wondering if it will be lanczos (a la fsr1) or something smarter

 

[Daven]

Death to proprietary solutions!!!

 

[qlum]

Yay another vendor specific closed source upscaling tech.

 

[Dr. Dro]

Nice addition to windows most likely you will need a supported DX12 Ultimate GPU for this i think.

Which shouldn't be an issue. Practically every GPU since 2018 from the NVIDIA side (exception of GTX 16 series) and the last two generations of AMD GPUs (RDNA 1 doesn't qualify, Vega has been discontinued and stays put on a long term maintenance driver branch).

Yay another vendor specific closed source upscaling tech.

?

This would be part of the DirectX standard. It would be completely vendor agnostic because it'd be part of the API itself.

 

[qlum]

Which shouldn't be an issue. Practically every GPU since 2018 from the NVIDIA side (exception of GTX 16 series) and the last two generations of AMD GPUs (RDNA 1 doesn't qualify, Vega has been discontinued and stays put on a long term maintenance driver branch).



?

This would be part of the DirectX standard. It would be completely vendor agnostic because it'd be part of the API itself.

Hardware vendor yes, but it would probably be very hard to be compatible with anything but directx on xbox / windows, no linux no macos no ps5 no switch 2.

So it is very much software vendor specific.

 

[Dr. Dro]

Hardware vendor yes, but it would probably be very hard to be compatible with anything but directx on xbox / windows, no linux no macos no ps5 no switch 2.

So it is very much software vendor specific.

Never stopped any DirectX game/feature from working on Linux paired with the correct software, I don't see how this wouldn't be available either. Consoles are and have always been their deal, but on the Xbox side, it's DirectX on Windows all the same. Switch 2 will likely retain an ARM/NVIDIA design with backwards compat to the original Switch.

Anyhow, bit of a nitpick, "Windows API introduces new feature intended to run on Windows. Might work elsewhere" has always been DirectX's pitch.

 

[mb194dc]

More upscaling? Let's spend thousands on hardware then upscale from low res so you get artifacts, tears, you get input lag and it looks like garbage.

Genius.

 

[ymbaja]

More upscaling? Let's spend thousands on hardware then upscale from low res so you get artifacts, tears, you get input lag and it looks like garbage.

Genius.

Agreed. If upscalling worked on a 1050 ti, that’s something id get behind. But if I’m already spending close to a grand on a new card you can bet I’ll be running in native.

 

[Prima.Vera]

More upscaling? Let's spend thousands on hardware then upscale from low res so you get artifacts, tears, you get input lag and it looks like garbage.

Genius.

Exactly!

 

[bug]

Death to proprietary solutions!!!

Most standards are born as proprietary implementations. It's just how things work, you need a few initial iterations before you can tell what's useful and what's not.

 

[qlum]

Okay now that more details are available and it doesn't include a new propriatary scaler and just offers an api to add dlss / fsr / xess I don't have any problems with it, as reimplementing it with wine should be doable.