Microsoft DirectX Raytracing 1.2 and Neural Rendering Brings up to 10x Speedup for AMD, Intel, and NVIDIA GPUs

[AleksandarK]

Microsoft's DirectX Raytracing (DXR) 1.2 announcement at GDC 2025 introduces two technical innovations that address fundamental ray tracing performance bottlenecks. Opacity micromaps (OMM) reduce the computational overhead in alpha-tested geometry by storing pre-computed opacity data, eliminating redundant ray-geometry intersection tests. Shader execution reordering (SER) tackles the inherent GPU inefficiency caused by incoherent ray behavior by dynamically grouping shader invocations with similar execution paths, minimizing thread divergence that has historically plagued ray tracing workloads. The real-world implications extend beyond Microsoft's claimed 2.3x OMM and 2x SER performance improvements. Both techniques are shifting development from brute-force computational approaches toward more intelligent resource management. Notably, both features require specific hardware support.

Hardware vendors' implementation timelines remain undefined despite NVIDIA's announced support across RTX GPUs, raising questions about broader ecosystem adoption rates. Microsoft's Shader Model 6.9 introduces cooperative vectors. This hardware acceleration architecture drastically improves matrix computation performance, enabling a 10x speedup in neural texture compression while reducing memory footprint by up to 75% compared to traditional methods. It bridges the gap between conventional rendering and neural rendering, with Intel, AMD, and NVIDIA already demonstrating implementations that combine path tracing with neural denoising algorithms, potentially making computationally intensive graphics accessible on mid-range consumer hardware by late 2025. While the technical merit of these advancements is clear, the April 2025 preview release timeline for the Agility SDK means developers face at least several months before these features can be meaningfully implemented in production environments.



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[Jermelescu]

It seems that Volvo finally woke Microsoft from its eternal slumber, that's good.

 

[Chaitanya]

How long of applying make up on dead pig thats DX12? There needs to be a clean up and move onto DX13 or 14(for the superstitious).

It seems that Volvo finally woke Microsoft from its eternal slumber, that's good.

You mean Valve, Volvo is automobile manufacturer.

 

[radosuaf]

Can't have just Vulkan instead?

 

[Prima.Vera]

Agreed.
DirectX 12 is getting too old, and it's still a complete unoptimized mess, compared to DX11.
Ridiculous how in 2025 DX12 is still way slower and buggier than DX11.

 

[FierceRed]

Will believe it when I see it.

 

[Denver]

I find it amusing to look back and see that all those revolutionary promises fell short. MS should be more conservative with its performance claims at the very least.

AMD Posts "Super Early" Work Graphs Render Time Numbers, Posts 39% Render Time Improvements

AMD in a GPUOpen blog post showed off some "super early" performance numbers for a Radeon RX 7900 XTX GPU rendering a DirectX 12 workload using Work Graphs, instead of the traditional ExecuteIndirect method. Work Graphs is method by with GPUs enjoy greater autonomy in executing render and...

www.techpowerup.com

 

[londiste]

Can't have just Vulkan instead?

Why not both?

Machine Learning Acceleration in Vulkan with Cooperative Matrices | NVIDIA Technical Blog

Machine learning harnesses computing power to solve a variety of ‘hard’ problems that seemed impossible to program using traditional languages and techniques. Machine learning avoids the need for a…

developer.nvidia.com

How long of applying make up on dead pig thats DX12? There needs to be a clean up and move onto DX13 or 14(for the superstitious).

Why? You mean making DXR, neural rendering and other bits a mandatory part and fashioning that into a new version?

DirectX 12 is getting too old, and it's still a complete unoptimized mess, compared to DX11.
Ridiculous how in 2025 DX12 is still way slower and buggier than DX11.

Why? What makes DX12 unoptimized? What bugs and slowness do you mean?

Guys, DX12 is an API. The way it is being or needs to be used is different from API itself. If you are talking about games it is not the API that is buggy - in most cases, there have been some relatively smaller bugs obviously - but the game or application that developer made. DX12 is a comparatively lower-level API, same as Vulkan. Which means the API and IHV implementations of it in drivers will not hold your hand the same way older APIs like OpenGL or DX11 did. While there is a bigger possibility for optimization, there is also a bigger possibility of shooting your own foot.

 

[NoneRain]

Agreed.
DirectX 12 is getting too old, and it's still a complete unoptimized mess, compared to DX11.
Ridiculous how in 2025 DX12 is still way slower and buggier than DX11.

How is DX12 an unoptimized mess? Real question, Idk much about it other than articles here :^)

 

[blackie]

So we don't know yet whether some current-gen AMD / Nvidia / Intel GPUs already contain the necessary hardware support, or we have to wait years for next-gen cards for this?

 

[londiste]

So we don't know yet whether some current-gen AMD / Nvidia / Intel GPUs already contain the necessary hardware support, or we have to wait years for next-gen cards for this?

Neural Rendering is API for ML/Machine learning, "AI". This is Tensor cores and Intel/AMD equivalents to those.

 

[Bwaze]

I don't think there will be any big rush to implement graphics only features, all the architecture changes now are made for AI / LLM acceleration, even if this means problems with graphics on PCs (dropping 32 bit Physx, not noticing missing ROPs which are used only for graphics...).

 

[radosuaf]

Why not both?

Because Vulkan is cross-platform and open source. Developers could just focus on making games and we could have native Windows and Linux versions easily instead of making ports or running through translation layer.

 

[Jtuck9]

Interesting how there is no quote from AMD in that "TAKE THE NEXT STEP IN RAY TRACING" slide

Will also be interesting to see what sort of legs RDNA 4 has...

 

[dyonoctis]

Because Vulkan is cross-platform and open source. Developers could just focus on making games and we could have native Windows and Linux versions easily instead of making ports or running through translation layer.

There must be something else going on with Direct X vs Vulkan. Even Indies games are using Direct X. And I doubt that microsoft is giving money to everyone using DX over the other APIs.
That was also the case with open GL, who was there before direct X even. Yet Direct X became the standard for PC gaming.

I find it amusing to look back and see that all those revolutionary promises fell short. MS should be more conservative with its performance claims at the very least.

AMD Posts "Super Early" Work Graphs Render Time Numbers, Posts 39% Render Time Improvements

AMD in a GPUOpen blog post showed off some "super early" performance numbers for a Radeon RX 7900 XTX GPU rendering a DirectX 12 workload using Work Graphs, instead of the traditional ExecuteIndirect method. Work Graphs is method by with GPUs enjoy greater autonomy in executing render and...

www.techpowerup.com

To be fair, developers have the habits of not using any performance improvement to make the same old thing run faster, but to push the graphics even more. When you hear "39% faster when you use that new feature" what you need to read is "we are going to exploit those performance enhancement to push the details level even further. Yes, it won't bring any clearly noticeable visual improvement, but trust us, after a few years of adding even more details, it will make sense, we swear"

 

[radosuaf]

Direct X became the standard for PC gaming

Windows is standard for PC gaming - whether we like it or not . With the "lovely" Windows 11 and hopefully something interesting that Valve might come up with, hopefully we'll some more competition in the PC space.

 

[_roman_]

I really wondere where the 10 times better performance is. I really doubt that.

Assuming that statement is correct, why was it not used yet? Factor 10? Serious? I highly doubt. ..... up to Factor 10

Wahtaboutism: That is similar to those M2 NVME with up to 7000MB/s write rate which have at at the end of the day 600MB/s. I see a factor up to 12 times better in that example.

I hardly buy windows games. So I did not support only Directx Games. They should use something with open specification which is license free so anyone can use it for any operating system.

Microsoft should focus on a fast vulkan implementation.

 

[blackie]

Neural Rendering is API for ML/Machine learning, "AI". This is Tensor cores and Intel/AMD equivalents to those.

I was asking because article is not very clear about supported hardware:
"Notably, both features require specific hardware support. Hardware vendors' implementation timelines remain undefined despite NVIDIA's announced support across RTX GPUs"

On MS devblog it's more clear:
"We’re thrilled that our hardware partners are fully embracing these cutting-edge features. NVIDIA has committed driver support across GeForce RTX™ GPUs, and we’re actively working with other hardware vendors, including AMD, Intel, and Qualcomm, to ensure widespread adoption"

 

[PixelTech]

DirectX 12 vs DirectX 12 Ultimate

 

[phanbuey]

here we go - the next step.... Although Microsoft's Neural anything is straight nightmare fuel at the moment.

Here is copilot trying to make some graphics:

Note the melting faces and fingers conjoining.

 

[Chomiq]

here we go - the next step.... Although Microsoft's Neural anything is straight nightmare fuel at the moment.

Here is copilot trying to make some graphics:
View attachment 390866

Note the melting faces and fingers conjoining.

Notably, both features require specific hardware support

that's the catch.

 

[the54thvoid]

here we go - the next step.... Although Microsoft's Neural anything is straight nightmare fuel at the moment.

Here is copilot trying to make some graphics:
View attachment 390866

Note the melting faces and fingers conjoining.

Reminds me of this:

 

[R-T-B]

Microsoft should focus on a fast vulkan implementation.

That's the gpu vendors job, not microsoft.

 

[Chomiq]

Reminds me of this:

View attachment 390869

See, it's an imitation.

 

[docnorth]

If even remotely true, we will be finally able to play Assassin’s Creed Shadows