Ray tracing technology continues to evolve as Microsoft announces significant updates to its graphics API. The latest DirectX Raytracing 1.2 promises substantial performance improvements for ray-traced games, though questions remain about how revolutionary these changes truly are for existing hardware.
 |
|---|
| A promotional graphic highlighting the innovations of DirectX 12 Ultimate showcased at GDC 2025 |
Microsoft's DirectX Raytracing 1.2 Promises Significant Performance Boosts
At the Game Developers Conference (GDC), Microsoft unveiled DirectX Raytracing 1.2 (DXR 1.2), featuring two key technologies designed to dramatically improve ray tracing performance. The first technology, Opacity Micromaps (OMM), optimizes alpha-tested geometry and claims to deliver up to 2.3x performance improvement in path-traced games. OMM works by efficiently managing opacity data, which reduces shader invocations and enhances rendering efficiency without compromising visual quality. The second technology, Shader Execution Reordering (SER), intelligently groups shader execution to enhance GPU efficiency, potentially delivering up to 2x faster rendering in certain scenarios. Microsoft demonstrated these improvements using Remedy's Alan Wake 2, showcasing up to 40% performance gains during complex scenes while maintaining high visual fidelity.
NVIDIA Already Supports Key Features, Other Vendors Playing Catch-Up
Interestingly, the performance-enhancing features Microsoft is introducing appear to be already supported by NVIDIA's RTX GPUs. According to reports, NVIDIA RTX GPUs dating back to at least the RTX 30-series already support both OMM and SER in hardware, with SER support added in the RTX 30-series and OMM present since the original RTX 20-series. This explains why Microsoft states that NVIDIA has committed driver support across GeForce RTX GPUs while noting they are actively working with other hardware vendors, including AMD, Intel, and Qualcomm, to ensure widespread adoption. Intel has explicitly stated they are looking forward to supporting SER when it is available in a future Agility SDK release, with OMM support coming in future hardware, suggesting that AMD and Intel hardware may not currently have the necessary capabilities built-in.
Neural Rendering and Cooperative Vectors Point to AI-Enhanced Graphics Future
Beyond the ray tracing improvements, Microsoft is introducing support for cooperative vectors, a new programming feature coming to Shader Model 6.9. This technology will allow developers to leverage hardware acceleration engines for vector and matrix operations, enabling the integration of neural rendering techniques directly within the graphics pipeline. All major hardware vendors—NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel—are supporting this initiative. Intel reported a 10x speed-up in inference performance by leveraging cooperative vectors for advanced neural compression models. NVIDIA has announced that their Neural Shading SDK will support DirectX and utilize cooperative vectors, providing developers with tools to easily integrate neural rendering techniques.
Windows WARP Gets an Upgrade
Microsoft is also updating Windows WARP (Advanced Rasterization Platform), a CPU-based software renderer for DirectX that runs without requiring a GPU. WARP will become fully compliant with DX12 Ultimate and gain support for the latest features including raytracing, mesh shaders, and work graphs. This enhancement will be particularly useful for systems without compatible GPUs or for diagnostic purposes.
Availability and Industry Implications
The new technologies, including DirectX Raytracing 1.2, will be available in the preview Agility SDK scheduled for release in late April 2025. Microsoft will also provide day-one support for DXR 1.2 within their DirectX debugger and profiler known as PIX on Windows. While these advancements promise to push graphics fidelity forward, questions remain about whether Microsoft is simply standardizing features NVIDIA has already pioneered rather than introducing truly novel capabilities. This approach could potentially give NVIDIA a continued edge in ray tracing performance, as DirectX APIs that mirror NVIDIA hardware specifications may inherently favor their GPUs over competitors.