Microsoft Announces DirectX Raytracing 1.2 and Neural Rendering for NVIDIA, AMD and Intel

At GDC 2025 Microsoft Introduces DirectX Raytracing 1.2 (DXR) and technology Neural Rendering, which will significantly improve the quality of graphics and performance in games. These updates include Shader Execution Reordering (SER) и Opacity Micromaps (OMM)That speed up ray tracing up to 2.3 times and optimize complex scenes on 40%.

Shader Execution Reordering intelligently distributes computing tasks, reducing thread divergence and increasing overall efficiency GPUThis is especially important for realistic ray tracing in games. Opacity Micromaps, in turn, improve the handling of transparent objects, which significantly increases performance in games with full ray tracing.

Microsoft has confirmed that NVIDIA to be first to implement DXR 1.2 support on their GeForce RTX video cards, and AMD and Intel are also working on compatibility.

In addition to DXR 1.2, Microsoft Announces Cooperative Vectors in Shader Model 6.9. This technology allows developers to integrate neural rendering methods directly into the graphics pipeline, including Neural Block Texture Compression, which reduces video memory usage 10 times. NVIDIA has already confirmed support for this technology through Neural Shading SDK.

All these updates will be available in DirectX Agility SDK in April 2025.