DIRECTX 12 ULTIMATE
DirectX 12 Ultimate is Microsoft’s latest graphics API, which codifies NVIDIA RTX’s innovative technologies first introduced in 2018, as the cross-platform standard for next-generation, real-time graphics. It offers APIs for Ray Tracing, Variable Rate Shading, Mesh Shading, Sampler Feedback, and more, enabling developers to implement cinema-quality reflections, shadows, and lighting in games and real-time applications. With the DirectX 12 Agility SDK, developers can get the latest ray tracing technologies and graphics API’s immediately on any Windows 10 version November 2019 and newer.
Ray Tracing
Real-time ray tracing for realistic reflections, lighting and shadows that take advantage of NVIDIA RTX RT cores.
Mesh Shading
New type of shader that combines vertex and primitive processing, increasing the flexibility and performance of the geometry pipeline.
Variable Rate Shading
Dynamically vary the shading rate for different regions of a frame, which increases rendering performance.
Sampler Feedback
Control how and when textures are loaded to speed up rendering and reduce GPU load.
Ray Tracing
Realistic Lighting and Shadows
RTX Direct Illumination (RTXDI) offers realistic lighting of dynamic scenes that require computing shadows from millions of area lights.
Multi-Bounce Indirect Lighting
RTX Global Illumination (RTXGI) provides scalable solutions to compute multi-bounce indirect lighting without bake times, light leaks, or expensive per-frame costs.
Denoising Library
NVIDIA Real-Time Denoiser is a spatio-temporal API agnostic denoising library that’s designed to work with low ray per pixel signals.
Latest APIs
Flexible Shading Model
Mesh Shading offers a new shader model for the vertex, tessellation, and geometry shading stages of the graphics pipeline, supporting more flexible and efficient approaches for computation of geometry
Dynamic Texture Quality
Variable Rate Shading allows developers to control shading rate dynamically, shading as little as once per sixteen pixels or as often as eight times per pixel.
Image courtesy of Epic Games
Accelerated Asset Streaming
Sampler Feedback allows developers to precisely determine where and when texture data needs to be loaded, enabling rapid GPU-based asset streaming.
Customer Testimonials
"DirectX 12 Ultimate unlocks the latest in graphics hardware technology with support for ray tracing, mesh shaders, and variable rate shading. It’s the new gold standard for the next generation of games.”
— Marcus Wassmer, Director of Engineering, Graphics - Epic
“By investing in next-gen graphics features using DirectX 12 Ultimate, we know our work will benefit gamers on PC and future consoles, and the game will look the way we dreamed.”
— Anton Yudintsev, CEO - Gaijin Entertainment
NVIDIA Game Development News
Leveling Up Graphics and Performance with RTX, DLSS and Reflex at NVIDIA GTC
We are excited to share over a dozen new and updated developer tools released today at GTC for game developers, including NVIDIA Reflex, RTXDI, and our new RTX Technology Showcase.
NVIDIA Omniverse Machinima Releasing in Open Beta
Technical artists, developers and content creators can now take 3D storytelling to the next level: NVIDIA Omniverse Machinima is available in an open beta.
Reallusion is Releasing Character Creator Connector for NVIDIA Omniverse
USD workflow and integration into NVIDIA’s 3D collaboration and simulation platform simplifies digital human creation and animation.
Game Stack Live to Feature RTXDI and Minecraft Graphics Sessions (April 20-21)
This year, Microsoft’s free Game Stack Live event (April 20-21), starting at 8am PDT, will offer a wide range of can’t-miss sessions for game developers, in categories that include Graphics, System & Tools, Production & Publishing, Accessibility & Inclusion, Audio, Multiplayer, and Community Connections.
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