Microsoft says it can reduce latency and improve performance.

And now that they're supported across the board, they'll become more commonplace.īesides DirectX 12 Ultimate compatibility, NVIDIA's latest drivers include support for a feature called GPU scheduling. Other features such as mesh shaders have just as much potential. To return to VRS, for example, NVIDIA says the technique can improve performance in Wolfenstein: Youngblood by as much as 20 percent. Even if you don't factor in ray tracing, each of the other hardware features supported by the framework will improve your gaming experience.

That said, that doesn't mean RTX owners shouldn't be excited about DirectX 12 Ultimate. The way NVIDIA sees it, DirectX 12 Ultimate 'codifies GeForce RTX's innovative technologies as the standard for multi-platform, next-gen games.' But for the most part, DirectX 12 Ultimate is a branding exercise that will help consumers know whether the GPU they're about to buy will make the latest games look their best. There are a couple of noteworthy additions, including support for Microsoft's latest DirectX Raytracing (DXR) 1.1 API - which will help make it easier for developers to optimize ray tracing performance in their games. In Wolfenstein: Youngblood, for instance, developer MachineGames used the company's Adaptive Shading technology to add VRS to its co-operative first-person shooter. Announced earlier this year, the collection of developer APIs unifies support for several next-generation rendering techniques, including ray tracing, variable-rate shading (VRS), mesh shaders and sampler feedback.Ī lot of DirectX 12's marquee features were already available on RTX GPUs either through existing DirectX 12 APIs or custom frameworks created by NVIDIA. NVIDIA has released a new driver update that adds support for Microsoft's DirectX 12 Ultimate framework.

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