Microsoft brings huge raytracing improvements to its Agility SDK

Microsoft paves the way to DirectX Raytracing (DXR) 1.2 with its latest Agility SDK updates

Microsoft is preparing for next-generation raytracing with its latest preview and retail updates for its Agility SDK. These updates pave the way for DirectX Raytracing (DXR) 1.2 and Neural Rendering, introducing several new features.

With their Agility SDK 1.718 preview, Microsoft has added support for Cooperative Vectors and Shader Execution Reordering (SER). Cooperative vectors allow for hardware-accelerated vector and matrix operations, allowing developers to accelerate AI workloads within real-time rendering. This enables more creative uses for AI hardware resources and allows AI networks to be run within pixel shaders. SER can significantly increase GPU performance by decreasing divergence and increasing parallelism. Similar workloads are grouped and processed in parallel, thereby improving throughput. SER can enable performance gains of up to 2x in path-traced games.

Agility SDK 1.717-preview features

• Cooperative Vectors unlocks powerful new hardware acceleration for vector and matrix operations, making it easier for developers to integrate neural rendering techniques directly into real-time graphics pipelines with greater efficiency and performance. To learn more, check out our previous Cooperative Vectors blog post and GDC 2025 highlights, and stay tuned for a deep dive blog next week!
• Shader Execution Reordering (SER) is a new feature in DirectX Raytracing that allows applications to inform the driver how to reorder GPU threads for improved execution coherence and performance. By reducing divergence and improving parallelism, SER supported hardware can deliver a boost in performance up to 2x faster in path traced games. Learn more about SER in our full blog post or watch the GDC DirectX State of the Union Recording.
• Direct3D Video Encoding Updates include the following features:
  • HEVC Reference List extension to support complex long-term reference (LTR) scenarios
  • Two-pass encode with lower resolution 1st pass
  • Adding Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) to the encoded frame output stats

Check out the full spec at D3D12 Video Encoding | DirectX-Specs.

With update 1.616 for the Agility SDK’s retail version, support for Opacity Micromaps (OMMs) and D3D12 tiled Resources Tier 4 has been added. With Opacity Micromaps, Microsoft claims that game performance can be boosted by up to 2.3x in path-traced games on supported hardware. This feature enables hardware to intelligently process complex transparency, accelerating complex ray tracing effects without compromising image quality.

D3D12 Tiled Resources Tier 4 will be available on AMD, Intel, and Nvidia GPUs soon, thanks to new driver updates. This feature can enable more efficient texture streaming and provide game developers with greater flexibility.

Agility SDK 1.616-retail features

• Opacity Micromaps (OMMs) is a new feature in DirectX Raytracing that takes advantage of hardware accelerated alpha testing during raytracing workloads. This reduced— and in some cases eliminates – AnyHit shader invocations, which boosts efficiency without sacrificing visual quality. In path traced games, OMMs can deliver performance improvements up to 2.3x faster by allowing supported hardware to more intelligently process complex transparency. Learn more about OMMs in our full blog post or watch the GDC DirectX State of the Union Recording.
• D3D12 Tiled Resource Tier 4 introduces support for creating tiled texture arrays with a full mip chain— removing a long-standing limitation that blocked packed mips in arrayed tiled resources. This unlocks more efficient texture streaming and greater layout flexibility for developers. See the full spec at Tiled Resource Tier 4. This release includes the following driver support:
  • AMD: AMD driver support for Tiled Resource Tier 4 will be made available in early June 2025.
  • Intel: Intel support for Tiled Resource Tier 4 is now available with the driver here.
  • NVIDIA: NVIDIA will fully support this SDK release, please contact your developer relations representative for specifics.

Overall, these updates allow game developers to make more efficient use of modern hardware. If nothing else, these updates showcase Microsoft’s focus on next-generation graphics features. Note that most of these SDK updates focus on path tracing. Furthermore, these updates clearly show that Microsoft has aligned its DirectX roadmap with Nvidia, targeting “full ray tracing” and “neural rendering”.

You can join the discussion on Microsoft’s latest Agility SDK updates on the OC3D Forums.