DirectX Developer Blog
The latest news on Microsoft's Graphics and Display technology
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Announcing Shader Model 6.10 Preview and AgilitySDK 720 Preview
Overview Today, we are pleased to announce that Shader Model 6.10 and other features have been officially released with Agility SDK 1.720-preview and complementary DXC 1.10.2605.2. AgilitySDK 1.720-preview exposes the following features. There's more detail further below, including download and driver links. Downloads Hardware Support See Appendix > Feature Support for the full table of each feature's supported hardware. Features HLSL Features (Shader Model 6.10): linalg::Matrix Shader Model 6.10 introduces a set of Matrix APIs covering a br...
D3D12 LinAlg Matrix Preview
Welcome to the D3D12 LinAlg Matrix Preview release! Today, we are excited to announce the preview release for the D3D12 Linear Algebra APIs! This feature set unlocks comprehensive hardware acceleration for Matrix-oriented operations across various use cases. Previously, we announced the WaveMMA and Cooperative Vectors features which supported narrow matrix operation use cases; the LinAlg feature set being announced today subsumes these APIs into a singular set of orthogonal APIs. With today's announcement, we are enabling developers to both efficiently drive neural rendering techniques directly from individual...
Evolving DirectX for the ML Era on Windows
At GDC this year, we shared how machine learning is becoming foundational to real time graphics, and how DirectX is evolving to meet that shift across shader level and model level ML. ML is no longer a niche optimization or a postprocess trick. It’s increasingly embedded throughout the graphics pipeline, influencing how frames are generated, how content is authored, and how game developers realize their artistic vision. DirectX is evolving to support this future— one where ML is a first-class citizen alongside traditional rendering workloads. Introducing DX Linear Algebra Last year, DirectX took a major step in...
DirectX: Bringing Console-Level Developer Tools to Windows
On March 12th, 2026, the DirectX team and our hardware partners hosted DirectX: Bringing Console-Level GPU Developer Tools to Windows at GDC. We shared our dream of bringing console-level GPU developer tools to Windows, and today we are announcing a major step toward that goal with the biggest wave of new tooling features in DirectX's history.  For the first time, all four Windows GPU hardware partners joined us on stage to demonstrate these features running on their hardware. AMD, Intel, NVIDIA, and Qualcomm have worked closely with us throughout feature development, each making significant contributions to ...
Advanced Shader Delivery: What’s New at GDC 2026
Today we announced the innovation we’re bringing in solving shader compilation for the ecosystem at our GDC Talk: Advanced Shader Delivery for Windows. Want to find out what this means for solving shader compilation for your title and customers? Read on! State of the Industry Long shader compilation times and in-game shader stutter for D3D12 apps are two of the biggest problems in PC gaming. These problems are caused by compiling shaders at runtime. Unlike console, PC games do not have a fixed driver and GPU environment, and precompiled shaders need a way to be delivered to a large matrix of drivers and GPUs in...
DirectStorage 1.4 release adds support for Zstandard
Today we’re releasing the public preview of DirectStorage 1.4 and the initial public preview of the Game Asset Conditioning Library. Together, they introduce Zstandard (Zstd) compression as an option for game assets on Windows. This new support meets the needs of the gaming ecosystem, bringing an open standard that improves compression ratios, enables faster load times, and provides smoother asset streaming for content-rich games. We shared this availability at GDC in DirectX State of the Union: DirectStorage and Beyond, along with how our GPU hardware and software vendor partnerships will help this work reach...
DirectX Innovation at GDC 2026Â
The excitement is building as we head into the 2026 Game Developer Conference and the DirectX team has a lot to share. We will be showcasing major updates in asset streaming, GPU tooling, ML-powered real-time graphics on Windows, and shader compilation at GDC. If you’re attending GDC, we’d love to see you in person. Below is a quick preview of what we’ll be covering so that you can mark your calendars! DirectX State of the Union 2026: DirectStorage and Beyond Wednesday, March 11, 11:30 AM – 12:30 PM (Room 3001, West Hall) Over the past year, we've tackled some of the toughest challenges facing develop...
Announcing Shader Model 6.9 Retail and New D3D12 Improvements
Today, we are pleased to announce that Shader Model 6.9 and other features have been officially released with Agility SDK 1.619 and complementary DXC 1.9.2602.16. Many of these features have been in preview status since 2025. Simultaneously, we are releasing a handful of new preview features in a separate preview runtime: Agility SDK 1.719-preview. Overview AgilitySDK 1.619 exposes the following features. There's more detail further below, including download and driver links. AgilitySDK 1.719-preview exposes the features in 1.619 in addition to th...
Fence Barriers: Fine-Grained GPU Synchronization in Direct3D 12
Introducing Fence Barriers We are excited to share the preview release of Fence Barriers (Tier-1), a new capability now available in AgilitySDK 1.719-preview (https://devblogs.microsoft.com/directx/directx12agility/). Fence Barriers expand on Enhanced Barriers to provide support for signaling and waiting on fences during command buffer execution. This provides more flexibility to synchronize between more distant dependencies in the command stream and allows for real-time dependencies between the GPU timeline and CPU timeline. This preview exposes Tier-1 Fence Barriers, which supports: Loo...