Microsoft showcases what DirectX 12_2 will bring next

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Key notes

  • Microsoft released the latest DirectX Ultimate technology in May and it announced a huge step in computer graphics.
  • Now, the software giant revealed more details about DirectX feature level 12_2 and which cards will support this new technology.
  • If you're a gamer or just play from time to time, don't hesitate to check out our Gaming section.
  • Your graphics card would be just a brick without software behind it so check out our Software Hub.
Microsoft reveals DirectX 12_2 capabilities

Microsoft released the latest DirectX 12 Ultimate technology a few months ago and it announced a huge step in computer graphics.

Now, Microsoft revealed a little bit more details about DirectX feature level 12_2 and which cards will support this new technology.

If we lost you on the feature level moniker, let’s clear it out. A feature level for DirectX specifies exactly which capabilities can be handled by a certain GPU.

Advancing from 12_0 to 12_1 and 12_2, a graphics card would have more advanced features and the latest DirectX 12_2 feature level was defined as DirectX 12 Ultimate.

Which cards will support DirectX 12_2?

This is the actual novelty from Microsoft’s announcement so we will quote it exactly as it appears on their website:

  • Feature level 12_2 is supported on NVIDIA GeForce RTX and NVIDIA Quadro RTX GPUs.
  • AMD’s upcoming RDNA 2 architecture-based GPUs will include full feature level 12_2 support.
  • Intel’s roadmap includes discrete GPUs that will empower developers to take full advantage of Feature Level 12_2.
  • Microsoft is collaborating with Qualcomm to bring the benefits of DirectX feature level 12_2 to Snapdragon platforms.

What are the features of DirectX 12_2 graphics cards?

Just to be extremely clear, Microsoft also presented the set of features that a DirectX feature level 12_2 card will have:

Feature 12_2 minimum Public spec
Required driver model WDDM 2.0
Shader Model 6.5 Link
Raytracing tier Tier 1.1 Link
Variable shading rate Tier 2 Link
Mesh shader tier Tier 1 Link
Sampler feedback Tier 0.9 Link
Resource Binding Tier Tier 3 Link
Tiled Resources Tier 3
Conservative Rasterization Tier 3 Link
Root Signature Tier 1.1 Link
DepthBoundsTestSupported TRUE Link
WriteBufferImmediateSupportFlags Direct, Compute, Bundle
MaxGPUVirtualAddressBitsPerResource 40
MaxGPUVirtualAddressBitsPerProcess 40

A DirectX 12 Ultimate will also have the following flags set:

Feature 12_2 value
WaveOps TRUE
OutputMergerLogicOp TRUE
VPAndRTArrayIndexFromAnyShaderFeedingRasterizerSupportWithoutGSEmulation TRUE
CopyQueueTimestampQueriesSupported TRUE
CastingFullyTypedFormatSupported TRUE
Int64ShaderOps TRUE

Just to remind you of the major improvements for the new DirectX 12 Ultimate, they are Raytracing, Variable Rate Shading, Mesh Shaders, and Sampler Feedback.

What do you think about the new features and advancements? Drop us a line in the Comments section below.

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