Microsoft Game Stack Live [2021-04-20 and 21]

speaking of Game Stack, their next online event is in April

https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/games/events/game-stack-live/

registration is live

 

(from your linked page)





I wonder what the DirectX team have been cooking up? Maybe a DLSS type system that is implemented at the dx12U level, thats graphics vendor agnostic?

All that talk about DirectML and they dont have (yet anyway) an example of something from microsoft that demonstrates its benefits.

 

In the works: HLSL Shader Model 6.6 | DirectX Developer Blog (microsoft.com)
Shader Model 6.6 will grant shader developers increased flexibility to enhance and expand existing rendering approaches and devise all new ones. New features include expanded atomic operations, dynamic resource binding, derivatives and samples in compute shaders, packed 8-bit computations, and wave size.

Shader Model 6.6 will introduce the ability to perform atomic arithmetic, bitwise, and exchange/store operations on 64-bit values.
All the following atomic intrinsic functions and methods will take 64-bit values when used on RWByteAddressBuffer and RWStructuredBuffer types in all shader stages:

Integer Atomics on Float-Typed Resources
Shader Model 6.6 will introduce support for using floating point values in the existing integer compare and exchange intrinsic functions. The functions that use compares use bitwise compares and not true floating point compares


Dynamic Resource Binding
Shader Model 6.6 will introduce the ability to create resources from descriptors by directly indexing into the CBV_SRV_UAV heap or the Sampler heap. This resource creation method eliminates the need for root signature descriptor table mapping but requires new global root signature flags to indicate the use of each heap.

Compute Shader Derivatives and Samples
Shader Model 6.6 will introduce derivative and sample intrinsic functions to compute shaders. Previous shader models restricted these functions to pixel shaders.

Derivative operations depend on 2×2 quads. Compute shaders don’t have quads. So in order to map these functions to a compute shader which views data as a serial sequence, we’ve defined the quads these functions operate on according to the compute shader lane index. One quad consists of the first four elements in the land index sequence in left-to-right and then top-to-bottom order. Another quad similarly consists of the next four and so on. This gives the 2×2 quads that the following intrinsic functions operate on.

Packed 8-Bit Operations
Shader Model 6.6 will add a new set of intrinsic functions for processing packed 8-bit data. These are useful to reduce bandwidth usage where lower precision calculations are acceptable.

These are the new data types representing a vector of packed 8-bit values:
These new types can be cast to and from uint32_t values without a change in the bitwise representation.

The pack intrinsic functions allow packing a vector of 4 signed or unsigned values into a packed 32-bit value represented by the new packed data types. One version performs a datatype clamp and the other simply drops the unused bits.

Wave Size
Shader Model 6.6 will introduce a new compute shader attribute that allows the shader author to specify a wave size that the compute shader is compatible with.

This feature allows the application to guarantee that a shader will be run at the required wave size. With this attribute, DirectX 12 runtime validation will fail if shaders in a pipeline state object have a required wave size that is not in the range reported by the driver. Because use of this feature limits shader flexibility, we only recommended it for shaders compatible with only one wave size.

The required wave size is specified by an attribute before the entry function. The allowed wave sizes that an HLSL shader may specify are the powers of 2 between 4 and 128, inclusive. In other words, the set: [4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128].

 

Curious to see this as well considering they just finished announcing DX12U

 

I definitely look forward to watching the sessions below:

Graphics​

Graphics Keynote: Delivering the New Generation of Gaming Graphics
New consoles and graphics cards usher in a new wave of more immersive video games. In this session, we will cover the latest innovations to our graphics platform, making it easier for game developers to push the limits of graphics on both PC and Xbox with DirectX, HLSL, PIX, HDR, and more.

Accelerating DirectX Innovation
The DirectX team has been working on a way to change the game for developers who want to be on the bleeding edge of graphics. We're finally ready to show the world how we're pushing the envelope with an exciting new update.[/SIZE]

HLSL Shader Model 6.6
Introducing HLSL Shader Model 6.6: granting shader developers increased flexibility to enhance and expand existing rendering approaches and devise all new ones!

What's New with High Dynamic Range in DirectX Games
High Dynamic Range (HDR) is part of the gold standard for the newest generation of graphically rich games. In this talk, you'll learn about our ongoing work to improve DirectX's HDR support on PCs. We are helping to solve the problem of HDR display ecosystem variability, providing best practices for optimizing your native HDR implementations for displays, and working on exciting new technology to extend the reach of HDR PC gaming.

System & Tools​

Xbox Velocity Architecture: Faster Game Asset Streaming and Minimal Load Times for Games of Any Size
The new Xbox Velocity Architecture in the Xbox Series X|S consoles enables developers to re-imagine how to build their games. By combining a super-fast SSD, hardware decompression, and the new DirectStorage functionality, game developers have tools to develop immersive experiences with a minimal load time for users. This session will review the benefits of the Velocity Architecture and show a real-world example.

DirectStorage for Windows
Microsoft is excited to bring DirectStorage, an API in the DirectX family originally designed for the Velocity Architecture to Windows PCs! DirectStorage will bring best-in-class IO tech to both PC and console just as DirectX 12 Ultimate does with rendering tech. With a DirectStorage capable PC and a DirectStorage enabled game, you can look forward to vastly reduced load times and virtual worlds that are more expansive and detailed than ever. In this session, we will be discussing the details of this technology will help you build your next-generation PC games.