Started last year, Game Stack Live is the Microsoft® virtual game developer conference that brings as much as possible from in-person events into the comfort of your home office – keynotes, talks, networking, and education. AMD is thrilled to be part of Game Stack Live 2021, starting today, April 20, where we are making some exciting announcements during the Graphics Keynote, presenting two talks for developers, and reiterating our longstanding partnership with Microsoft and support for the continued evolution of DirectX® -- all to help developers create incredible next-generation gaming experiences.
AMD FidelityFX now available for Xbox
AMD FidelityFX is our open-source collection of visual technologies that make it easier for developers to implement high-quality effects and optimizations that help make games look amazing. Since the first effect came out in 2019, our GPUOpen philosophy of creating easily accessible, open, free, highly optimized, and cross-platform solutions has been embraced by game developers and FidelityFX is now available in over 40 PC game titles.
Since the start, we always intended for FidelityFX to not only be cross-platform on PC but also allow for integration of our technologies in games available on both console and PC. Well, today at the Game Stack Live Graphics Keynote we are pleased to announce that select AMD FidelityFX effects are now available for the Xbox Series X|S, which are powered by the same AMD RDNA™ 2 architecture found in our AMD Radeon™ RX 6000 Series graphics cards.
For developers, this means that it will be even easier than before to create cross-platform games with AMD FidelityFX now available in the latest Xbox Series X|S Game Development Kit (GDK), and to start, we are making FidelityFX Contrast Adaptive Sharpening (CAS), Variable Shading, and our ray-traced shadow Denoiser available.
For gamers, AMD FidelityFX coming to Xbox Series X|S means that future Xbox games will be able to benefit from all the platform-specific optimizations and incredible visuals that FidelityFX already helps deliver on PC games.
More details for developers can be found on the GPUOpen link below as well as in today’s Game Stack Live “Denoising Raytraced Soft Shadows on Xbox Series X|S and Windows with FidelityFX” session, presented by Dominik Baumeister, a Senior Engineer in the AMD Game Engineering team, at 12 PM PDT, 8 PM PDT, and 4 AM PDT on April 21. This session will cover working with AMD FidelityFX on both console and PC.
Learn More About FidelityFX for Xbox Series X|S
Additional GPUOpen Updates for Game Stack Live
To support our Game Stack Live “Denoising Raytraced Soft Shadows” presentation we are also releasing an update on GPUOpen for PC developers:
- AMD FidelityFX Denoiser update: When we launched the first version of the FidelityFX Denoiser last November it supported denoised reflections and now we have added shadow denoising to its feature set.
This update is available for developers on GPUOpen today.
Learn More About Our Latest GPUOpen Updates
AMD Ryzen™ Processor Software Optimization for Developers
In addition to AMD’s participation in the “Graphics” track at Game Stack Live, we have not forgotten the importance of the CPU in delivering incredible gaming experiences. For developers looking to learn more about optimizing their games for AMD Ryzen™ Processors and the AMD “Zen” architecture (also used in consoles like the Xbox Series X|S), as part of the “System & Tools” track we have an “AMD Ryzen™ Processor Software Optimization” on-demand session presented by Ken Mitchell, the Principal Engineer leading our processor optimization efforts inside AMD Game Engineering.
To support the talk above we have also released a brand-new AMD Ryzen™ Performance Guide on GPUOpen that joins our existing AMD RDNA™ 2 and Unreal® Engine performance guides for developers. This guide is designed to help you get the most out of our AMD “Zen 2” and “Zen 3” architecture-based processors and includes sample code too. Additionally, we have released a new version of our CPU Core Counts sample and updated our best practices guide to help game developers optimize and extract the most out of high-core count CPUs like our AMD Ryzen™ 5000 Series desktop processors.
Learn More About our AMD Ryzen™ Performance Guide
Microsoft Is Evolving DirectX to Deliver the New Generation of Gaming Graphics
Of course as this is a Microsoft event, our exciting announcements above are only one part of everything that Game Stack Live has to offer for game developers and in today’s Graphics Keynote Microsoft made some significant announcements about how they are continuing to evolve DirectX.
- Microsoft DirectX® 12 Agility SDK: this new SDK gives developers a way to light up newer DirectX 12 features than what shipped with a given Windows® OS. This means developers can enable their games to use the latest DirectX 12 features without having to worry about if they are supported by the current Windows® 10 install-base.
The DirectX 12 Agility SDK is supported by any PC with the Windows 10 November 2019 Update or later and is designed to accelerate graphics innovation for both developers and gamers, and going forward gamers can expect to see more games supporting the latest DirectX 12 features. - HLSL Shader Model 6.6: Microsoft’s HLSL (High-Level Shader Language) has been updated to Shader Model 6.6 and this will be included in the first DirectX 12 Agility SDK. This update adds new capabilities and greater flexibility with support for 64-bit integer atomics, dynamic resource binding, Compute shader derivatives and samples, and more.
AMD fully supports these new DirectX updates and to support Shader Model 6.6, we've also just released a special AMD Radeon™ Software Adrenalin developer driver. You can learn more about this driver and download it from here.
“Continuing our strong partnership across PC and Xbox Series X|S, we are pleased to be working closely with AMD as we continue to evolve DirectX to deliver the new generation of gaming graphics with the DirectX 12 Agility SDK, Shader Model 6.6, and DirectStorage for PC. -- Bryan Langley, Graphics Group Program Manager, Microsoft.”
AMD will continue to work closely with Microsoft on what’s next for DirectX, building on our strong support for DirectX® 12 Ultimate across our AMD RDNA™ 2 architecture-based graphic cards and our commitment to support DirectStorage for Windows, and we are looking forward to sharing more exciting news in 2021.
Along with all the new content and releases on GPUOpen for developers, it’s not too late to check out everything that’s happening at Game Stack Live over the next 2 days if you aren’t already attending. If you can’t make the event, videos of many of the sessions will be available to view on the Microsoft Game Stack YouTube channel post-event.
Visit GPUOpen for More Details
Learn More About AMD FidelityFX on Xbox
Download the AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin Developer Driver
Learn More About Game Stack Live
Learn More About Microsoft DirectX in 2021
Learn More About the Microsoft DirectX 12 Agility SDK
Learn More About Shader Model 6.6
Alexander Blake-Davies is a Software Product Marketing Specialist for Radeon Software for Developers at AMD’s Radeon Technology Group. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies, or opinions. Links to third-party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied. GD-5
FOOTNOTES
“Zen" and "Zen 2" are codenames for AMD architectures and are not product names. GD-122
ATTRIBUTIONS
© 2021 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. All rights reserved. AMD, the AMD Arrow logo, Radeon, RDNA, Ryzen, and combinations thereof are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. DirectX, Microsoft, Windows, and Xbox are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the US and other jurisdictions. Unreal and its logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Epic Games, Inc. in the US and elsewhere. Other product names used in this publication are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective companies.