DirectX 12 Update Adds New “Variable Rate Shading” Feature

Modern GPUs are getting so powerful that DirectX is being left behind. Luckily, Microsoft is not letting that happen and it keeps rolling out new updates to DirectX 12 which introduce additional features. In fact, Microsoft has released a new update for the DirectX 12 Graphics API today. The update introduces a new feature that can be used by modern GPUs in order to improve the overall visual quality of games with minimum effort.

DirectX 12 Receives “Variable Rate Shading”

The new feature that DirectX 12 has received is called Variable Rate Shading. Microsoft is saying that this is the first graphics API that offers broad hardware support for the new shading technology. As the feature’s name implies, Variable Rate Shading is going to give developers more power when it comes to customizing and adjusting the shading rate in their games. This is also going to impact the visual fidelity and frame rates. What is interesting about the new feature is that Microsoft refers to it as “a scalpel in a world of sledgehammers”.

“VRS allows developers to selectively reduce the shading rate in areas of the frame where it won’t affect visual quality, letting them gain extra performance in their games. This is really exciting, because extra perf means increased framerates and lower-spec’d hardware being able to run better games than ever before,” said Microsoft in a recent blog post.

“VRS also lets developers do the opposite: using an increased shading rate only in areas where it matters most, meaning even better visual quality in games On top of that, we designed VRS to be extremely straightforward for developers to integrate into their engines. Only a few days of dev work integrating VRS support can result in large increases in performance,” added Microsoft