Microsoft has officially released Shader Execution Reordering (SER), a new feature for DirectX Raytracing (DXR) designed to improve performance by allowing application shader code to guide hardware in optimizing ray tracing execution. This advancement addresses a key challenge in ray tracing – the inefficiencies caused by divergent shader execution and irregular data access.
According to Microsoft, DXR applications often experience inconsistent shader execution and data access due to the stochastic nature of ray tracing workloads. SER aims to resolve this by enabling developers to control GPU task scheduling, ultimately improving data coherence and execution efficiency. The technology represents a significant step toward more efficient and streamlined ray tracing processes.
Microsoft demonstrated SER’s capabilities by modifying the original D3D12RaytracingHelloWorld sample with D3D12RaytracingHelloShaderExecutionReordering, achieving a 40% increase in frames per second on NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 graphics cards. Even more impressive gains were observed on Intel Arc B-Series GPUs, with performance increasing by up to 90%.
SER is now available through Shader Model 6.9 within the DirectX 12 Agility SDK version 1.619.0. Hardware drivers supporting the new model include:
- NVIDIA GeForce Game Ready Driver version 595 or later
- AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition version 26.2.1 or later
- Intel Graphics Driver version 32.0.101.8531 or later
