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• Microsoft DirectX®
  • Microsoft DirectX® 11
  • Microsoft DirectX® 10.1
• Games for Windows®
• Can You Run It?
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  • The Technology of Agent Ruby™
  • Multimedia
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Microsoft DirectX®

DirectX® 11 is a key feature of Windows® 7 and is important for two key reasons: it helps consumers experience better performing games and faster computing. To do this, DirectX 11 brings several new features which collectively improve the graphic fidelity of games and 3D applications while also enhancing the ability of the CPU and GPU to work together more efficiently. This in turn will allow end-users to potentially realize significant increases in performance as application developers harness the power of tessellation, multi-threading and compute shader technology, three key new features of DirectX 11.

Tessellation

Tessellation is a technique used for many years in the creation of CG film and television effects to add detail to 3D images and it’s now available to PC developers for real time rendering via DirectX 11. A game developer can now program more and more triangles into a character to create incredible details without worrying about massive performance decreases. Tessellation is truly critical for more realistic environments and characters:

• Create dynamic water surfaces – look more realistic than ever before
• Create dynamic clothing on characters – more accurate interaction with environments including wind and movement
• Create more detailed crowds – high levels of detail no longer need to be limited to characters in the front rows

Multi-Threading

Multi-threading support built into DirectX 11 enables rendering tasks assigned to the CPU to be efficiently spread across AMD’s multiple cores, enabling a better balance of performance between the CPU and GPU. When multi-threading is implemented, each core can be assigned work rather than only one or two.

• The CPU can effectively feed the graphics processors more data reducing a performance bottleneck

Compute Shaders

Compute Shaders are programs that are executed on the graphics processor. With DirectX 11 and DirectCompute, developers are able to use the massive parallel processing power of modern GPUs to accelerate a much wider range of applications that were previously only executable on CPUs. Compute Shaders can be used to enable new graphical techniques to enhance image quality (such as order independent transparency, ray tracing, and advanced post-processing effects), or to accelerate a wide variety of non-graphics applications (such as video transcoding, video upscaling, game physics simulation, and artificial intelligence). In games, Compute Shader support effectively enables more scene details and realism:

• Optimized post-processing effects – apply advanced lighting techniques to enhance the mood in a scene
• High quality shadow filtering – no more hard edges on a shadow, see shadows the way you would in real life
• Depth of field – use the power of the GPU to have more realistic transitions of focal points - imagine looking through a gun sight or a camera lens
• High definition ambient occlusion – incredibly realistic lighting and shadow combinations