DirectX SER Boosts Intel Battlemage GPU Performance by 90%
▼ Summary
– Microsoft’s Shader Execution Reordering (SER) is a new feature in Shader Model 6.9 designed to optimize complex rendering workloads and address performance bottlenecks.
– SER improves ray tracing efficiency by reordering how shaders are processed when a single ray hits multiple objects, reducing thread idle time.
– In Microsoft’s testing, SER delivered significant frame rate increases, including a 90% boost on Intel’s ‘B-series’ GPUs and a 40% boost on an NVIDIA RTX 4090.
– The performance gains were demonstrated in a sample test, and real-world gaming improvements might be lower than these figures.
– SER will become a standard with upcoming drivers and is expected to be supported by hardware like NVIDIA’s Ada Lovelace and Intel’s Battlemage GPUs.
Microsoft’s introduction of Shader Execution Reordering (SER) within DirectX is delivering substantial performance uplifts for next-generation graphics hardware, with Intel’s upcoming Battlemage GPUs showing particularly impressive gains. This new technology aims to tackle inefficiencies in modern rendering pipelines, especially for complex ray tracing workloads.
The core issue SER addresses stems from how GPUs traditionally handle rays that intersect with multiple objects requiring different shaders. In current systems, all threads within a processing group, or warp, must wait for the slowest one to finish before proceeding. This leads to significant idle time and wasted computational power when shaders vary in complexity. Shader Execution Reordering fundamentally changes this process by intelligently reorganizing workloads. When a ray hits several objects, the data is collected and then sorted based on the spatial location of the hits and the type of shader required. This reordering allows the GPU to execute similar shaders together in a more coherent batch, drastically reducing processor idle time and improving overall throughput.
Initial testing by Microsoft demonstrates the potential of this approach. In a controlled sample test, the technology yielded a 90% increase in frame rates for Intel’s developmental ‘B-series’ Battlemage graphics processors. A notable 40% performance bump was also observed on an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090. It is crucial to understand that these figures come from a synthetic benchmark designed to highlight the best-case scenario for SER’s optimization. Real-world gaming performance improvements are expected to be more modest, though still significant, as the technology matures and sees broader implementation.
The concept of reordering shader execution for efficiency isn’t entirely new; NVIDIA has employed similar techniques in its path tracing optimizations. However, Microsoft’s integration of SER into the core DirectX framework through Shader Model 6.9 promises to standardize the feature for future hardware and software. The technology works powerfully in tandem with HitObject data, using that information and additional developer-supplied hints to reorder tasks for optimal execution and data coherence, which further refines the processing of ray hits and misses.
For developers and end-users, leveraging SER will be straightforward from a software perspective, as it is built directly into the Shader Model 6.9 specification, which requires the Agility SDK 1.619. On the hardware side, while full compatibility lists are still forming, it is anticipated that Intel’s Battlemage architecture and NVIDIA’s Ada Lovelace GPUs (like the RTX 4090) and beyond will feature native support for this performance-enhancing capability.
(Source: wccftech)
