Microsoft recently announced a new DirectX update, known as Feature Level 12_2. The update is important – at least, from a GPU standpoint – because of the way it handles specific graphics items, such as ray-tracing. Speaking of ray-tracing, the company seems to have confirmed the recipients of its new DirectX 12_2 update.
In one particular section of Microsoft’s official devblog, the company makes it exceedingly clear that its DirectX feature level 12_2 will be available – apart from NVIDIA – to AMD’s “Big Navi” RDNA2 GPU architecture which, as we all know, is expected to launch with ray-tracing hardware. Additionally, the list seemingly includes Intel’s Xe-HPG GPU but more to the point, the feature level 12_2 will be available to the GPUs on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chipset.
To be precise, the page doesn’t outrightly name Intel’s Xe-HPG GPU, but given initial reports about the GPU and its parent company’s intention of adding ray-tracing support to it, it’s fair to say that Intel’s report more or less confirms this point.
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That said, the fact that Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chipset was named as one of the brands receiving support for the new feature level, indicating the semiconductor maker’s future Snapdragon chipsets may come with hardware that can drive ray-tracing on mobile devices. If nothing else, just that feature alone could be a game-changer, considering real-time ray-tracing for mobile devices are still in its infancy stage.
If you want to read about the DirectX Feature level 12_2, you can head over to the official page that we’ve linked below.
(Source: Microsoft via Hot Hardware)
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