Microsoft has previewed new DirectX Raytracing features designed to reduce the cost of updating detailed scenes. The announcement covers clustered geometry, partitioned top-level acceleration structures and GPU-driven builds.

Clustered geometry divides objects into small, reusable groups of triangles, reducing how much must be rebuilt when geometry changes. Partitioned scene structures concentrate work on regions that changed while retaining data elsewhere.

In one demanding RX 9070 test, acceleration-structure memory fell from 7,519 MiB to 774 MiB, an 89.7% reduction. The sample also ran much faster, but Microsoft explicitly warns that the test is not representative of the gains games should expect. Temporary build-memory requirements increased too.

These remain developer-preview features requiring the appropriate SDK, runtime and supporting drivers. They do not inherently demand new ray-tracing hardware, though support depends on each GPU vendor's implementation and validation. This is promising engine work rather than an immediate performance upgrade for existing games.

Sources: Microsoft DirectX preview | Microsoft