Microsoft Next-Gen DXR Ray Tracing To Offer Faster Performance By Utilizing SSDs To Limit VRAM Usage In Games

Microsoft has proposed a new method to make ray tracing in games faster with future DXR API updates by leveraging SSDs to limit VRAM usage.

Ray Tracing Has Become The Gaming Standard & Microsoft Aims To Make It Efficient & Faster By Investing In New Techniques Such as Utilizing SSD To Limit VRAM Usage In DXR API Updates

More and more games are now utilizing ray tracing or path tracing techniques to deliver immersive and realistic visuals to gamers but all of this comes at a cost. In the paper "Systems and methods for ray tracing acceleration structure level of detail processing", Microsoft states that ray tracing & its associated acceleration structures are edited/regenerated by software. They are competing for storage solutions for faster data transfer and detail processing.

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The patent lists certain solutions such as having more manageable pools of data associated with the acceleration structures. These can be saved either within the memory or storage devices such as SSDs which offer the fastest processing speeds outside of non-persistent storage options.

It will be interesting to see how this pans out but one thing is for sure utilizing faster storage devices such as SSDs is going to help accelerate ray tracing performance. Microsoft's DXR API can be made to work in tandem with Microsoft's Direct I/O suite which has a proven track record of utilizing HDDs/SSDs to their fullest potential and with Gen5 SSDs picking up the pace in the PC industry, we can see this idea come into fruition.