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Developing DirectX® applications

Originally posted: April 15, 2020

Developing Microsoft® DirectX®12 applications

Microsoft® DirectX®12 provides low-level APIs for creating games and other graphics applications. 

Here on GPUOpen, we not only provide tools and libraries to help you with the development of your Vulkan application, but we’ve produced quite a few detailed blogs and videos to support you along the way too. 

Videos

Our engineers regularly present at industry conferences on topics relating to DirectX.

These links to YouTube videos will usually provide an opportunity to download the slides shown as well.

Don’t miss our other videos about DirectX and more available here on GPUOpen!

AMD RDNA™ 2 – DirectX® Raytracing 1.1 - YouTube link
Graphics feature architect Rys Sommefeldt provides a short presentation on the major advantages of the new API, and how to best utilize it on AMD RDNA™ 2-based hardware.
AMD RDNA™ 2 - DirectX® 12 Ultimate: Variable Rate Shading - YouTube link
Engineer Stephan Hodes provides a short description how VRS works, and how AMD’s FidelityFX Variable Shading technique can assist with integrating VRS into your engine.
AMD RDNA™ 2 - DirectX® 12 Ultimate: Sampler Feedback and Mesh Shaders - YouTube link
Engineer Colin Riley provides a short description of Sampler Feedback and Mesh Shaders, as well as important performance guidelines that graphics developers should consider when using AMD RDNA™ 2-based GPUs.
Porting Your Engine to Vulkan® or DirectX®12
This talk by AMD's Adam Sawicki at Digital Dragons in 2018 discusses how to port your engine to Vulkan® or DirectX®12.

Presentations

If you’re just getting started with DirectX12, these presentations are an excellent place to start to understand the concepts.

Concurrency Model in Explicit Graphics APIs
Dr. Matthäus G. Chajdas and Dominik Baumeister give a (slightly) more in-depth look for people interested in graphics programming. They prepare the mental model for explicit graphics APIs such as DirectX12 and Vulkan.
Memory Management in Vulkan and DX12
Adam Sawicki introduces memory management in Vulkan and DirectX 12 with a detailed presentation on the different memory types, gives some tips and tricks, and discusses the libraries involved.

Don’t miss more presentations on DirectX and other topics available on GPUOpen!

Sample - “HelloD3D12”

Ready to put things into practice? Our “HelloD3D12” sample is a great way to get hands-on and see how everything works.

We have more DirectX samples further down the page too.

HelloD3D12 DirectX® 12 Sample
HelloD3D12 is a small, introductory Direct3D 12 sample, which shows how to set up a window and render a textured quad complete with proper uploading handling, multiple frames queued and constant buffers.

Libraries and tools

If you’re looking for some welcome help with allocating and managing memory, our Direct3D 12 Memory Allocator (D3D12MA) library is exactly what you need!

D3D12 Memory Allocator
The D3D12 Memory Allocator (D3D12MA) is a C++ library that provides a simple and easy-to-integrate API to help you allocate memory for DirectX®12 buffers and textures.

Our very popular Radeon Developer Tool Suite is a package containing several tools to help you analyze and optimize your DirectX application, and now includes ray tracing analysis. 

AMD Radeon™ Raytracing Analyzer
AMD Radeon™ Raytracing Analyzer (RRA) is a tool which allows you to investigate the performance of your raytracing applications and highlight potential bottlenecks.
AMD Radeon™ Memory Visualizer
AMD Radeon™ Memory Visualizer (RMV) is a tool to allow you to gain a deep understanding of how your application uses memory for graphics resources.
AMD Radeon™ GPU Profiler
AMD RGP gives you unprecedented, in-depth access to a GPU. Easily analyze graphics, async compute usage, event timing, pipeline stalls, barriers, bottlenecks, and other performance inefficiencies.
AMD Radeon™ GPU Analyzer
Radeon GPU Analyzer is an offline compiler and performance analysis tool for DirectX®, Vulkan®, SPIR-V™, OpenGL® and OpenCL™.

Don’t forget, you can also find DirectX support with our FidelityFX effects. We also have other tools and SDKs which support DirectX.

Ready to learn more?

Take a look at our dedicated DirectX 12 and DirectX 12 Ultimate pages here on GPUOpen. 

There’s also plenty of blog posts that are about or mention DirectX12 to look through:

glTFSample Cauldron Sample Project
This sample demonstrates how to use most of Cauldron's features. It is also a useful reference for getting started with developing your own samples and prototypes.
AMD Freesync™ Premium Pro (HDR) Sample
This sample demonstrates how to enable Freesync Premium Pro (HDR) with the DirectX® 12 and Vulkan® APIs.
CrossfireAPI11
This sample demonstrates how to use the explicit Crossfire™ application programming interface (API).
nBody DirectX® 12 Sample (asynchronous compute version)
This is a slightly modified version of the Microsoft D3D12nBodyGravity sample, This sample demonstrates the use of asynchronous compute shaders (multi-engine) to simulate an n-body gravity system.
SSAA11 DirectX® 11 SDK Sample
This sample demonstrates some of the ways in which to reduce scene aliasing without using a post process technique.
SilhouetteTessellation11 DirectX® 11 SDK Sample
This SDK sample implements PN Triangles and Phong tessellation. It also shows how to optimize performance by using adaptive tessellation techniques.
SeparableFilter11 DirectX® 11 SDK Sample
This sample presents a technique for achieving highly optimized, user-defined separable filters.
MLAA11 DirectX® 11 SDK Sample
This sample demonstrates a post-process pixel shader technique that applies fullscreen anti-aliasing to an image.
GPUParticles11 DirectX® 11 SDK Sample
This sample demonstrates how to implement a simple GPU-based particle system.
ForwardPlus11 DirectX® 11 SDK Sample
This sample provides an example implementation of the Forward+ algorithm, which extends traditional forward rendering to support high numbers of dynamic lights while maintaining performance.
DepthBoundsTest11 DirectX® 11 SDK Sample
The DepthBoundsTest11 sample shows how to use the Depth Bounds driver extension.
TiledLighting11 DirectX® 11 SDK Sample
This sample provides an example implementation of two tile-based light culling methods: Forward+ and Tiled Deferred.

Other GPUOpen samples that use DirectX12

Barycentrics DirectX® Shader Extension Samples
The Barycentrics samples show how to enable intrinsic instructions in your DirectX®11 or DirectX®12 HLSL code.

Microsoft documentation

Explore the fantastic DirectX®12 Developer resources available from our partners at Microsoft®

Latest DirectX news on GPUOpen

Introducing MiniDXNN: MLP library for DirectX 12
MiniDXNN is a native HLSL and DirectX 12 library for lightning-fast MLP inference leveraging AMD Radeon™ RX 9000 series matrix cores via cooperative vector APIs, delivering optimized kernels, samples, full source and docs to remove compute interop friction.
Welcome to the AMD FSR SDK 2.2, now available on GPUOpen
The AMD FSR™ "Redstone" SDK 2.2 update delivers ML-powered FSR Upscaling 4.1 and FSR Ray Regeneration 1.1 optimized for AMD RDNA™ 4 graphics, enabling higher visual fidelity and performance with analytical fallbacks to scale across handhelds, consoles, and PCs.
Enhancing DirectX Testing with AMD Smoldr
Smoldr is an open-source command-line tool that runs DirectX 12 HLSL shaders from simple text scripts, letting you compile, create resources and pipelines, and dispatch compute or raytracing workloads without writing C++ code.
AMD and Microsoft partner on DirectX ML, DirectStorage, and developer tools at GDC 2026
Microsoft and AMD partnered at GDC to announce powerful new developer technologies for Windows, including DirectStorage 1.4, PIX tools updates, DirectX ML integration, Advanced Shader Delivery, and support for the latest Agility SDK update.
Enhancing AMD Radeon GPU Detective Output with DirectX Debug Information
With version 1.5 of AMD Radeon™ GPU Detective (RGD) you can now use the debug information that is produced by the Microsoft DirectX® Shader Compiler.
Using Neural Networks for Geometric Representation
Explore how Neural Intersection Functions (NIF) and the enhanced LSNIF are poised to reshape ray tracing by replacing traditional BVH traversal with efficient, GPU-friendly neural networks for accelerated performance and high-fidelity imagery.
CPU performance optimization guide - part 3
We look at optimizing CPU performance by reducing the number of instructions, and highlights methods to enhance instruction efficiency and algorithm throughput.
CPU performance optimization guide - part 4
Optimize CPU performance by manually writing x64 assembly code, offering a detailed comparison with compiler-generated instructions and achieving improved performance through streamlined instruction sets.

Developing with Vulkan®? We have a similar page for Vulkan® developers!

Explore more

Software release blogs
Our handy software release blogs will help you make good use of our tools, SDKs, and effects, as well as sharing the latest features with new releases.
Videos
Words not enough? How about pictures? How about moving pictures? We have some amazing videos to share with you!
Samples Library
Browse all our useful samples. Perfect for when you're needing to get started, want to integrate one of our libraries, and much more.
Developer Guides
Browse our technical blogs, and find valuable advice on developing with AMD hardware, ray tracing, Vulkan®, DirectX®, Unreal Engine, and lots more.
DirectX®12 Ultimate
Microsoft® DirectX®12 Ultimate provides APIs for creating games and other graphics applications.
DirectX®12
Microsoft® DirectX®12 provides APIs for creating games and other graphics applications. Find out how we can help you get the best out of DirectX®12.
Guest Posts
Since we launched GPUOpen back in 2016, we’ve had a steady flow of guest posts from, or in collaboration with, a variety of games developers.
Vulkan®
Vulkan® gives software developers control over the performance, efficiency, and capabilities of AMD Radeon™ GPUs and multi-core CPUs.

Related software

AMD FidelityFX™ Variable Shading
AMD FidelityFX Variable Shading drives Variable Rate Shading into your game.
D3D12 Memory Allocator
The D3D12 Memory Allocator (D3D12MA) is a C++ library that provides a simple and easy-to-integrate API to help you allocate memory for DirectX®12 buffers and textures.
AMD FidelityFX™ Hybrid Shadows sample
This sample demonstrates how to combine ray traced shadows and rasterized shadow maps together to achieve high quality and performance.
AMD FidelityFX™ Hybrid Stochastic Reflections sample
This sample shows how to combine AMD FidelityFX Stochastic Screen Space Reflections (SSSR) with ray tracing in order to create high quality reflections.

Related news and technical articles

Introducing MiniDXNN: MLP library for DirectX 12
MiniDXNN is a native HLSL and DirectX 12 library for lightning-fast MLP inference leveraging AMD Radeon™ RX 9000 series matrix cores via cooperative vector APIs, delivering optimized kernels, samples, full source and docs to remove compute interop friction.
Welcome to the AMD FSR SDK 2.2, now available on GPUOpen
The AMD FSR™ "Redstone" SDK 2.2 update delivers ML-powered FSR Upscaling 4.1 and FSR Ray Regeneration 1.1 optimized for AMD RDNA™ 4 graphics, enabling higher visual fidelity and performance with analytical fallbacks to scale across handhelds, consoles, and PCs.
Enhancing DirectX Testing with AMD Smoldr
Smoldr is an open-source command-line tool that runs DirectX 12 HLSL shaders from simple text scripts, letting you compile, create resources and pipelines, and dispatch compute or raytracing workloads without writing C++ code.
AMD and Microsoft partner on DirectX ML, DirectStorage, and developer tools at GDC 2026
Microsoft and AMD partnered at GDC to announce powerful new developer technologies for Windows, including DirectStorage 1.4, PIX tools updates, DirectX ML integration, Advanced Shader Delivery, and support for the latest Agility SDK update.
Enhancing AMD Radeon GPU Detective Output with DirectX Debug Information
With version 1.5 of AMD Radeon™ GPU Detective (RGD) you can now use the debug information that is produced by the Microsoft DirectX® Shader Compiler.
Using Neural Networks for Geometric Representation
Explore how Neural Intersection Functions (NIF) and the enhanced LSNIF are poised to reshape ray tracing by replacing traditional BVH traversal with efficient, GPU-friendly neural networks for accelerated performance and high-fidelity imagery.
CPU performance optimization guide - part 3
We look at optimizing CPU performance by reducing the number of instructions, and highlights methods to enhance instruction efficiency and algorithm throughput.
CPU performance optimization guide - part 4
Optimize CPU performance by manually writing x64 assembly code, offering a detailed comparison with compiler-generated instructions and achieving improved performance through streamlined instruction sets.

Related videos

GPU Reshape – Modern Shader Instrumentation and Instruction Level Validation (Digital Dragons 2024) – YouTube link
GPU Reshape is, a just-in-time instrumentation framework with instruction level validation of shaders. A deep dive into current validation methodologies, and what the future of instrumentation may hold.
Mesh Shaders – Learning Through Examples (Digital Dragons 2024) – YouTube link
Learn about the new Mesh Shader pipeline which can help to create even more better-looking games.
DirectStorage: Optimizing Load-time and Streaming (GDC 2023 - YouTube link)
Join us for a presentation about DirectStorage and how to integrate it to extract optimal load time and streaming performance.
Memory Management in the APEX Engine - Digital Dragons 2022
This talk is a joint-presentation with Avalanche Studios Group explaining how their in-house APEX Engine manages memory with the help of VMA/D3D12MA.
Microsoft® Game Stack Live: AMD Ryzen Processor Software Optimization
Join AMD on an adventure thru Zen 2 and Zen 3 processors which power today’s game consoles and PCs. Dive into instruction sets, cache hierarchies, resource sharing, and simultaneous multi-threading. Journey across the sands of silicon to master microarchitecture and uncover best practices!
Microsoft® Game Stack Live: Denoising Raytraced Soft Shadows on Xbox Series X|S and Windows with FidelityFX
We explain how FidelityFX Denoiser allows for high-quality raytracing results without increasing rays per pixel, and deep dive into specific AMD RDNA™ 2-based optimizations that benefit both Xbox Series X|S and PC.
AMD RDNA™ 2 – DirectX® Raytracing 1.1 - YouTube link
Graphics feature architect Rys Sommefeldt provides a short presentation on the major advantages of the new API, and how to best utilize it on AMD RDNA™ 2-based hardware.
AMD RDNA™ 2 - DirectX® 12 Ultimate: Variable Rate Shading - YouTube link
Engineer Stephan Hodes provides a short description how VRS works, and how AMD’s FidelityFX Variable Shading technique can assist with integrating VRS into your engine.
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