v.1.8.1

Summary

• Performance optimizations (25-30%+ perf gain over 1.7.x with comparable or better quality)
• New performance/quality presets in "Display and performance" allow for better scaling from low end to high end GPUs
• New modes in bistro-programmer-art scene for stress testing animation and dynamic lighting scenarios (see 1, 2, 3, 4)
• Fixes for a number of DLSS-RR denoising stability issues in reflected/refracted surfaces
• DirectX SER and Opacity Micromaps are now available when Agility SDK 1.619 is enabled (default, requires DXR 1.2 driver support; to disable, remove Agility SDK 1.619 from CMake settings)

Details

• Main path tracer has been cleaned up and optimized to reduce register pressure (reducing spill/fill) and divergence (increasing active thread %)
• 5 different performance settings have been added, and a number of different features connected to them, allowing for almost 10x perf scaling at same resolution
• A number of the settings are now baked into shaders as macros, allowing shader compiler to better optimize code, eliminate loops and etc.
• Bistro has more emissive materials, more mirrors and specular materials, more lights (up to 400k, a lot of which dynamic) and moving objects
• Multiple material permutations now supported to allow for completely different BSDF/material handling in ClosestHit
• Significant NEE-AT and general lighting improvements both on simplification, bug fixing, performance and quality
• Improvements to multi-layer DLSS-RR denoising with better handling of motion vectors on curved surfaces
• Significant reduction to memory use - we're now under 7.5GB of VRAM in Bistro at 4k with DLSS-RR Balanced
• Grand refactor to allow for future addition of multiple code samples (and parts of one that is already in the works)
• Basic scripting to allow automatic screenshot output with plethora of parameters for automated testing
• SER and OMM are now first class citizens via DirectX Agility SDK 1.619
• Many other unaccounted fixes and tweaks