Intel and Microsoft continue to evolve the PC gaming ecosystem by providing new features and capabilities to key APIs like Direct3D and DirectStorage, as well as unlocking new optimization techniques through advanced tooling and delivery. We're very proud to announce that Intel supports all the recent advances in the Windows ecosystem, including:
- DirectX Machine Learning - Introducing DirectX Linear Algebra
- Advanced Shader Delivery – Delivering smoother gameplay from the moment players launch their games
- DirectStorage – Now supporting Zstandard compression
- Microsoft PIX – with new features continually being added to bring Console-Level Developer Tools to Windows
Read on for more details on those exciting new developments and how they help developers and gamers alike.
DirectX Linear Algebra
DirectX Linear Algebra gives developers a powerful new foundation for bringing machine learning operations directly into real‑time graphics. Intel is excited to support this feature on day one.
For a little while now, our XeSS upscaler and frame generation technologies have been making gameplay faster, crisper and smoother by using the XMX hardware contained in each of the Xe cores present on our Arc-class graphics chips. This hardware has been built and optimized to accelerate neural rendering operations.
With Linear Algebra as part of DirectX, the power of our matrix unit is now unlocked for all game developers to take advantage of, allowing a host of neural rendering techniques to be built and shipped in PC games.
Intel is committed and excited to continue collaborating with Microsoft on further improvements to the machine learning ecosystem.
Additional information can be found in this Microsoft blog post: Zstd support arrives in DirectStorage 1.4
Advanced Shader Delivery
Intel's collaboration on Advanced Shader Delivery (ASD) addresses two of the most common performance issues in PC gaming: long load times and shader compilation stuttering. This technology ensures smoother gameplay from the moment players launch their games and eliminates disruptive performance hitches.
New APIs and tools from Microsoft allow game developers to package a collection of Pipeline State Objects into a State Object Database (SODB). Subsequently, Intel’s offline compiler compiles those SODBs into a Precompiled Shader Database (PSDB). Using PSDBs at runtime greatly accelerates loading times and reduces stuttering. Intel is looking forward to releasing a driver supporting ASD in the near future.
Additional information can be found in this Microsoft blog post: Advanced Shader Delivery: What’s New at GDC 2026
DirectStorage®: Zstandard compression
DirectStorage® simplifies and streamlines the path from NVMe storage to GPU memory, dramatically reducing game asset load times. Intel's recent collaboration with Microsoft now brings developers Zstandard - a modern codec for improved compression ratios and significantly improved CPU decompression throughput. The advance will bring smaller assets on disk, more efficient transfers, and industry standard performance that scales.
Additional information can be found in this Microsoft blog post: Evolving DirectX for the ML Era on Windows
Microsoft PIX
PIX is Microsoft's powerful performance tuning and debugging tool. Intel is deeply invested in the evolution of the tool and is co-developing it along with Microsoft. New features are continually being added to bring console-level developer capabilities to Windows PC game development, giving developers the sophisticated tools they need to optimize performance, identify issues quickly, and create polished gaming experiences.
At GDC, we announced - in partnership with Microsoft - that Intel will support PIX’s new crash debugging functionality as well as providing complete support for PIX’s exciting new Shader Explorer features. These new powerful capabilities make it easier for developers to keep their application stable, while extracting the performance they need from their shaders. Intel also announced that our collaboration with Microsoft on PIX has moved to a whole new level, extending beyond the traditional confines of Intel-specific PIX plugin development and into the very core of PIX itself, helping to make the tool even better for all developers.
Additional information can be found in this Microsoft blog post: Bringing Console-Level Developer Tools to Windows