AMD Demos GPU Work Graphs On Radeon RX 7900 XTX, Much Faster Rendering With Mesh Nodes Coming Later This Year

AMD has published the first demo of its Radeon RX 7900 XTX "RDNA 3" GPU handling Work Graphs, providing much faster and more efficient rendering.

In a previous post, we explained how DirectX 12 API's latest feature known as Work Graphs will enable full GPU autonomy, reducing the amount of work that is typically done on the CPU and moving it straight to the GPU for faster rendering and overall faster performance in games and applications.

Work Graphs is the result of several years collaboration across Microsoft®, AMD, and other partners. We’ve always known that we would want to extend this capability beyond pure compute to also encompass draw nodes, are delighted to see this prototype already running on real hardware, and look forward to continuing our strong partnership as we add this functionality to a future version of Direct3D.

Shawn Hargreaves (Principal Engineering Manager, Direct3D, Microsoft)

For us, the GPU work graphs API is a major step in graphics programming, especially with the new draw nodes. We wouldn't want to build anything complex without it anymore! We’re looking forward to applying work graphs to many problems in the graphics space

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Quirin Meyer (Coburg University of Applied Sciences and Arts)

At GDC 2024, AMD showcased a super early demo of Work Graphs running synchronously with Mesh Nodes which expands the DirectX 12 feature. What Mesh Nodes will do is that they process draw calls while the rest of the graph is executing. The demo showcases the whole scene (minus the UI and Skybox) being rendered on a single work graph dispatch.

Testing by AMD as of March 15, 2024, on the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX using AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 31.0.24014.1002 pre-release driver, using the ExecuteIndirect command and Work Graphs with the mesh nodes extension to dispatch scene information to Microsoft DirectX 12, on a test system configured with an AMD Ryzen 7 5800X CPU, 32GB DDR5 RAM, Gigabyte X570 AORUS ELITE WIFI motherboard, and Windows 11 Pro 2023 Update, using the AMD procedural content Work Graphs demo with the overview, meadow, bridge, wall, and market scene views. System manufacturers may vary configurations, yielding different results. RS-640.

The demo was run on an AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX "RDNA 3" GPU which fully supports DirectX 12 Work Graphs and Mesh Shaders, allowing it to run much faster ExectureIndirect, the traditional way of graph execution and rendering a scene. The technique was 1.64x slower than Work Graphs which shows the advantage of the new feature. AMD also shared some interesting statistics about its new demo which features:

Work Graphs is going to be the next major extension to the DirectX 12 API and is expected to be available with Mesh Nodes later this year. NVIDIA and Intel are also onboard the Work Graphs bandwagon so expect developments from them too on the technology as it gains more traction.