UL's 3DMark Adds Sampler Feedback Feature Test for DirectX 12 Ultimate

Recently, UL Benchmarks added an additional test to its 3DMark benchmarking suite called the Sampler Feedback feature test. This latest addition utilizes DirectX 12 Ultimate and allows game developers feedback for optimizing the many aspects necessary for game design. The feedback this new feature test provides focuses on texture space shading for optimizing the game engines. Below is UL Benchmark’s press release about the Sampler Feedback feature test and DirectX 12 Ultimate.

3DMark Sampler Feedback feature test

Today’s update adds a Sampler Feedback feature test. Sampler feedback helps game developers use texture streaming and texture shading more efficiently. The 3DMark Sampler Feedback feature test shows how games can boost frame rates by using sampler feedback to optimize texture space shading operations.

What is sampler feedback?

Sampler feedback is a new feature in DirectX 12 Ultimate that enables more efficient handling of textures and shading by recording data on texture sampling and locations.

In 3D graphics, texture space shading is a technique that allows shading to be applied in texture space rather than in screen space on the visible pixels. Texture space shading allows for performance optimizations such as reusing shading from previous frames.

Sampler feedback can be used to further optimize texture space shading. For example, regions in the texture space that won’t be visible on the screen can be skipped, resulting in an increase in shading performance. Using sampler feedback in this process is faster than generating the same information through custom shaders.

Sampler feedback is a very complex feature, and we recommend reading Microsoft’s DirectX Developer Blog and the DirectX functional spec for detailed information on how it works.

Test sampler feedback performance with 3DMark

The 3DMark Sampler Feedback feature test shows how game engines can improve performance by using sampler feedback to optimize texture space shading.

The test scene is a robot repair shop. Texture space shading is used to shade the scene as the camera moves around the environment.

The test runs in two passes. In the first pass, the scene uses texture space shading and a custom software solution that generates information about which texels require shading. In the second pass, sampler feedback is used to optimize the texture space shading operations by more efficiently identifying the texels that are being accessed.

The result of the test is the average frame rate for each pass and the difference between the two expressed as a percentage. You can read more about the test in the 3DMark user guide.

Interactive mode

The 3DMark Sampler Feedback feature test includes an interactive mode that helps illustrate the small visual difference between sampler feedback and the reference software implementation. You can pause and jump to different parts of the timeline, change settings in real time, and export frames for comparison. You can also toggle sampler feedback on and off, change the shading level of detail (LOD) and visualize the shading resolution used for each surface.

3DMark DirectX Raytracing feature test

Measure the pure ray-tracing performance of your graphics card with the 3DMark DirectX Raytracing feature test. Instead of relying on traditional rendering, the whole scene is ray-traced and drawn in one pass. The result of the test depends entirely on ray-tracing performance. You can use this test to compare the performance of dedicated ray-tracing hardware in the latest graphics cards.

3DMark Mesh Shader feature test

Mesh shaders introduce a new approach to geometry processing that simplifies the graphics pipeline while also giving game developers more flexibility and control. The 3DMark Mesh Shader feature test shows you how game engines can improve performance by using the mesh shader pipeline to efficiently cull geometry that is not visible to the camera.

3DMark VRS feature test

Variable Rate Shading (VRS) helps games improve performance by selectively reducing the level of detail in parts of the frame where there will be little noticeable effect on image quality. The 3DMark VRS feature test helps you compare differences in performance and image quality when using Tier 1 and Tier 2 Variable Rate Shading.

Available now

All four DirectX 12 Ultimate feature tests are included in 3DMark Advanced Edition, which you can buy on Steam or direct from the UL Benchmarks website.

The new Sampler Feedback feature test is available today as a free update for 3DMark Advanced Edition and for 3DMark Professional Edition customers with a valid annual license.

To run the test, you’ll need Windows 10 version 2004 or later and a DirectX 12 Ultimate compatible graphics card with 4 GB of VRAM and driver support, or a DirectX 12 Ultimate compatible integrated GPU with 8 GB of system RAM and driver support.

-John Nester (Blaylock)