GoKawiilMicrosoft adds Clustered Geometry and Partitioned TLAS features to DirectX
Microsoft has detailed two new DirectX Raytracing features, Clustered Geometry and Partitioned TLAS, now in preview, designed to avoid rebuilding ray tracing acceleration structures from scratch every frame. In Microsoft's own test on a Radeon RX 9070, switching to clustered geometry raised frame rate from 1.2 to 79 fps and cut memory used for those structures by about 90%, from roughly 7.5GB to 774MB.
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These changes target a long-standing bottleneck that has forced many ray-traced games to use lower-detail stand-in geometry instead of the models players actually see, which could let developers apply accurate ray tracing to deforming or streaming objects without the usual performance and memory cost. Microsoft itself cautioned that real games won't see gains as dramatic as its test case, and the approach demands more temporary scratch memory, so actual benefits will likely vary by title. Nvidia has already shipped a similar concept as RTX Mega Geometry, suggesting this could become a broader industry approach to ray tracing efficiency rather than a one-off trick.
- Clustered Geometry splits meshes into reusable chunks of up to 256 triangles to avoid full rebuilds
- Partitioned TLAS updates only scene regions where movement occurs each frame
- Microsoft's test showed up to 90% less memory use for ray tracing structures, though it warns real-world gains will be smaller
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 GPU — If you're excited about DirectX's new ray tracing memory optimizations, a modern ray-tracing capable GPU like the RTX 4070 lets you actually take advantage of these upcoming improvements in supported games. It pairs hardware ray tracing acceleration with ample VRAM, making it a great fit as developers roll out Clustered Geometry and Partitioned TLAS features. A solid upgrade path for anyone wanting to see next-gen ray tracing efficiency in action.
See NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 GPU on Amazon → Affiliate link — we may earn a commission on purchases, at no extra cost to you. Product picked by AI based on this article; it is not a tested recommendation.Source: techspot.com — Zo Ahmed, 2026-10-31
Published there as: “Microsoft's DirectX update could slash ray tracing memory by up to 90 percent”
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