Microsoft and AMD partnered at GDC to announce powerful new developer technologies for Windows, including DirectStorage 1.4, PIX tools updates, DirectX ML integration, Advanced Shader Delivery, and support for the latest Agility SDK update.

AMD GPUOpen

AMD and Microsoft announced several collaborative developer technologies at GDC 2026. Key highlights include DirectStorage 1.4 with Zstandard compression support for faster game asset streaming, new PIX tooling features (DirectX Dump Files, Live Shader Debugging preview, Shader Explorer), and major DirectX ML advancements including DX Linear Algebra for matrix-matrix operations in HLSL and the DirectX Compute Graph Compiler for model-level GPU acceleration. Advanced Shader Delivery addresses shader compilation stutter on PC, and the Agility SDK 1.619 officially releases Shader Model 6.9 with DXR 1.2 SER support. AMD is providing driver support for these features, with most tooling updates arriving Q2 2026.

AMD and Microsoft partner on DirectX ML, DirectStorage, and developer tools at GDC 2026