The presentation featured Vice President of Next Generation Xbox, Jason Ronald. He presented the first information about Project Helix, a new device being prepared by the company.
Ronald emphasized that Microsoft wants to create a unified platform for developers to simplify the release of games on different devices.
Ray tracing has always been considered a cherished goal of computer graphics. We want to give developers a single platform for designing and optimizing games.
The highlight of the presentation was the unveiling of details about Project Helix. Microsoft confirmed that the device will unite the world of consoles and PCs – the system will be able to run both Xbox games and PC projects.
Project Helix is designed for games on Xbox and PC, providing high performance and the best gameplay experience. It runs on a custom SoC from AMD and is designed with the next generation of DirectX in mind.
Among the first confirmed features:
- support for Xbox and PC games;
- custom SoC from AMD;
- architecture designed with the new generation of DirectX in mind;
- next-generation ray tracing and new rendering capabilities;
- task execution under GPU Directed Work Graph Execution;
- support for AMD FSR Next + Project Helix.
Microsoft also confirmed the presence of a number of new technologies related to rendering and artificial intelligence:
- next-generation neural visualization;
- next-generation machine learning scaling;
- machine learning-based multi-frame image generation;
- ray regeneration for ray tracing and path tracing;
- deep texture compression;
- neural texture compression;
- DirectStorage + Zstd.
Ronald added that the company wants to adapt Xbox to the changing habits of players:
The time when people divided themselves into console, PC, or mobile players is almost over.
Microsoft sees the future of gaming as a unified experience across different devices, and Project Helix will be the foundation of this strategy.