RTX 5080 shows 221x ray tracing frame rate boost with new Microsoft DXR tech

Osvaldo Doederlein, a senior software engineer at Google, tested Microsoft's recent DXR API update on a GeForce RTX 5080 and reported massive performance gains using the new Clustered Geometry feature. In a stress test, the frame rate increased from 1.4fps to 310fps. VRAM usage dropped from 4,716MB to 267MB, and rebuild times fell from 720ms to 1ms. Ray dispatch time increased slightly from 1.8ms to 2.0ms.

Image: Club386

The DXR update, which Microsoft unveiled in late October, includes Clustered Geometry and Partitioned Top-Level Acceleration Structures (PTLAS). Clustered Geometry lowers the processing demands of generating initial scene geometry by dividing the render into reusable triangle clusters.

While Nvidia has released similar technology called RTX Mega Geometry, which reportedly improves performance by 6fps and reduces VRAM by 2GB on a GeForce RTX 5090 in Gears of War: E-Day, Doederlein notes that the massive gains seen in this specific test scene may not translate to more complex game worlds.

Background In October, the manufacturer failed to provide partner design kits, making the rumored release timeline for the 24 GB model unlikely. Our earlier story