Skip to main content

AMD is making the CPU more and more obsolete in gaming

A demo of AMD GPU work graphs featuring in-game scenery including a castle and a town.
Coburg University / AMD

At GDC 2024, AMD just expanded on Microsoft’s recently announced Work Graphs API, and a quick demo shows just how powerful the new tech can be for gaming performance. AMD’s iteration moves draw calls and mesh nodes from the CPU to the GPU, cutting back on the time it takes to execute these tasks. As a result, AMD found that there was a massive performance improvement — rendering time saw a 64% boost — when using Work Graphs with mesh shaders.

Microsoft introduced Work Graphs as a way to streamline processes both in gaming and in productivity, all by giving the GPU the power to schedule and execute tasks without first communicating with the CPU. It’s built into the Direct3D 12 API and it can reduce bottlenecks and improve gaming performance in 3D games.

The addition of mesh nodes is a way to simplify rendering complex shapes and scenes through the use of mesh shaders. Essentially, this should limit switching between rendering tasks, streamlining the process and improving efficiency. Draw calls, on the other hand, refer to requests sent to the GPU to render graphics, and processing them separately can also have an impact on performance.

Get your weekly teardown of the tech behind PC gaming
Check your inbox!

“Mesh nodes extend work graphs by introducing a new kind of leaf node that drives a mesh shader, and which allows a normal graphics PSO to be referenced from the work graph. […] Full PSO changing can now be done as well! The feature is called mesh nodes, as it allows a work graph to feed directly into a mesh shader, turning the work graph itself into an amplification shader on steroids,” Matthäus Chajdas, AMD architect, writes in the AMD GPUOpen blog post, referring to the PSO (Pipeline State Objects) throughout the graphics pipeline.

A chart showing the performance of Work Graphs vs ExecuteIndirect.
AMD

To showcase the improvements, AMD was able to share some “super early numbers” that compare using Work Graphs versus Execute Indirect when using an RX 7900 XTX. Execute Indirect is a feature in modern graphic APIs, such as DirectX 12 and Vulkan, that allows the GPU to perform draw or dispatch commands — essentially, it’s another thing that lets the GPU handle some of the CPU workloads instead of communicating with it for every task.

In that early benchmark, AMD found that Execute Indirect is up to 39% slower (1.64x) than Work Graphs with the mesh nodes extension.

AMD also shared a demo prepared by the team at Coburg University in Germany that showcases the feature in real-time in a 3D game scenario.

It’s hard to predict the impact of Work Graphs, as well as AMD’s additions to the new feature. However, it seems like it’ll be a good way for the GPU to shoulder the brunt of the work in gaming scenarios, removing CPU bottlenecks and supporting systems with weaker processors. Just as an example, AMD used a Ryzen 7 5800X CPU in its testing, and this proves that these older chips may benefit the most.

Monica J. White
Monica is a UK-based freelance writer and self-proclaimed geek. A firm believer in the "PC building is just like expensive…
AMD might finally beat Intel for the fastest mobile gaming CPU
AMD Ryzen 6000 laptop chip.

AMD's Ryzen 9 7945HX, the mobile flagship for this generation, was just spotted in some early benchmarks. The test results show that AMD might be really competitive in gaming laptops this year.

The CPU outpaced its last-gen equivalents by miles, and it kept up with Intel's best processors despite having far fewer cores.

Read more
DirectX 12 vs. DirectX 11: which is best for PC gaming?
Control protagonist Jesse explores the game's facility.

DirectX 12 is the latest graphics API that powers Windows 11, but many of the best PC games still either run on DirectX 11 or include an option to switch. Which should you choose?

Although most updates to DirectX are iterative, DirectX 12 represents a massive shift for the API Microsoft has been developing for several decades. It can massively improve performance in your games, and it has a few unique features that DirectX 11 doesn't have access to.
Graphics APIs aren't equal

Read more
What is DirectX, and why is it important for PC games?
DirectX 12 Ultimate logo.

DirectX is the secret sauce that allows most of the best PC games to run. It solves a problem for developers by offering a standardized solution to communicate instructions to your graphics card, and it's a cornerstone of the best graphics cards you can buy right now.

We'll run you through what DirectX is, why DirectX 12 Ultimate is important, and how you can find what DirectX version is installed on your PC.
What is DirectX?

Read more