OptiX 7.4 Release

We are pleased to announce the OptiX 7.4 release this week!

The highlights of this new version of OptiX include:

  • New API for parallel compilation of individual modules
  • Increase in number of ray payload from 8 to 32 values
  • New API for optimizing payload use
  • Temporal denoising for AOV layers
  • A new curve primitive: the Catmull-Rom cubic
  • New options for controlling curve endcaps with quadratic & cubic curves
  • Adaptive curve sampling reduces memory and increases performance

Be aware that we introduced one small backward incompatibility that is trivial to update. We’ve removed the flag OPTIX_COMPILE_DEBUG_LEVEL_LINEINFO and replaced it with a new flag OPTIX_COMPILE_DEBUG_LEVEL_MINIMAL . This is to better support upcoming debugging features we think you will like.

For users of the curve primitives, be aware that the end-cap default behavior for quadratic and cubic curves has changed. By popular demand, we have turned off endcaps by default. It can be trivially updated to keep the old behavior using the new endcap option OPTIX_CURVE_ENDCAP_ON. The default behavior of linear curves remains unchanged with endcaps enabled.

There is more information on the new OptiX features in our recent Dev News blog post about OptiX 7.4.

Tony and I are also giving a talk detailing the changes at the online GTC this coming Thursday: “What’s New in OptiX [A31402]”. Registration is free, please join us at 1:30pm GMT (830am EST / 530am PST) Thursday Nov. 11 if you’d like to watch and ask questions live. If you’re interested but unable to attend, the talk will be online and streamable after the event.

OptiX 7.4 requires an Nvidia display driver numbered 495 or higher, and the SDK can be downloaded from our developer site here: NVIDIA OptiX™ Downloads | NVIDIA Developer

Release Notes: https://developer.nvidia.com/optix/downloads/7.4.0/releasenotes
Documentation: https://raytracing-docs.nvidia.com/ (OptiX 7.4 docs coming soon)
How to get Started with OptiX 7 dev blog: How to Get Started with OptiX 7 | NVIDIA Developer Blog

Notes on the previous release: OptiX 7.3 Release


David.

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