GDC 2026 confirms DirectX State of the Union session, DirectStorage and Beyond
Source: Creative BC/Informa
It’s been years since DirectX 12 has established itself in a PC gaming world, years since DX12 Ultimate was released. More recent updates include DirectStorage and Direct-ML updates, however these technologies are hardly used by game developer.
Meanwhile, the Game Developers Conference 2026 agenda includes “DirectX State of the Union 2026: DirectStorage and Beyond,” presented by Microsoft Xbox. The listing shows the talk on Wednesday, March 11, 11:30 am to 12:30 pm in Room 3001, West Hall at Moscone Center, with Shawn Hargreaves and Danny Chen as speakers.
The session introduction says it will cover DirectStorage updates, including planned Zstandard compression support and a Game Asset Conditioning Library , alongside broader DirectX items such as shader pre-compilation, ray tracing, ML integration, and tooling.
Source: GDC
The schedule also lists “ Evolving DirectX for the ML Era on Windows, ” also presented by Microsoft Xbox. It is scheduled for Thursday, March 12, 12:45 pm to 1:45 pm in Room 2024, West Hall, with Max McMullen. The description references linear algebra capabilities in HLSL and a path to running lightweight models in shaders for neural rendering on Windows.
On the NVIDIA side, “ Driving Innovation & RTX Advances with John Spitzer” is listed as a Luminaries Speaker Series session on Tuesday, March 10, 11:20 am to 12:00 pm at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Blue Shield of California Theater. The speaker is John Spitzer, and the session listing is tied to the Game Changer Pass.
Source: GDC
NVIDIA also has “ Real-Time Path Tracing in 2026 and Beyond” on Thursday, March 12, 10:10 am to 11:10 am in Room 3020, West Hall. The listing names Martin Stich and Carmelo Fernandez-Aguera, and it is marked as an Advanced session under Game and Production Technology. The abstract references Shader Execution Reordering, RTX Mega Geometry, DLSS, and RTX Neural Shading as topics.
The DirectX State of the Union at GDC 2026 sounds interesting:
-Zstd compression support coming to DirectStorage
-Game Asset Conditioning Library that will unlock full potential of NVMe storage
-Advanced RT features
-Shader pre-compilation https://t.co/Lkl7KCKkf6 pic.twitter.com/lpOdkmZytC— Compusemble (@compusemble) February 13, 2026
GDC 2026 runs March 9 to March 13 in San Francisco, and Microsoft has separately outlined its broader presence at the event in a Microsoft Game Dev post.
Source: GDC Agenda
