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What's new in the June 2024 Microsoft Game Development Kit

The Microsoft Game Development Kit (GDK) is a complete set of tools, APIs, extensions, and programming models that can be used across current and future Microsoft Gaming platforms and initiatives. Microsoft Game Development Kit (GDK) design and features are driven by your feedback about how you like to develop games. For a complete introduction, see Welcome to the Microsoft Game Development Kit.

For an introduction to what's new in the June 2024 GDK, see the following video.

The GDKX | Roadmap for this and future releases of the Microsoft Game Development Kit (GDK) can be found on the Xbox Developer Forums. Release notes for the current release of the Microsoft Game Development Kit (GDK) can also be found in the GDK/XDK Release notes space on the Xbox Developer Forums.

In addition to many bug fixes, this release includes the following new features.

Important

This topic includes features that are public. For What's New information that requires NDA access, see What's new in the June 2024 Microsoft Game Development Kit - NDA Features.

Table of Contents

Graphics
System
Developer tools
PIX
Samples

Graphics

Xbox GPU Auto-Vectorizer for 16-bit workloads
16-bit Auto-Vectorizer is an optimization technique for Xbox 16-bit workloads, which better leverages Xbox hardware instructions to improve runtime performance automatically. The amount of improvement differs depending on the specific 16-bit workload and shaders. The feature will be turned on automatically for 16-bit workloads, and setting __XBOX_ENABLE_AUTOVEC=0 will turn off the feature.

System

Console Developer Home Update
The streaming tab has removed the drop down box to select the streaming protocol and simplified the UX. The protocol is now automatically configured by client applications, and it is now possible to simultaneously listen for remote connect and direct connect requests. The system disconnects any active streams when a new client connects.

GDK Installer Updates
The GDK installer now includes new links for additional tools upon GDK installation. These tools are those which are not included in the installation (because they are web based or obtained via other channels), but can be used to perform game creator tasks. XBOM and GDK Visual Studio Extension now includes additional options for the content test app.

Touch Adaptation Kit Command Line Tool (tak.exe)
The TAK tool now listens for changes to the takxconfig.json file when using the serve command. This allows creators to easily swap out different asset directories, change configured languages, and fully see live updates to their bundle through this command.

TAK Feedback Improvements
The Touch Adaptation Kit Command Line Tool (TAK.exe) now includes telemetry to help Microsoft improve the product. Use the tak.exe --help command to learn more.

Developer tools

New language code flag added for Xbox command line tools
The June 2024 release of the GDK includes a new /LC (Language Code) flag for Xbox command line tools that allows you to override the language code of the response.

PIX

Timing Capture Annotations
Developers can now add annotations to the Timeline in Timing Captures. These annotations make it easier to share captures within a studio, as one developer can now make notes in a capture that direct other developers to interesting time periods to investigate.

New Timing Capture Comparison Layout
The Timing Capture comparison features have been moved from the Metrics view to a new dedicated Comparison Layout. This layout improves several comparison workflows, including the ability to compare multiple captures.

Querying the PIX Timing Capture file format
The Timing Capture file format is a Sqlite database. Queries written in standard SQL syntax can be used to extract data from Timing Capture files to perform a variety of analysis tasks without requiring the PIX user interface. A new documentation page has been added that provides sample SQL queries for common analysis tasks such as finding the PIX events with the longest durations and extracting counter values.

Samples

For a complete list of samples included with the Microsoft Game Development Kit (GDK), see Microsoft Game Development Kit samples.