Enhancing DirectX Testing with AMD Smoldr
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Sebastian Neubauer
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Enhancing DirectX Testing with AMD Smoldr is a March 2026 AMD GPUOpen post by Sebastian Neubauer announcing Smoldr, an open-source text-script tool for running DirectX 12 shaders without a full C++ app.
Smoldr compiles HLSL through DXIL, builds pipelines and resources, and dispatches compute with ray tracing supported, using scripts for sources, buffers, root signatures, bindings, EXPECT checks, and DUMP. It notes Agility SDK experiments, clearer errors, RGP capture via --window, and mesh shaders as future work.
It is for intermediate D3D12 and HLSL developers prototyping shaders or validating drivers who already know basic DirectX 12 concepts.
The article is free on GPUOpen and links the GitHub repo and scripting docs; syntax is still evolving.
It is useful for Amber-like quick DX12 shader experiments without scaffolding a full graphics application.
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