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Boosting Ray Tracing Performance with Shader Execution Reordering: Introducing VK_EXT_ray_tracing_invocation_reorder

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Martin-Karl Lefrançois, Nia Bickford

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Boosting Ray Tracing Performance with Shader Execution Reordering: Introducing VK_EXT_ray_tracing_invocation_reorder is a November 2025 Khronos blog by NVIDIA engineers Martin-Karl Lefrançois and Nia Bickford on the multi-vendor Vulkan SER extension.

It explains path-tracer divergence, then hit objects, reorderThreadEXT, coherence hints, and GLSL that splits trace, reorder, and shade. It also covers live-state costs, profiler guidance, reported app gains, and hardware availability versus the older NV extension and Shader Model 6.9.

It is for advanced Vulkan ray-tracing engineers optimizing divergent closest-hit and miss work. Readers should already know traceRayEXT and SBTs.

The article is free on the Khronos site with code samples and diagrams.

It is useful when adopting VK_EXT_ray_tracing_invocation_reorder and deciding where hit objects and hints pay off.