Microsoft has selected AMD as its exclusive PC partner for Halo Infinite. While this means plenty of marketing opportunities, it’s also fostered a closer engineering partnership with AMD that Microsoft says will improve frame rates in the campaign mode and eventually bring ray tracing to the game.
“We’re looking forward to working closely with AMD to bring raytracing to Halo Infinite,” says Noah Benesch, a product marketing manager at Xbox. “Raytracing is one our top development priorities post-launch and look forward to sharing more soon.”
It’s not clear if this rules out Microsoft using Nvidia’s DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) technology, but Microsoft does note that AMD is “exceptionally open to us bringing new rendering features across all hardware as well as performance improvements for all our players.”
AMD has created a Halo-themed RX 6900 XT.
Image: Microsoft
Beyond ray tracing, which will presumably be available across both Xbox Series X / S and PC, Microsoft says the AMD partnership has resulted in driver updates that “deliver massive improvements in frame time performance throughout areas of the game’s campaign mode.
The engineering work has also improved Halo Infinite on processors with high core and thread counts, which is an area where AMD has excelled with its latest Ryzen processors. Microsoft and AMD have also created a Halo-themed Radeon RX 6900 XT. It’s a limited-edition card that won’t be sold, but Microsoft and AMD will be hold giveaways for the cards.
Outside of the AMD and Microsoft partnership, the Halo Infinite team has also been working with Discord and Razer Chroma RGB to ensure the game integrates well. Halo Infinite will support in-game Discord server invites and even Razer Chroma RGB support with unique lighting effects.
