Veterans of studios Firaxis and Microsoft have formed Oxide Games, a new independent company dedicated to making new next-gen 3D engines, including a new 64-bit multicore game engine for Windows PC, Xbox One and PS4 hardware.

Called Nitrous, this new engine supports Simultaneous Work and Rendering Model, a feature that automatically renders from the most available CPU core, allowing for a vastly larger number of high-fidelity 3D objects.

"In most modern games, players may see a handful of unique, high-fidelity 3D models on the screen at the same time," said Oxide ames co-founder Tim Kipp in a prepared statement. "That's because current 3D engines are 32-bit and rely on a ‘main thread' to talk to the GPU. Nitrous, by contrast, was designed from scratch to be a 64-bit, multicore engine. Nitrous will render epic numbers of units and light sources on a screen at any given time."

A number of developers have already committed to using Nitrous in their upcoming titles. This includes developer and publisher Stardock Entertainment, known best for strategy PC titles Sins of a Solar Empire, Galactic Civilizations and Fallen Enchantress, provided the seed capital for Oxide Games as part of the Stardock Strategic Investment Fund.

Full details on the new engine can be found here.