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MS Says Windows 7 Will Run DirectX 10 On the CPU
arcticstoat writes "In what could be seen as an easy answer to the Vista-capable debacle, Microsoft has introduced a 'fully conformant software rasterizer' called WARP (Windows Advanced Rasterization Platform) 10, which does away with the need for a dedicated hardware 3D accelerator altogether. Microsoft says that WARP 10 will support all the features and precision requirements of Direct3D 10 and 10.1, as well as up to 8x multi-sampled anti-aliasing, anisotropic filtering and all optional texture formats. The minimum CPU spec needed is just 800MHz, and it doesn't even need MMX or SSE, although it will work much quicker on multi-core CPUs with SSE 4.1. Of course, software rendering on a single desktop CPU isn't going to be able to compete with decent dedicated 3D graphics cards when it comes to high-end games, but Microsoft has released some interesting benchmarks that show the system to be quicker than Intel's current integrated DirectX 10 graphics. Running Crysis at 800 x 600 with the lowest quality settings, an eight-core Core i7 system managed an average frame rate of 7.36fps, compared with 5.17fps from Intel's DirectX 10 integrated graphics."
Running Crysis isn't the point of the demo. The point was that it was a DX 10 application running entirely in software. In the end, this means that systems without higher end 3D cards would be able to run Aero. THAT's the point.
They are trying to address the main complaint of the "Vista Capable" debacle. Running Crysis was just a way of demonstrating the capability.
As I said in another post:
Running Crysis isn't the point of the demo. The point was that it was a DX 10 application running entirely in software. In the end, this means that systems without higher end 3D cards would be able to run Aero. THAT's the point.
They are trying to address the main complaint of the "Vista Capable" debacle. Running Crysis was just a way of demonstrating the capability.
The direct link to their numbers is here, including number for quad and dual CPUs. And here is the inquirer's take on it, which I tend to agree. This is about making sure that Win7 is put on as many machines as possible and doesn't have a "Vista Capable" debacle out of the gate. With this tech as long as they don't fuck up the CPU specs like they did with Vista(A 1GHz with 512Mb of RAM for Basic and 1Gb for all the others? WTF?) they should be able to give the Aero "experience" no matter how shitty of an Intel integrated GPU comes with your laptop. Of course it'll run so damned slow that the desktop will be pretty much the only thing you CAN run, but there won't be any more lawsuits because the machines can't run features. Anyway that is what I'm betting is going on in the mind of MSFT.
Personally I'll just be happy if Win7 doesn't run like a damned slug. because I'm really getting tired of playing "find a working driver" for all those damned laptops that keep getting dumped on my desk to be "downgraded" from Vista. I shudder to think how all those Best Buy and Wal Mart sub $600 laptops would have run if Vista would have had this "feature" at launch. How about making a nice lean functional OS instead of trying to out pretty Apple MSFT? Because frankly when you try to do Apple pretty you just end up sucking the big wet titty. Just accept the fact that you suck at pretty and move on. Win2K and WinXP weren't pretty and look at how much cash you made. Those of us that work with Windows will take compatibility and speed over pretty any day of the week. Just beg Allchin to come back and make backwards compatibility job #1 again and you'll find your customers will be happy.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Well... then they better try again. It still sounds like a complete failure to me. Since the integrated graphics is equivalent, there is no advantage, and no resolution to the problem. What exactly are you try to get at?
Except the integrated graphics on a bunch of 'Vista Capable' laptops DON'T do DirectX10 or Aero... but if a patch to Vista (or Windows 7) will get Aero working on directX10 on the CPU... a buttload of PCs that CAN'T currently do Aero, now CAN.
I'm sorry, but Peter Gutmann is not a reputable source for accurate information on Vista graphics, or anything related to Vista at all. Several of his claims have been widely proven to be exaggerated or downright false, and when asked to provide proof, he has refused. His claims have been picked apart on numerous sites both directly and indirectly through the sourcing of benchmarks.
I suggest you read these articles for instance, which provide a good overview:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=673
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=718
Some of his points are admittedly valid, there are genuine flaws in the new graphics driver device spec., but he's clearly most concerned with pushing an anti-Vista agenda, even if that requires resorting to FUD.
Choose your "experts" carefully.
Windows 95 didn't invent disk compression. Stacker and Doublespace were some products that did the same thing for DOS.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
And in fact, DOS 6 also had disk compression. You could even see that they had illegally copied Stackers code because they forgot to take out Stackers copyright notice.
Enter Arch Linux. Installed to a CLI in about 10 minutes. Getting the wi-fi working from the cli with wpa_supplicant and the zd1211 firmware for my card was a breeze. Then I proceeded to download and install xorg and icewm. All told, at a cli with wi-fi working it idles at eleven MB. Logged in to icewm it sits at 17. And with firefox running, a grand total of 51 Megabytes. And of course, it's blazing. With Firefox 2, it's at least as fast as my Pentium 4 laptop running Debian with Firefox 3. And, of course everything works in Firefox. Flash 10, etc.
Although what I've said doesn't speak completely to your point, suffice it to say, depending on your setup, you aren't doomed to a slower computer when running reasonably up to date software.
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.