Slashdot Mirror
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."
...about the impossibility of running DirectX 10 on Windows XP.
If you can run it on software you'll be able to run it on any OS version. Gee... that was another lie from Redmond, why am I not surprised... maybe 'cause I do run he DirectX 10 hack on my XP and no it didn't raise the CPU usage (as claimed be the union of MS Windoze Vista Fanboyz)... it lowered it.
Seriously, this is a good thing. One could compare it to Mesa 3D. You have the option of running graphics in software, if you lack the hardware to accelerate it. This is highly useful in two situations:
1) You have something intensive and need to see it on a computer that lacks the requisite accelerator. Though it won't be fast, at least you can see the output rather than just being SOL.
2) You have a non-intensive task and don't wish to purchase dedicated hardware. While Crysis crawls, I'm going to guess something like, say, Thief wouldn't.
This is just a software lawyer to allow the OS to do 3D rendering even if there's not an accelerator present. I'm sure that 99.99% of people who do 3D in any capacity will use an accelerator as they are extremely cheap and extremely high performance. However it isn't a bad thing to have a software implementation. MS has actually had one for a long time, however it only comes with the development version of DirectX. It allows you to check the expected output for a program against the reference renderer as compared to an actual card.
Sounds like this is the same thing, just sped up and packed for end user use, rather than just developers.
Could have applications in the future too. For example what will computer hardware be capable of in 15 years? Processors are likely to be much faster as compared to today. Well, this might allow for 3D to be useful when emulating Windows for old programs. People remember people emulate DOS today (see DOSBox) for various purposes. I don't think it is out of the question that a decade or two later people will emulate Windows 7. Ok however part of that will be dealing with the 3D layer. A large number of apps today make use of Direct3D. Well, if Windows 7 has a software 3D layer, and processors are blazing fast you are good. Just use that. If it doesn't you then have to make your emulator emulate the 3D hardware, since I'm guessing a decade from now the 3D subsystem will be vastly different than it is now.
This is not intended to be a "Oh you don't need a graphics card ever," thing. It is intended to give people the option to get 3D without having to have a graphics card. It won't be as good, but at least it'll work.
3D accelerators are an expected feature on standard PCs. I can't think of one you can get these days without one. All the current integrated Intel and ATi and nVidia chips are 3D accelerators. Not powerful ones, but they do the trick. Any ad in card is, of course, an accelerator.
However here's a better question: How long until we don't need that anymore? Personally, I'm not thrilled with the idea of having to have lots of dedicated hardware. The whole point of a PC is a general purpose machine that can do pretty much anything because it is all programmed in software. You replace dedicated units that did only one thing with a general purpose computer that does everything. Ok well that is somewhat undermined by the requirement of specialized hardware.
Now, I understand the need for it. Graphics are intense and there is just no way, at this time, for a CPU to handle it. A dedicated processor optimized for the kind of math graphics need is the way to go. However wouldn't it be nice if that weren't the case? Wouldn't it be nice if the CPU again did everything?
We won't see that day tomorrow, but perhaps we'll see it in a decade or two.
I look back to the changes in audio production and hope to see it come to graphics as well:
Originally, PCs used in audio production were little more than interfaces for complex dedicated hardware. A normal PC simply couldn't handle it. You had a PC that was loaded full of Pro Tool cards, which were massive bunches of specialized hardware, to do anything. Well as CPUs got better, you started to be able to do more on a regular PC. At first it was still nothing really useful in the pro market. You had to do everything non-realtime, spend lots of time rendering a change then listening to it and so on. But at least you could actually do it on normal computers. Yet more time passed and now non-destructive realtime software was available on normal systems. You could overload it pretty easy, you still had to bounce tracks and such, it wasn't the unrestricted power of an accelerated solution, but it worked pretty well and in fact lots of project studios did just that.
Then we come to now. Now, the hardware accelerated audio production system is a relic. They are still made, but they are unpopular. Most professional studios don't bother, they just get a nice powerful PC (by PC I mean personal computer, Macs are included in this) with a couple of multi core processors and go to town. The CPUs easily handle large number of tracks with multiple effects and so on all in realtime. There is simply no need for dedicated hardware, and not using it means much greater flexibility. Everything is just changed in software.
So, I'd love to see that same sort of thing come to graphics. At this point, CPUs have a long way to go. But then, technology moves fast. Everything I'm talking about in the audio world has happened in about 2 decades. In just 20 years or so it went from something you could only do with amazingly expensive special hardware to something that is easy for a $1000 computer to handle.
20 years from now, may be the same deal with graphics.
Actually I think you are wrong, and here is why. I have been having lately a lot of customers, including older folks that wouldn't play a game if their life depended on it buying graphics cards. As a matter of fact on Monday I'll be picking up a passive cooled Geforce 6200 for a guy that I know hasn't played games since the age of DOS.
So why the sudden interest in graphics cards? One word: Video. Folks are getting these nice cheap LCD monitors that do 1400 or 1600 res and they are quickly finding that while the integrated will render the screen, the second they try watching videos on it full screen it really starts to suck. So they come to someone like me asking for a video card since the want to watch....well, videos. Having a dedicated card for video, even an older one like I am going to get this gentleman(he has PCI only and a limited budget) with dedicated RAM simply stomps any integrated I have yet come across. Integrated may work well for rendering office docs and excel spreadsheets, but full screen video at a decent resolution? Not so much. So I think folks will be getting upgrades for those cheap desktops and wanting more and more to see videos run on the laptops before picking them up. Otherwise it really isn't a good viewing experience IMHO.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I wish I had mod points to use on the parent. The GPU companies (emphasis on Nvidia though) knew the Vista driver model 18 months prior to its release and they still couldn't come up with decent drivers on time or ever two years later. I finally gave up on Nvidia's shitty drivers when a driver update in June caused all AVI files to skip when emule was open. Combine that with Nvidia refusing to implement DVD anti-aliasing on hardware for Vista (something that they have in the XP drivers) I had had enough being a free beta tester for Nvidia. My new ATI card works just fine and I don't have to install additional crapware for its drivers. I don't plan on ever going back to Nvidia.
Isn't this the point of openGL? An API to dedicated graphics hardware with a backup software renderer if the hardware isn't supported?
Whose idea is this again? It doesn't look like much of an idea, more like a step backwards..
Just use the Intel ray tracer...
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7079133482718383307
Much more impressive than "DX10 rasterizer".
No sig today...
A GUI on a server should be entirely optional, and never the default...
Serial consoles enable me to rebuild my servers without traveling to the location where they are hosted. Even if the OS is screwed to the point i can't login using it's existing remote logon features, i can get on via serial and fix it or do a complete reinstall.
I've never found a need for a GUI on any of my servers, because everything i've ever needed to do was possible from the CLI. I would try to avoid any server software which required a GUI, as you pointed out poorly coded, and failing that i would install it locally and copy the configuration if possible. Having to install GUI libraries and the like would end up doubling the footprint on most of my machines, and therefore double the patching requirements.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
The news here is not the existence of a software renderer, but one with good performance (such that a high-end CPU is competitive with a low-end GPU for some tasks). I wonder how the trusty Mesa GL renderer compares to Microsoft's latest offering? (They implement different APIs, but Wine provides DirectX 10 on top of OpenGL, so you can get an apples to apples comparison.)
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com