Microsoft Talks Hardware Acceleration in Windows 8
Microsoft talks about graphics hardware acceleration in Windows 8, claiming a 438-percent increase in simple geometry rendering over Windows 7.
The latest Building Windows 8 blog details graphics hardware acceleration in the upcoming OS which will come packed with DirectX 11.1. The company said that it's approaching the graphical user interface (GUI) from two perspectives: raw performance and battery life. To tackle both, the company has implemented a unified graphics subsystem embodied in the new version of DirectX.
According to the post, Windows 8 divides and balances the process of rendering text, shapes and images between the CPU and GPU, giving each a task that it can achieve most efficiently. Thanks to this method, Microsoft is seeing an increased framerate of up to 336-percent in rendering titles and headings (compared to Windows 7), up to 438-percent in rendering simple geometry, and a 40-percent improvement in JPEG rendering.
"To improve apps that don’t need to redraw the entire screen for each frame, we optimized how DirectX deals with redrawing just portions of the screen and how it scrolls," the blog reads. "This work not only improves app efficiency and performance, but since it reduces redundant drawing and reduces the number of times graphics data needs to be copied in memory, it also reduces power consumption, thus increasing battery life."
Microsoft also said the Metro style platform was actually built on top of DirectX -- meaning all apps take full advantage of the graphics hardware on the system, regardless of the programming language and framework the developer chooses. The post goes on to state that the new Direct3D 11.1 API is the foundation for hardware acceleration of 2D graphics and text, image processing, 3D graphics and computaton, and video.
"The new API makes it much simpler to mix different types of content in a single scene because that single API now manages all of the GPU resources associated with rendering. This also reduces memory usage by eliminating the redundancy involved in creating multiple graphics device-management objects in app code. In addition, Direct3D 11.1 provides a uniform way for apps to access the various capabilities of different graphics hardware. It provides mechanisms for the app to determine what features are available, and then only uses those capabilities. This enables apps to make maximum use of the GPU’s capabilities, whether the GPU was designed for long battery life on a tablet, or high-end gaming on a desktop PC."
To read the full blog, head here.
As for Metro - I just hope it will crash and burn.
actually Aero in Win7 added a bit of hardware acceleration, and is the main reason why win7 runs so much smoother than Vista.
It is changes like these that make me want win8 in spite of metro. There are tons of great little improvements like this that make win8 run smooth on my netbooks in spite of their lack of resources. Still not sold on the desktop... but I am leaning more and more towards it.
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Part of me wants to get Server 2012, some of the features look PHAT!
I was whining and complaining why phones can't run Windows and Windows applications for years. Such as running a Windows based translater, a full-size desktop type browser, REAL applications (not just castraterd "moble" versions) or simply plug in a USB keyboard & mouse and mini-HDMI to a 1080p monitor for a real DX11.1 desktop like experience I can take with me in my pocket. (just slower)
So I'm also holding back my W8 bitching for now to keep this dream of one architecture on every size device a reality. At least any big problems will be fixed by W9.
Also, who turns off or reboots their computer, anyway? Maybe if you use a laptop, but that's not a proper computer. Last time I booted my desktop was 114 hours (almost 5 days) ago, when I was installing a new GPU. Suspend to RAM turns the computer off and on in like 5 seconds if you're worried about wasting electricity.
First I'd love to hear your definition of a "proper computer". Second there are people who dual-boot and thus reboot for that. Just because you prefer to use suspend doesn't invalidate other people's decision to reboot or shutdown.
Never. Metro has to die and those in Microsoft who are pushing it need to get kicked to the curb.
Microsoft is trying to stage a coup to rush everybody to Metro, where they decide which apps you can use and take a 30% cut from app sales. To do that, they have to kill the desktop as soon as possible, which is why they won't allow users to disable Metro and why they already started pulling support from some features in Windows 7 (desktop gadgets), with more to come in the following months. They don't mind losing desktop market share, because they see that Apple money and they would be fine with throwing even 50% desktop Windows users under the bus if they could retain those 20% diehard fanboys who are gushing about W8, WP8, Surface, etc.
Actually that has nothing to do with gaming, till now everybody was bitching about metro, now you bitch about HWA ? OK we get it, no matter how many improvements they did to Win 8 you don`t want it, now please go away with useless comments.
@killerclick i like to shut down my computer, i don`t like it to have electricity run inside it for nothing.
Incredible, now bitching about faster boots, what else ? bitch about color GUI?
Not bitching about faster boots, but the price for saving like 20 seconds every time you boot (in my case once in two weeks, for most people maybe 2 minutes a day total) is too high - assuming you have a problem with Metro, as most people here seem to.
(1% time spent launching desktop applications using the start menu.
to the same work, i have to click more number of times, compared to office2010.