Alright, I haven't seen this information posted at any other forum, so let's get some interesting discussion going here.

Microsoft calls it WARP, or Windows Advanced Rasterization Platform. In a nutshell it allows DX10/DX11 (and it appears that DX9 will be supported through DX11 too) to run under software rendering through the CPU, without the need for graphics hardware.

In effect it's a reference rasterizer but it runs in real-time.

I think it'll be a great tool for exposing IHV driver bugs and also if it runs anything DX9 can run, it'll be great for legacy titles that don't run properly on modern hardware. Supporting AF and AA is also a bonus for said older titles.

I also find it hilarious that the faster Intel processors are outrunning Intel's fastest GMA graphics “accelerator”, making the GMA actually a decelerator.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/window ... ,6645.html

Good info

perhaps it could be posted in News

I DID the news article on WARP Mark. You made it private because it needed editing.

I'm not surprised by this.

CPU's have gotten so powerful we are not using a fraction of them.

Surfing the Internet, doing a word doc and excel doesn't take a lot of juice.

Hell, the only machines I've seen the CPU taxed are machines filled with trojans, worms and viruses they got from surfing the web.

and after it was edited, why was it not posted?

there is another article i edited and gave you permission to post - after you added a link - on gtx295 - i still don't see it


You have GOT to realize that i read everything posted on the main site; i edited your CM news articles without telling you after you posted them without telling me


see .. people get an "inside" look at the method in our madness




except for gaming where they are still way too slow to keep up with Multi-GPU graphics.

This is interesting news.

I remember when I had a IBM R51 Laptop with 852/855 embedded graphic chipset which didn't have Pixel Shader support. Many games refused to run due to this limitation. I had to use a program called 3DAnalyze to make the CPU emulate PS 1.0, 1.4 to run some of the games. So this is definitely good news.

Maybe they could make the CPU assist the GPU's in handling graphics and improve performance.

Interesting development, we will see.


I remember John Carmack talking about rise of software renderers and one day replacing specialized hardware renderers. Perhaps this is the start of that.