Text 16029, 57 rader
Skriven 2007-02-13 11:41:48 av Rich Gauszka (1:379/45)
  Kommentar till text 16026 av Gary Britt (1:379/45)
Ärende: Re: Why Vista's DRM Is Bad For You
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From: "Rich Gauszka" <gauszka@dontspamhotmail.com>

All the articles I've read state that Vista's DirectX 10 (DX10) improves on gpu
performance. Although newer video card gpu s wouldn't hurt which is why Nvidia
and ATI are probably smiling a lot right now<g>

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,128275-page,1/article.html
Pipeline Power-Ups
The revamped, more powerful DirectX "allows us to do a lot more processing on
the GPU [graphics processing unit] and speeds everything up immensely," says
Chris Donahue, director of business development for Microsoft Games for
Windows.

DirectX 9, used widely for today's games, employs different parts of the video
card to determine the visual appearance of pixels and vertices (where lines
meet). A set number of "pipelines" handle only pixel shaders, while others are
just for vertex shaders. If creating a certain 3D scene hits the pixel shader
pipelines hard but uses only a few of the vertex shaders, the extra vertex
pipelines lie dormant.

DX10's Shader Model 4, however, uses the same hardware resources for pixel,
vertex, and even new geometry shaders. That approach allows GPU vendors to
design chips with pipelines that can run any type of shader, and also makes it
easier for GPUs to handle things like physics effects that currently must run
on the CPU. In general DX10 is more CPU-friendly, with less processing
overhead.

The end result? A more flexible graphics system, and one that makes better use
of the GPU's processing power.

"It's a step forward," says Mike Goodman, a senior analyst for research firm
The Yankee Group. "This is another way to take advantage of the processing
power of PCs that Vista will operate on."

"Gary Britt" <GaryNOSPAMBritt@generalcogster.com> wrote in message
news:45d1e4df@w3.nls.net...
OK Maybe Vista does use a GPU in some ways, and what I've read previously
wasn't correct.  I'm still not convinced however for several reasons.

1.  The article you cite reads like the under NDA Windows 95 garbage and
deliberate misinformation that MS was shown to have deliberately lied about
with Windows 95 architecture at the time of its release.  It reads more like a
reprint of some MS marketing materials for writers and mag editors than a real
investigation of the facts pro and con.

2.  NT 3.1 had the graphics driver outside ring 0 kernel level.  NT 4 moved it
into the ring 0 kernel level to INCREASE performance.  Now that mag article you
cite just whips out the statement (without offering any explanation or
investigation or substantiation) that moving the graphics driver back outside
the ring 0 kernel level will somehow magically make the graphics driver perform
better.  Have the laws of physics changed since NT 4??

3.  The article gives a very basic broad brush look at how supposedly VISTA
talks to the GPU directly but fails to compare that and explain why its

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