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MS Says Windows 7 Will Run DirectX 10 On the CPU
Posted by
kdawson
on Sun Nov 30, 2008 02:48 AM
from the aero-capable dept.
from the aero-capable dept.
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."
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Software rendering (Score:5, Funny)
What a revolutionary & useful idea.
Yes. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Yes. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Yes. (Score:5, Insightful)
Aye; "wannabe computer companies worry about clock speed. Real computer companies worry about cooling."
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Unbalanced comparison: cost (Score:5, Insightful)
How much is an 8-core system going to cost vs the system with integrated graphics? At that point, it seems wiser to invest more money in a graphics card than in faster CPUs if that's what you're going to be doing.
By far the more useful thing is that it's probably better for development because the driver developers will have a reference point of how the graphics are supposed to render. Also, larger game companies will be able to point out these differences to get bug fixes out of the graphics card companies. "Your graphics card renders this incorrectly with regards to the reference, fix it" is much more forceful than "your graphics card behaves differently than your competitor".
Re:Unbalanced comparison: cost (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, larger game companies will be able to point out these differences to get bug fixes out of the graphics card companies. "Your graphics card renders this incorrectly with regards to the reference, fix it" is much more forceful than "your graphics card behaves differently than your competitor".
DirectX already contains a reference rasterizer, which is better suited for that. This thing seems instead to be meant for applications that doesn't necessarily need more than "interactive" frame rates, but do need to run on a broad class of machines. Or for easing development of applications which could benefit from hardware acceleration when available (image processing f.i.).
From the MSDN page [microsoft.com] on WARP:
We don't see WARP10 as a replacement for graphics hardware, particularly as reasonably performing low end Direct3D 10 discrete hardware is now available for under $25. The goal of WARP10 was to allow applications to target Direct3D 10 level hardware without having significantly different code paths or testing requirements when running on hardware or when running in software.
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From the summary: (Score:4, Insightful)
"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."
So the game went from unplayable at the lowest settings possible, to being still unplayable at the lowest settings possible?
Great move MS, youv'e really solved a problem there.
Re:From the summary: (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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Re:From the summary: (Score:5, Insightful)
be able to run Aero. Running Crysis was just a way of demonstrating the capability.
I think running Aero at would be a better way to demonstrate that capability.
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Re:From the summary: (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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Re:From the summary: (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
But at what performance cost. If we are talking about the whole "Vista Capable" debacle, aren't we talking about low spec machines that coughed and wheezed when running the low-end version of the OS. Great, lets add 3D rendering to the processor load on those machines.
I like the idea of rendering the graphics in the CPU rather than an expensive accelerator card for one-off situations, as long as that feature can be turned off. But then, I'm not a gamer, and I'm not into all the eye-candy. If I were a gamer or into eye candy, there's no way this side of hell that I would want to render the graphics in the CPU. I would get the best video card money could buy.
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So does MS hate get an automatic upmod? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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Re:From the summary: (Score:5, Informative)
The direct link to their numbers is here [microsoft.com], including number for quad and dual CPUs. And here [theinquirer.net] 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.
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Re:From the summary: (Score:5, Funny)
No, the game goes full speed, you just die randomly however as someone runs in, head shots you, runs out and your computer is still trying to render the first frame.
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Grrrreat! (Score:5, Insightful)
Does anyone else remember the 'good old days' when certain 3D graphics cards (the ViRGE comes to mind), were actually SLOWER than software renderers?
The term used then was 'decelerator' and I think MS's stupid decision to (once again) bow to Intel on this should share the same term.
How long will it take for true 3D acceleration to become an expected standard feature on PC's?
Ummmm (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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Re:Grrrreat! (Score:5, Insightful)
Sadly, never as long as the GUI works most Joe and Jane sixpacks will be just fine; and yes I do know about the Vista debacle but I think the point is still valid.
How is that sad? If people don't need it, it seems like a waste of money to me.
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Re:Grrrreat! (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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Great news then... (Score:4, Funny)
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."
So they compared one unusable (and dirt cheap) setup to another, super-expensive and still unusable one, and then they brag about sucking 20% less?
This is typical for MS. They are mostly a software company, and there are too many people who advocate software-only solutions that make no sense, just because that's the only thing they know how to do (maybe.)
...and kills their own argument / lie... (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
lol (Score:5, Insightful)
/. is silly
they made this to run the desktop effects
not crysis xD
Re:lol (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:lol (Score:4, Insightful)
DirectX 10 on CPU is _NOT_ intended for games.
It'll be used for rendering the Aero interface. And it requires several orders of magnitude less computing power. Hell, even my old 4-year old ATI Radeon 9600 can render Aero just fine.
Games make a useful test-case, though.
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Re:lol (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure. But you also need good-quality 3D drivers. This way Microsoft will be able to run Aero even on plain VESA framebuffer.
Also, consider this: the upcoming Intel Larrabee graphics card will consist of 64 independent programmable x86-compatible cores. NVIDIA CUDA also allows direct GPU programming.
I bet this renderer will be adapted to run directly on such GPUs bypassing their 'native' rendering pipelines. That'll give Microsoft freedom to experiment with new feature such as ray tracing without any help from hardware vendors.
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Imagine a DX 10 game on an 800mhz CPU -SSE/MMX (Score:5, Insightful)
It's truer than ever (Score:5, Funny)
"Every time Andy gives us more power, Bill takes it away".
Re:Oh boy. (Score:5, Funny)
I did, but then I only got 5fps. :-P
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Re:Oh boy. (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Oh boy. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Oh boy. (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Oh boy. (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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Re:Oh boy. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Oh boy. (Score:5, Funny)
But what if I want to play Crysis on my EeePC during that boring office meeting!?
Your 8 core Core i7 EeePC?
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Re:Oh boy. (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, the battery life is awesoNOCARRIER
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Re:Oh boy. (Score:5, Interesting)
Just use the Intel ray tracer...
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7079133482718383307 [google.com]
Much more impressive than "DX10 rasterizer".
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Re:Oh boy. (Score:5, Funny)
At one frame per meeting, you're at least better off than people who play Quake over email ;)
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Re:Oh boy. (Score:5, Funny)
To: "John"
Subject: Re: Quake
Boom headshot!
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Re:Oh boy. (Score:5, Funny)
Much better frame rate than Halo over e-mail, where half the e-mails are spent teabagging each other.
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Re:Oh boy. (Score:5, Insightful)
Please hand over your geek card.
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Wish they had done a press conference... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Oh boy. (Score:5, Funny)
Eight cores at 3GHz beat one core at 400MHz!!!
Film at eleven.
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Re:For server use, I guess? (Score:5, Insightful)
My guess is that Microsoft wanted their next OS to be virtualized on a server and yet still be able to run applications written for Direct-X.
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Re:For server use, I guess? (Score:4, Insightful)
Is MS going to rewrite their GUI layers on top of their 3d API a la Apple?
They did that in Vista. They did it so poorly that customers sued over being sold "Vista-capable" machines which weren't -- including Intel video cards that weren't enough.
Meanwhile, Ubuntu runs on Compiz, which does just fine on Intel -- and Apple has been so far ahead that someone took the audio from one of the original Vista presentations, and combined it with video from Tiger, thus showing that really everything "new" about Vista was just playing catch-up with Tiger, while Leopard was just around the corner.
More to the point: I believe it's now possible to run a Windows Server without a video card -- or, indeed, any GUI at all, depending on what apps you need.
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Re:Quickly, bash microsoft. (Score:5, Interesting)
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..
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Re:Quickly, bash microsoft. (Score:5, Insightful)
How about the vendors learn to code and stop writing shitty drivers! I mean they have the full spec on the cards and still cant produce a driver as stable as some guys reverse engineering! Vista had a driver model ready for how long? Its not even like the change was unexpected.
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Re:Quickly, bash microsoft. (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Quickly, bash microsoft. (Score:5, Insightful)
And it's not just the GPU companies. Creative took their sweet time releasing Vista drivers for their previous generation of audio cards. I believe they were actually released after Vista was, and they're still just dreadful.
My Audigy 2 is not that old, but after much fighting I still couldn't get 4.1 sound and EAX to work in any capacity. Part of it was Creative insisting on their own competing implementation of how to configure speakers which does not play nicely with the one included with Vista. Other issues are due to the general crummy nature of the drivers. Still other issues apparently only occur on Vista64 with 4 or more GB of RAM. Just awful. Eventually, I had to stop using the Audigy and use the onboard RealTek branded Intel HDA chip which seems to work fine, though the sound is less clean than what I got with my Audigy.
Another piece of hardware, a Playstation/Gamecube/Dreamcast to USB controller adapter, from EMS Production (http://www.hkems.com) won't work with Vista64 either. Two years in and the company, still alive, has yet to release any Vista64 drivers and the Vista32 drivers are still listed as "beta".
The annoying thing here is that the damn thing shouldn't even *need* an adapter. In Linux it is simply recognized as a HID gaming device and works fine. Vista actually recognizes it as such and DirectX controller diagnostic program can properly read values from the controller, but Vista steadfastly refuses to list the device in the "Game Controllers" control panel dialog, making it pretty useless for anything.
Sigh... at least both these pieces of hardware work perfectly well in Linux...
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Re:Quickly, bash microsoft. (Score:5, Informative)
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 [zdnet.com]
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=718 [zdnet.com]
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.
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Re:WOW! Someone buy microsoft a clue. (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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