W7 - Play Crysis with no GPU at all.

[zedman3d]

This week, Microsoft unveiled one of Windows 7's new features, which will allow games and other DirectX 10 and 10.1-based applications to run fully accelerated on obsolete graphics hardware, and even on systems with no graphics acceleration at all.

Windows 7: Play Crysis Without a GPU - Tom's Hardware

 

[Stryker_77]

strange....how can a software dramatically increase performance of hardware??? beats me.....

 

[zedman3d]

Where did you get that?

Its just enabling the CPU to do the work of the video card. And in no way does it make it faster..... It clearly states that even low end discrete video cards outperform it.

Why is it useful?

Systems built to take advantage of WARP from a hardware standpoint will be able to display graphics even when the video card is missing—or toasted. So if you've nuked your graphics card from a bad BIOS flash, fear not on a WARP-capable system. At least you will be able to boot back up until the video card is replaced.

I dont know the full details of it like how the **** your monitor even works if your video card is toasted but hey, its something.

PS: Would be VERY good for benchmarking CPU's...

 

[Apokalipse]

With a CPU, you might be able to make 3 frames per second on low settings.

 

[CalcProgrammer1]

This isn't anything new, CPU "indirect acceleration" has been around for a while. The earliest 3d games relied totally on this principle, because discrete cards didn't exist. All a GPU does is process information, so yeah, a CPU can do what a GPU does. The only difference is that a GPU is tuned to process just 3d rendering and it is designed to do that fast. A CPU can do more things, but it isn't as fine tuned, and it won't be able to achieve very good frame rates.

As for why your monitor works even if your video card is shot, you can use a 3d card without drivers and still get video. VGA is a common implementation, drivers just enable enhanced features (3d acceleration).

 

[computer newbie]

well i supose if you some how fry yor GPU it comes in handy, but with very low FPS soo.

 

[CalcProgrammer1]

It isn't meant to back up GPU-less systems for gaming, it's meant for getting 3d acceleration on lower end systems (for simple things, maybe Aero) and apparently virtual machines/software development as well, according to the Microsoft article.

 

[Poizen22]

this is kindqa useless looking at high end gpu's tryingto take all the load of the cpu as it bottle necks the gpu's meh for every 2 steps foreward soem one has to take 1 backwards.

 

[CalcProgrammer1]

This isn't bottlenecking anything. If you have a nice fancy new GPU that supports the latest DirectX, this isn't going to be used. This is for older machines that don't have new GPU's or don't have GPU's at all.

As for the GPU doing non-graphical work, if you need to do a large amount of calculations, the GPU is good for that, that's why GPU Folding works so well.

 

[Poizen22]

This isn't bottlenecking anything. If you have a nice fancy new GPU that supports the latest DirectX, this isn't going to be used. This is for older machines that don't have new GPU's or don't have GPU's at all.

As for the GPU doing non-graphical work, if you need to do a large amount of calculations, the GPU is good for that, that's why GPU Folding works so well.

yea i was saying this is useless, as the cpu allready slows down gpu's this is very pointless.