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Steve Pronovost, part of Microsoft’s DirectX team, announced at WinHEC last week that the Windows Display Driver Model 1.0 (WDDM) that will ship with Windows needed to be drastically changed, along with the way modern graphics cards work...{more}
The way graphics cards currently work, is to process data from one application at a time, and this makes any other threads wait whilst the main program waits.
In Windows XP, all the graphics and windows are drawn using GDI, which are 2-dimensional techniques. 2D graphics don't use the GPU to work them out, and it is only games that need to use the GPU to calculate its 3D graphics. This means that it is only games which have to wait if other games are currently using the GPU for calculations.
In Windows Vista, the entire explorer interface uses 3D techniques in WDDM. This means that there could be significant performance problems when using the Aero interface. Only a complete overhaul in WDDM and the way graphics cards process 3D data would solve these issues.
LINK: APC Magazine
The way graphics cards currently work, is to process data from one application at a time, and this makes any other threads wait whilst the main program waits.
In Windows XP, all the graphics and windows are drawn using GDI, which are 2-dimensional techniques. 2D graphics don't use the GPU to work them out, and it is only games that need to use the GPU to calculate its 3D graphics. This means that it is only games which have to wait if other games are currently using the GPU for calculations.
In Windows Vista, the entire explorer interface uses 3D techniques in WDDM. This means that there could be significant performance problems when using the Aero interface. Only a complete overhaul in WDDM and the way graphics cards process 3D data would solve these issues.
"The trouble with WDDM 1.0 is that once one program is using the GPU, other programs are shut out until the process completes. In Vista, that can cause less fluid rendering of on-screen graphics, if multiple programs are trying to use GPU resources at once."
LINK: APC Magazine