Items Under Investigation

Items under investigation for the RC milestone include evaluating whether the following changes should be made to more closely reflect recommended game engine design :

• Reduced geometry shader output along with increased ALU workload
• Fewer constant-buffer shaders

DX10 & WDDM 1.1 Drivers

The DX10 assessments in Windows 7 require WDDM 1.1 drivers. If the system does not have WDDM 1.1 drivers, then only the DX9 assessments are run and the DX9 scoring tables are used. Systems with WDDM 1.0 drivers will not receive the DX10 scoring benefit.

DX10 Graphics For DWM

For Windows 7, the Desktop Windows Manager (DWM) has moved to the DX10 APIs, but still supports Aero for DX9 systems. The WinSAT DWM test (winsat disk –dwm) remains based on DX9 – it can run on both DX9 and DX10 systems.

WinSAT supports running the DWM assessment natively on the DX10 APIs. However, Microsoft decided to retain the DX9-based DWM assessment for the following reasons :

• The DWM runs correctly on DX9-based adapters.
• It would have added complexity to run different versions of the DWM assessment on systems with DX9 and DX10 adapters.
• WDDM 1.1 drivers for Windows 7 are new; Microsoft di not want the added risk to the OOBE experience by introducing a new DWM assessment.

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