Microsoft's WARP10 Will Let You Run DX10 on CPUs, Crysis at 7 FPS

Paul Lilly — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 14:15:05 -0600

If your graphics card doesn't support DirectX 10 or 10.1, don't worry about it, Microsoft has your back. The resourceful programmers at Redmond are working on a new component called WARP10 (Windows Advanced Rasterization Platform) to be included in Windows 7, which essentially ports DX10 duties to the CPU.

The upshot is that everyone will have access to DX10 eye candy even if the hardware doesn't support it. Minimum requirements for WARP10 are the same as they are for Vista - an 800MHz processor and 512MB of RAM. So if you have the hardware to run Windows 7, then in theory, you should be able to enable advanced effects regardless of your videocard.

"Our primary goal during WARP10 development was to produce a rasterizer that met or exceeded all the precision and conformance requirements of the Direct3D 10 and 10.1 specifications," writes Andy Glaister, Principal Development Lead of Microsoft Desktop and Graphics Technologies. "We wanted to do this while achieving a high level or reliability and stability. If this rasterizer was going to be used as a fallback for when hardware was not functioning, it’s important that it worked in all scenarios, configurations and different types of machines."

The downside is that everyone will have access to DX10 eye candy, even if the hardware doesn't support it. There's a potential for system vendors and resellers to mislead customers with DX10 marketing, even if the system being sold isn't up to the task. Running Crysis in DX10 mode at just 800x600 with everything set to low, Microsoft benched a Core i7 at 3.0GHz averaging just 7fps. By contrast, the same benchmark pulled an average of 5fps using an Intel integrated DX10 video solution. On an ATI 2400 Pro, that number jumped to 30fps. In short, WARP10 provides minimal gains over integrated graphics, and gets trounced by budget discrete GPUs.

To be fair, Microsoft isn't pitching WARP10 as a replacement for graphics, nor is the company saying DX10 should be rendered on the CPU instead of the GPU. When it comes to gaming, Microsoft sees its rasterizer being used as a diagnostic tool to help developers validate any visual artifacts as being rendering errors or problems with the hardware or drivers.

Daily New Brief: Crossing the Border? Leave the Laptop!

Paul Lilly — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 16:54:14 -0500

Crossing the Border? Leave the Laptop...

In a unanimous three-judge decision, a federal appeals court on Monday gave federal border agents free reign to snoop into your laptop, cell phone, and digital camera. The controversial decision reverses a lower court finding that digital devices were "an extension of our own memory" making them too personal for government searches. It remains unclear whether a traveler must help the government sift through digital data by providing login information. Read the ruling here.

Warez David M. Fish Going?

To jail. David M. Fish earlier this week was sentenced to 30 months in prision on criminal copyright infringement and circumvention charges. Prosecutors accused Fish of operating 'warez' sites offering thousands of copyright protected movies, music, and software titles for download. In what could be one of many more convictions to come, the California case is part of Operation Copycat, an investigation by the FBI and U.S. Attorney's Office targeting online warez groups.

iPhone Price Cut Coming

Those holding out for a 3G capable iPhone may not have to wait much longer, but, that's not all late adopters can look forward to. According to a Forbes report citing "a person familiar with the strategy," when the 3G iPhone ships this summer, AT&T will slash the price by as much as $200, bringing the cost of entry down to just $199 with a two-year contract agreement. More of what's in store for the new iPhone here.

Phenom(enal) Headache

Responding to reports suggesting trouble when pairing high-end Phenom chips with select motherboards, AMD this week confirmed that some board suppliers are mismatching parts. The problem stems from trying to mate higher frequency 125W Phenom processors (9750 and 9850) with certain lower end 780G based motherboards. "We've never made claims that 780G motherboards are enthusiast-class motherboards," said Jake Whitman, an AMD spokesman.

Ubisoft Giveth DX10.1 and Taketh DX10.1 Away

Gamers were stoked to learn that the first DX10.1 title had not only emerged, but resulted in a sizeable performance difference, but Ubisoft says 'not so fast.' It's true that Assassin's Creed, an NVIDIA 'The Way It's Meant To Be Played' title, showed up to a 20 percent improvement on DX10.1 capable systems, but Ubisoft has now said it plans to remove DX10.1 support to address concerns over alleged graphical glitches. Because only certain AMD/ATI videocards currently support DX10.1, conspiracy theories over Ubisoft's decision have been raised. Don your tinfoil hat and read more here.

3DMark Vantage

Here's one for the benchmarking enthusiasts: Futuremark has released 3DMark Vantage, a partial successor to 3DMark06 which introduces DirectX 10 and Shader Model 4.0 support. That means XP users need not apply, nor anyone without a compatible videocard. Based on a completely new rendering engine, 3DMark Vantage includes two new graphics tests, two new CPU tests, and several new feature tests.

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