From: "Robert Comer" 

I don't really have the time to do the subject justice, but in a nutshell,
reducing the ring transitions on modern hardware definitely can speed
things up depending one what else is going on and the real speedup is in
DX10's ability to pass things off to the GPU for processing, thus no ring 0
needed on the CPU...

--
Bob Comer


"Gary Britt"  wrote in
message news:45d2431f{at}w3.nls.net...
> That article doesn't address any of the problems or concerns I raised and
> to which you responded.
>
> Gary
>
> Rich Gauszka wrote:
>> All the articles I've read state that Vista's DirectX 10 (DX10) improves
>> on gpu performance. Although newer video card gpu s wouldn't hurt which
>> is why Nvidia and ATI are probably smiling a lot right now
>>
>> http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,128275-page,1/article.html
>> Pipeline Power-Ups
>> The revamped, more powerful DirectX "allows us to do a lot more
>> processing on the GPU [graphics processing unit] and speeds everything up
>> immensely," says Chris Donahue, director of business development for
>> Microsoft Games for Windows.
>>
>> DirectX 9, used widely for today's games, employs different parts of the
>> video card to determine the visual appearance of pixels and vertices
>> (where lines meet). A set number of "pipelines" handle only pixel
>> shaders, while others are just for vertex shaders. If creating a certain
>> 3D scene hits the pixel shader pipelines hard but uses only a few of the
>> vertex shaders, the extra vertex pipelines lie dormant.
>>
>> DX10's Shader Model 4, however, uses the same hardware resources for
>> pixel, vertex, and even new geometry shaders. That approach allows GPU
>> vendors to design chips with pipelines that can run any type of shader,
>> and also makes it easier for GPUs to handle things like physics effects
>> that currently must run on the CPU. In general DX10 is more CPU-friendly,
>> with less processing overhead.
>>
>> The end result? A more flexible graphics system, and one that makes
>> better use of the GPU's processing power.
>>
>> "It's a step forward," says Mike Goodman, a senior
analyst for research
>> firm The Yankee Group. "This is another way to take advantage of the
>> processing power of PCs that Vista will operate on."
>>
>> "Gary Britt" 
wrote in message
>> news:45d1e4df{at}w3.nls.net...
>> OK Maybe Vista does use a GPU in some ways, and what I've read previously
>> wasn't correct.  I'm still not convinced however for several reasons.
>>
>> 1.  The article you cite reads like the under NDA Windows 95 garbage and
>> deliberate misinformation that MS was shown to have deliberately lied
>> about
>> with Windows 95 architecture at the time of its release.  It reads more
>> like
>> a reprint of some MS marketing materials for writers and mag editors than
>> a
>> real investigation of the facts pro and con.
>>
>> 2.  NT 3.1 had the graphics driver outside ring 0 kernel level.  NT 4
>> moved
>> it into the ring 0 kernel level to INCREASE performance.  Now that mag
>> article you cite just whips out the statement (without offering any
>> explanation or investigation or substantiation) that moving the graphics
>> driver back outside the ring 0 kernel level will somehow magically make
>> the
>> graphics driver perform better.  Have the laws of physics changed since
>> NT 4??
>>
>> 3.  The article gives a very basic broad brush look at how supposedly
>> VISTA
>> talks to the GPU directly but fails to compare that and explain why its
>> better or worse than having a ring 0 kernel driver let the GPU do the
>> work
>> directly with the GPU or why its better than letting applications deal
>> with
>> the driver and the GPU.  It does nothing but repeat the MS marketing
>> materials about how wonderful the new Vista driver model is without
>> investigating whether that model is faster or slower than the older
>> model,
>> and while mentioning the wonderful everything will be DirectX and vector
>> graphics marketing hype does not consider or address whether this is just
>> yet another way for Microsoft to try and lock everyone into another
>> Microsoft proprietary format.
>>
>> 4.  Finally, there is no consideration paid to how the new Vista graphics
>> hardware and driver requirements will or could result in cards without
>> the
>> ability to run Linux or other operating systems full speed (maybe even XP
>> and Win2K not full speed) and that they might result in new cards without
>> the ability to have decent XP, Win2K, or Linux drivers.
>>
>> I'm afraid the article you cite Richard isn't up to your usual quality
>> standards for citation, which is usually quite excellent.
>>
>> Gary
>>
>>

--- BBBS/NT v4.01 Flag-5