Thanks to Thomas from DVhardware.net, I learned that Microsoft released a document explaining the way how WARP10 works. WARP stands for Windows Advanced Rasterization Platform, or “The Return of the Software Rasterizer”. According to the document, this software rasterizer will come bundled with DirectX 11 and Windows 7. What make the matters important are performance scores. Microsoft states that the company tested Crysis in DX10 mode at 800×600, and saw better performance with WARP than graphics subsystem. The company compared G45 graphics subsystem with Core 2 Extreme QX9650 (3.0 GHz) and saw that WARP10 will bring up a framerate of 5.69 fps (341 frame per
Sparkle’s excellent idea: Cheap PCI Express x1 cards
One of more interesting niche markets is the one named “how to fix the computer crippled with integrated graphics?”, and the solutions that are being sold in that area. We saw interesting products coming from Albatron, Sparkle, MSI and others, but it is a rare occasion to see a card in sub-$50 range that offers DX10 support. The company released a series of PCIe x1 cards for those unlucky owners of motherboards without PCI Express x16 slot. Sparkle released no less than eight models based on GeForce 8400GS graphics chip. Sadly, memory controller is limited to 64-bit, but this was Nvidia’s doing. Memory is either
