Graphics Hardware and Drivers for Windows Vista
Windows Vista delivers a major step forward in terms of how graphics hardware is used by mainstream Windows-based applications, from the Windows desktop to consumer and line-of-business applications.
The Windows Vista desktop is being drawn in a completely different way from all previous versions. Every window will have its own, full window-sized surface to draw to. The desktop will be dynamically composed many times a second from the contents of each window. The goal for desktop composition is to enable compelling new visual effects for both the Windows user interface and for applications created by third-party developers, all shown on increasingly affordable, high-density displays.
To achieve this enhanced desktop experience, a new display driver model has been designed to radically advance functionality, stability, and reliability. Coupled with acceleration provided by current and future graphics hardware, this new graphics driver model enables Windows Vista to deliver a higher level of performance and quality, and a new desktop experience.
The Windows Vista Display Driver Model (WDDM) allows for the visual effects seen on a user's desktop to scale relative to the available graphics hardware. For example, the experience of viewing Windows Vista on hardware with capabilities equivalent to a high-end Microsoft DirectX 9-compliant graphics chip will be much richer than Windows Vista displayed on baseline legacy graphics hardware.
Hardware acceleration is based completely on the Microsoft Direct3D pipeline and WDDM, as described in the Windows Driver Kit (WDK).
For Windows Vista, graphics hardware and driver requirements for desktop experiences are defined in relation to differentiated experiences, as described in "Display and Graphics Devices" in the Windows Vista Logo Program requirements and the WDK.
