Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) 2.0....

Notebook owner's beware....

Published on June 9, 2006 By Corky_O In Personal Computing

I do not know if this has been posted yet or not, but it would seem that Microsoft has discovered the need to rethink the current display driver model that is due to ship with Vista, which may require users to invest in a new graphics card in the near future.

As one who owns a notebook and who knows the lag time between release to manufacturers and public availability of a notebook graphics card (if available in the correct form factor at all), I find myself wondering about the viability of the currently manufactured "mainstream" notebooks.

Comments

Island Dog

on Jun 09, 2006

You have got to be kidding me.

Adamness

on Jun 09, 2006

Does this mean I shouldn't install Vista Beta2 (which I'm downloading as we speak) on my laptop?

It seems that after Microsoft realizes all the problems they have, and fixes them, they'll end up releasing XP under a new name.

Island Dog

on Jun 09, 2006

It's not implemented yet.

Adamness

on Jun 09, 2006

Ah ok, thanks.

Corky_O

on Jun 09, 2006

If I am understanding the situation correctly, we will be able to run Vista fine, but that the GPU may prevent multiple programs from accessing the 3D capabilities at once.

This may show up as a decrease in performance in either the Windows GUI (drawing the Aero images), or the performance of the additional programs attempting to access the GPU for the 3D functionality (i.e., games, video editing, and/or graphic intensive programs).

Again, that is what I got from the article as to what the average user may experience without the newer video adapters (which have not been released yet). Once Microsoft implements the new display driver model, and the hardware manufacturers make the video adapters available, we should be able to run multiple "video intensive" programs as well as the "Aero" shell without performance issues.

Unfortunately, this is not an easy "go down to the store a purchase a new video adapter (graphics card)" for notebook owners.

seldomseen

on Jun 09, 2006

Thanks for the heads-up, Corky O... but, man, what a scene the Vista concept is turning out to be!

Just spent all I can or want to on a new laptop, so one way or another, I'm on WIN XP for the forseeable future.
The old desktop, tho, could be another story...

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