Will You Use WARP10?

Will You Use WARP10?

  • Yes

    Votes: 3 18.8%
  • No

    Votes: 10 62.5%
  • Maybe

    Votes: 3 18.8%

  • Total voters
    16
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CameronBoyd123

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Dubbed Windows Advanced Rasterization Platform or WARP, the new graphics layer for Windows 7 will utilize the system CPU as the graphics engine to assist old graphics cards, and take over completely in some cases. Microsoft indicates that WARP will be fully dependent on how powerful the CPU is in a system, but will require one that supports at least SSE2 extensions.

According to Microsoft, even the lowest-end discrete graphics solutions these days are typically 4 to 5X faster than a CPU-only WARP system. Although the performance differences between CPU-only WARP and discrete GPU accelerated graphics is large, WARP offers several advantages: users will still be able to run their 3D applications fully-accelerated when a video card driver is corrupted, missing, or improperly installed/configured. Systems built to take advantage of WARP from a hardware standpoint will be able to display graphics even when the video card is missing—or toasted. So if you’ve nuked your graphics card from a bad BIOS flash, fear not on a WARP-capable system. At least you will be able to boot back up until the video card is replaced.

WARP documentation indicates that the technology will take full advantage of multi-core CPUs and, given today’s technology, Intel’s Core i7 CPU tops the charts. - Tom's Hardware

Microsoft's Benchmark on Crysis:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd285359.aspx
 

smartel7070

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Ahhh software rendering .... years ago games gave you the choice of running in either hardware mode (vid card) or software mode (cpu). A good example of this is the cpu test in 3dmark06 ... it's a nice slideshow and this is what I think will happen with WARP in regards to gaming. Sure cpu are getting more powerful but games are also getting more complex.

If I understand correctly you will be able to boot a system without a video card or integrated graphics. So I guess WARP hardware means a vga port on the mobo ? If that's so then this will be a good thing for budget and office oriented builds.

What do you guys think about WARP ?
 

JeanLuc

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It’s not really fair to compare a CPU and GPU, a CPU can be used for all manner of different tasks where as a GPU is limited to gaming because they their not based X86 which what 99% of programmes relay on (although with the development of CUDA and the ATI equivalent the balance could change over the years).
 

CameronBoyd123

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True, true. But Optimizations will be in the final product I'm sure plus I'm pretty sure I read that it combines the power of the cpu and gpu too. But what we really need is a 3 Core's from a Quad Core to go to the Game and 1 Core go to OS/Physics or what not. Think of it, Intel i7 Paired with a 4870 or 4850 with all but 1 core working on the game. Thats a pretty big performance increase. Plus their testing crysis not the other good games...
 

smartel7070

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I agree that WARP combined with a modern GPU will probably bring interesting performance increase . But when I talked about it becoming a slideshow was in the case where there is no GPU or some really outdated one.

I can already imagine some know-it-all salesman at bestbuy trying to sell Win7 by saying "you don't even need a video card anymore for playing all the latest games !! "
 

CameronBoyd123

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This is really good for the Netbook or Basic Desktop Market though. We'll have to see performance in games other than Crysis though.
 


That's exactly what I thought.

As always, I'll wait till I can see a bench that says this is worth it. I really don't have high hopes for it.
 
This is really good for the Netbook or Basic Desktop Market though. We'll have to see performance in games other than Crysis though.

this is what i am thinking. this will be good for the value PC's like the netbooks. any way to make a PC cheaper is a good thing and a Video card is one of the most expensive things in a PC today right next to CPU
 

kubes

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Like noted eariler this could give value to an enterprise level comptuer. With bussiness computers ussualy being used to check emails and use microsoft word, the need for an expensive graphics card is not needed. Ontop of that the cpu will not be being utlized to its full extent. So by upgrading the software you can get away with cheaper hardware.

I think warp will have its niche in the market but it'll be for lower end PCs, or for bussinesses.
 
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