Everyone knows that Windows 8 is launching with DirectX 11.1 and improved hardware acceleration, but if you've ever wondered how these features will actually enhance your user experience, a recent post on
Microsoft's Building Windows 8 blog explains the company's complex process. Microsoft is approaching the graphical user interface (GUI) from two perspectives; raw performance and battery life.
Microsoft thinks it can tackle both by implementing a clever, unified graphics subsystem embodied in DirectX 11.1. Windows 8 does this dividing and balancing the process of rendering text, shapes, and images between the CPU and GPU, giving each a role that it can do most efficiently. By splitting up these duties, Microsoft is seeing framerate improvements of up to 336 percent when rendering text, up to 438 percent with simple shapes, and a 40 percent improvement in JPEG rendering.
