Windows 7 allows DirectX 10 acceleration on the CPU

Microsoft has just announced that it’s also planning to introduce a new feature called WARP in Windows 7 that allows you to run Direct3D 10 and 10.1 on the CPU. Microsoft says that WARP 10 will support all the features and precision requirements of Direct3D 10 and 10.1. The feature also supports up to 8x multi-sampled anti-aliasing, anisotropic filtering and all optional texture formats. The minimum CPU spec needed is just a simple 800MHz CPU, and it doesn’t even need MMX or SSE, although Microsoft says that WARP 10 will work much quicker on multi-core CPUs with SSE 4.1.

Microsoft says that the technology is also targeted at casual games, explaining that ‘the majority of the best selling game titles for Windows are either simulations or casual games, neither of which requires high performance graphics, but both styles of games greatly benefit from modern shader based graphics and the ability to scale on hardware if present.’ Microsoft also points out that the technology could be useful for ‘emulators and virtual environments that are attempting to display advanced 3D graphics.’

Link