Windows 7 to Offer GPU Acceleration?

It looks like Microsoft doesn't want to be left behind when it comes to "general purpose" GPU processing.

This makes even more sense when you consider Apple's next OS X (a.k.a. Snow Leopard) to also have such capabilities.
One of the topics for the upcoming PDC 2008 is:

• Windows 7: Unlocking the GPU with Direct3D (Direct3D-based GPU acceleration of Win32 applications).

It seems the next generation of operating systems will be able to not only use multi-core CPU, but also use different (and highly specialized) CPUs - as the ones you have in your computer's graphic card.

This will allow for far better task scheduleing, using your GPU to speed up operations that would take far longer if done on a general-purpose CPU.


Along with multitouch, and faster booting times, it seems they're on the right track - we'll just have to wait and see if they actually deliver.