Windows 7 Will Run Fully Accelerated Graphics From Your CPU

Adding to the already impressive pile of Vista-deflating features we’re expecting to see in Windows 7 is WARP, a tech which will allow your PC’s CPU to act as a graphics accelerator, possibly doing away with the need for integrated graphics hardware to render user interfaces and low-end games. Not-so-seductively described as a ‘fully conformant software rasterizer’, WARP requires nothing more than an 800MHz processor for complete—if comically slow—DX10 compliance.

At this stage WARP won’t be intended as a gameworthy replacement for dedicated graphics cards, but it could help avoid another “Vista Capable” type debacle by standardising essential graphics capabilities across virtually all hardware. That said, it’s not that slow: Microsoft reports that when paired with the rather awesome i7, it runs Crysis faster than Intel’s integrated DX10 solutions. Like, 42% faster. Granted, that’s still only 7.36FPS on the game’s lowest settings, but don’t miss the point here: Windows 7 will run Crysis—or any other game—without a video card. [CustomPC via Slashdot]