Windows Display Driver Model

Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM,[1] initially LDDM as Longhorn Display Driver Model and then WVDDM in times of Windows Vista) is the graphic driver architecture for video card drivers running Microsoft Windows versions beginning with Windows Vista.[2]

It is a replacement for the previous Windows 2000 and Windows XP display driver model XDDM/XPDM[3] and is aimed at enabling better performance graphics and new graphics functionality and stability.[2] Display drivers in Windows Vista and Windows 7 can choose to either adhere to WDDM or to XDDM.[4] With the removal of XDDM from Windows 8, however, WDDM became the only option.[5]

WDDM provides the functionality required to render the desktop and applications using Desktop Window Manager, a compositing window manager running on top of Direct3D. It also supports new DXGI interfaces required for basic device management and creation. The WDDM specification requires at least Direct3D 9-capable video card and the display driver must implement the device driver interfaces for the Direct3D 9Ex runtime in order to run legacy Direct3D applications; it may optionally implement runtime interfaces for Direct3D 10 and higher.

  1. ^ "Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) Design Guide". MSDN. Microsoft. Retrieved 19 February 2015.
  2. ^ a b "Windows Vista Display Driver Model". MSDN. Microsoft. July 2006. Archived from the original on 2010-05-06. Retrieved 9 December 2013.
  3. ^ "XPDM vs. WDDM". MSDN. Microsoft. 16 November 2013. Retrieved 16 December 2013.
  4. ^ "Windows 2000 Display Driver Model (XDDM) Design Guide". Windows Dev Center - Hardware. Microsoft. 16 November 2013. Retrieved 9 December 2013.
  5. ^ "Roadmap for Developing Drivers for the Windows 2000 Display Driver Model (XDDM)". Windows Dev Center - Hardware. Microsoft. 16 November 2013. Retrieved 16 December 2013. XDDM and VGA drivers will not compile on Windows 8 and later versions