Games feature simple rendering requirements, which go along with the usage of impressive visual effects that can be hardware accelerated. The best selling game titles for Windows are said to be simulations or casual games, rather than applications that require high performance graphics. On the other hand, both types of games benefit a lot from modern shader based graphics and the ability to scale on hardware, if present.

What sounds great is that DirectX 10 applications designed without the WARP in mind are expected to run well using the rasterizer. Moreover, Microsoft says that the performance of an Intel Core i7 965 processor while running Crysis raises to an average of 7.4 FPS at 800x600 with the detail level turned down. In comparison, Intel's DX10-capable integrated graphics hardware could only score 5.2 FPS. On the other hand, a GeForce 8400 GS card (which would cost only $30 these days) outpaces both solutions, while scoring 33.9 FPS.

The new Microsoft WARP solution could prove more than beneficial to Intel's future Larrabee graphics processor, which is based on x86-derived processing cores. Earlier this year, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney stated that, while Intel's integrated graphics were incapable of running modern games, a hypothetical resurgence of software rendering could counteract this.