- WinSAT: Is Your Computer Ready for Gaming Under Vista?
- How to Check Your WinSAT Score
- The Perfect CPU
- How Much RAM?
- DirectX 10 Graphic Cards: What? When?
- Fast Hard Disk
- Gaming Performance and Compatibility Under Vista
- Compatibility Mode
- Example: Age of Empires III
- DirectX 10 Changes the Way We Look at Hardware
- Geometry Shader
- Unified Architecture
- Where Are the Other DirectX Features?
- Games Explorer
- Bottom Line
Unified Architecture
Currently, all graphics processing units (GPUs) out there render images (3D, 2D, videos, etc.) and display them onscreen. With unified architecture (UA), the GPU becomes a more versatile instrument. DirectX 10 GPUs not only will be able to perform "ordinary" rendering for games, but also process artificial intelligence, physics, or sound effects—in fact, everything that has to do with the game itself. The only mainstream hardware that has something (very) similar is the Xbox 360; it comes with an ATI chip that features this unified architecture. Thanks to UA, the classic CPU will play an even less important role in gaming than it does today, because more calculations will be routed through the graphics processing unit.