Windows Display Driver Model

功能

WDDM 使用户能够同时运行多个GPU 密集型应用程序。
一个Direct3D的图形表面（surface）的内存区域，包含纹理网格（textured meshes）用于呈现2D或3D场景。WDDM允许不同的进程（process）共享整个Direct3D表面。在WDDM推出之前，进程之间共享纹理是困难的，因为这将需要复制的数据，从显存到系统内存，然后返回到视频内存的新设备。
一旦某个WDDM驱动程序故障时，图形堆栈（stack）将重启驱动程序。图形硬件故障时也会被拦截，必要时驱动程序将被重新设置。
WDDM还允许图形硬件重置或拔出不正确的重启。

限制

新的驱动程序模型要求有图形硬件支持Shader Model 2.0。根据微软2009年的调查，大约只有1-2％的硬件使用的XPDM，其余已具备WDDM的能力。
WDDM 1.0版不支持多个驱动器在多适配器，多显示器设置。如果一个多监控系统有多个图形适配器供电的显示器，无论是适配器必须使用相同的WDDM驱动程序。WDDM 1.1没有这种限制。

WDDM 1.0

在Windows Vista引入了WDDM 1.0作为新的显示驱动程序架构，旨在更好的运行并支持包括HDCP在内的新技术。

WDDM 1.2

Windows 8 includes WDDM 1.2 and DXGI 1.2. New features were first previewed at the Build 2011 conference and include performance improvements as well as support for stereoscopic 3D rendering and video playback.
Other major features include preemptive multitasking of the GPU with finer granularity (DMA buffer, primitive, triangle, pixel, or instruction-level), reduced memory footprint, improved resource sharing, and faster timeout detection and recovery. 16-bit color surface formats (565, 5551, 4444) are mandatory in Windows 8, and Direct3D 11 Video supports YUV 4:4:4/4:2:2/4:2:0/4:1:1 video formats with 8, 10, and 16-bit precision, as well as 4 and 8-bit palettized formats.
WDDM 1.2 supports display-only and render-only WDDM drivers, such as Microsoft Basic Display Driver and WARP-based Microsoft Basic Render Driver which replaced kernel-mode VGA driver.
WDDM 1.0/1.1 only allows rudimentary task scheduling using "batch queue" granularity; improvements to multitasking, as well as fast context switching and support for virtual memory, were initially expected in versions tentatively named WDDM 2.0 and WDDM 2.1, which were announced at WinHEC 2006.

WDDM 1.3

Windows 8.1 includes WDDM 1.3 and DXGI 1.3. New additions include the ability to trim DXGI adapter memory usage, multi-plane overlays, overlapping swap chains and swap chain scaling, select backbuffer subregion for swap chain and lower-latency swap chain presentation. Driver feature additions include wireless displays (Miracast), YUV format ranges, cross-adapter resources and GPU engine enumeration capabilities.

WDDM 2.0

2006年又有WDDM 2.0的消息，WDDM2.0版能够解决GPU多任务处理问题，但需要新一代GPU硬件支持才可以完成。
2014年，微软于Build 2014 开发者大会公布下一代DirectX API Direct X 12。与此同时DirectX 12需要建基于WDDM 2.0上，Direct X 12及WDDM 2.0 将内置于Windows 10内
DirectX 12将废除自动资源管理和任务管线管理，允许开发人员可低级控制显卡的存储器和渲染状态。WDDM 2.0 降低支持虚拟内存寻扯的GPU 于核心模式的驱动程序工作量。并且用户模式的驱动程序可并行运行多线程，从而降低CPU使用率。

WDDM 2.1

Windows 10周年更新中包含WDDM 2.1，它支持Shader Model 6.0 (mandatory for feature levels 12_0 and 12_1), 和DXGI 1.5它支持HDR10 - a 10-bit high dynamic range, wide gamut format defined by ITU-T Rec. 2100/Rec.2020 - and variable refresh rates.

WDDM 2.2

Windows 10 创作者更新中包含WDDM 2.2，它是为了Windows Holographic平台上VR、AR及MR的立体渲染和DXGI 1.6而打造。

WDDM 2.3

在Windows 10 秋季创作者更新中包含WDDM 2.3。

预览版本

给Oculus Rift 头戴式显示器的软件开发者包中包含在Windows 10上DXGI 2的预览版本。