What's new for Windows 11 graphics display drivers

This page describes what's new in graphics display drivers for Windows 11 (version 21H2) and later releases of Windows 11.

Windows 11, version 24H2 (WDDM 3.2)

For a list of features that WDDM 3.2 and later drivers can support, see What's new in driver development for Windows 11, version 24H2.

Windows 11, version 23H2

Version 1.10 of the Indirect Display Driver (IDD) model was shipped. This IddCx version adds HDR10 (high dynamic range) and SDR (standard dynamic range) Wide Color Gamut (WCG) support for indirect displays.

The WDDM version didn't change.

Windows 11, version 22H2 (WDDM 3.1)

WDDM 3.1 and later drivers can support the following features that were added in WDDM 3.1.

• Sharing the backing store with KMD

Windows 11, version 21H2 (WDDM 3.0)

WDDM 3.0 and later drivers can support the following features that were added in WDDM 3.0.

• D3D12 enhanced barriers

• Direct3D 12 video encoding

  Before Windows 11, DirectX 12 provided application- and driver-level interfaces to support GPU acceleration for several video applications, including:

  • Video decoding
  • Video processing
  • Motion estimation

  Starting in Windows 11, D3D12 added a video encoding feature to the existing video API/DDI family. This feature provides a coherent set of encoding APIs/DDIs that are consistent with the existing D3D12 framework, and allows developers to perform video encoding using GPU-accelerated video engines.

• DisplayPort monitors connected over USB4

• Hardware flip queue

• IOMMU DMA remapping

• Signaling a CPU event from KMD