6 ms·
GDI is only used by legacy apps. It gonna stay there for quite a while for backward compatibility reasons, but modern Windows apps are using better GPU-centric
by Const-me 3y ago
GDI is only used by legacy apps. It gonna stay there for quite a while for backward compatibility reasons, but modern Windows apps are using better GPU-centric APIs to render their GUI.
Specifically, WPF is based on DirectX 9, Direct2D is based on Direct3D 11, UWP and WinUI are based on Direct2D. On my computer, both Chromium and Firefox browsers are using Angle on top of D3D11, Firefox uses Direct2D for canvas only.
Also, even legacy apps who render their GUI with GDI are still using 3D GPUs to an extent. Some GDI operations like BitBlt are accelerated internally by the OS. And the OS composes windows on the desktop with D3D11, dwm.exe process does that.