What's new for Windows 11 display and graphics drivers

This page describes what's new in display and graphics drivers for Windows 11 (WDDM 3.0).

Direct3D 12 video encoding

Prior to Windows 11 (WDDM 3.0), DirectX 12 provided application- and driver-level interfaces (APIs and DDIs) to support GPU acceleration for several video applications, including video decoding, video processing, and 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.