Allocating Nonpaged Display Memory

This topic applies only to Microsoft Windows XP and later.

A DirectX 9.0 version display driver can call the EngAllocMem graphics device interface (GDI) function to not only allocate memory from the system's paged pool but also from nonpaged pool. To allocate nonpaged memory, the driver must specify the FL_NONPAGED_MEMORY flag in the Flags parameter of the EngAllocMem call. If this flag is not specified, the memory is allocated from the system's paged pool.

Windows 2000 and earlier only permitted allocations from the system's paged pool.

Although this feature of allocating from nonpaged pool was available in WindowsXP and later, it was not documented in the Windows XP and Windows XP with Service Pack 1 (SP1) DDKs.