Microsoft: DirectX 11 To Use GPU For Parallel Processing

DirectX 11 is coming, and it looks pretty awesome. Sure, you get advancements in shading and better support for multi-core machines, but what's really got our heads turning is the concept of letting programmers use the GPU in your video card to do some of the heavy lifting, meaning your graphics chip becomes a second, parallel processor. While the idea itself isn't new, this is the first we've heard of DirectX using such technology and we're sure it'll have PC gaming fanboys drooling when it rolls out, whenever that happens to be. [Joystique]