WDDM Display Drivers

WDDM (Windows Display Driver Model) is the graphics driver architecture for Vista and later versions of the Windows operating system. Each graphics adapter needs a display driver running in user mode paired with an associated miniport driver running in kernel mode.

The WDDM kernel mode miniport driver interfaces the DirectX graphics kernel subsystem including the Video Memory Manger and the GPU Scheduler.

The WDDM user mode driver offers services to be called by Direct3D applications. The Desktop Window Manager (DWM) service is accessing the WDDM user mode driver for drawing the Windows Desktop while in Aero mode.

Special Expertise in USB-Displays, Network-Displays and Virtual Graphics Adapters

Various companies have turned to datronicsoft for their display driver product development. Our team has extensive experience in development of WDDM drivers. Special expertise is available for USB connected displays, networked display solutions and WDDM based virtual desktop products on Windows 7.

WDDM Limitations

1. WDDM cannot support display devices without interrupt.

2. The DirectX graphics kernel subsystem directly accesses PCI/PCIe configuration space and checks if the device is a PCI/PCIe video adapter. It refuses to work with anything else than PCI/PCIe video adapters.

3. WDDM does not support virtual graphics adapters.

4. WDDM does not support mirror drivers. Only legacy XPDM, GDI based mirror drivers are possible. However these old driver models do not support Aero.

5. As opposed to all other Windows driver models, there is no adequate sample code available for WDDM driver development.

Virtual WDDM Drivers for Windows Desktop Extension

We have solutions for all the above limitations in the design of the WDDM model. We can supply virtual WDDM display drivers supporting Aero, Direct3D 9-11 and Pixel Shader 2.0-3.0. They are based on an approach which only uses standard Windows Operating System components and mechanisms (check out our v3DDDK toolkit).

WDDM Hook Drivers for Desktop Mirroring

Aero capable mirror drivers cannot be implemented using standard Windows mechanisms.

A special hook driver is needed. It can hook the communication between the port driver (dxgkrnl.sys) and the main graphics adapter's WDDM display driver. Such a hook driver can do desktop mirroring with Aero support.

However Windows and WDDM officially do not support this kind of mirror-hook-drivers.

We develop drivers ...

  • WDDM Display Drivers
  • XPDM GDI Drivers
  • XPDM Video Miniport Drivers
  • 2D and 3D Graphics Drivers
  • DirectX and Direct3D Drivers
  • OpenGL Drivers
  • Multi Monitor Drivers
  • Mirror Drivers
  • Printer Drivers
  • Spooler Components
  • Printer Graphics Interface Dlls
  • Language Monitors
  • Port Monitors

... for these operating systems:

  • Windows 7
  • Windows Server 2008
  • Windows Vista
  • Windows Server 2003
  • Windows XP
  • Windows Embedded