Microsoft's new technology enables switching between independent and core graphics without additional hardware

Microsoft's CASO (Crossover Adapter Scan Out) is a technology that has been launched since 2021. It is a solution for platforms with both independent and core graphics. It can support the three GPU vendors of NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel to switch between independent and core graphics on notebook platforms without using a MUX multiplexer chip. It only supports DX11 at the beginning of its release, and began to support DX12 at the beginning of this year. Recently, Microsoft published an article on the DirectX blog to introduce CASO technology in detail.

access:

Microsoft China Official Mall-Home Page

In fact, there are ready-made solutions on current notebooks to switch between independent graphics and nuclear graphics, allowing the nuclear graphics to take on lightweight work, while the independent graphics is responsible for heavy workloads such as gaming or rendering. NVIDIA has Advanced Optimus, and AMD also has Smart Access Graphics. However, both solutions require MUX chips and are proprietary solutions. The hardware of other manufacturers may not be compatible.

MUX chips are relatively common in game notebooks, but many thin and light notebooks do not have this chip. After the game is rendered by the independent graphics card, it is first copied to the shared resource, and then copied from the shared resource to the core display output. Looking at this step, you can see that it is not very efficient, will bring high latency, and the game FPS will definitely be affected. It only provides a method for the independent graphics card and the core graphics card to work together without additional hardware.

Microsoft's CASO is to get rid of the MUX chip in notebooks, simplifying the above-mentioned transmission process, allowing the independent display to render the picture and then output it to the monitor with only one copy, thereby achieving better performance, lower display latency and longer battery life. According to Microsoft's internal testing, after turning on CASO, the average FPS of the game increased by 16%, display latency was reduced by 27%, and Windows TDR timeout detection and recovery events were reduced by 45%.

Currently, CASO has been integrated into Windows 11 and will be enabled by default in supported devices. To enable CASO, you need an AMD Ryzen 6000 processor, or a processor that supports WDDM3.0 or higher Intel IrisXe core display. The graphics card drivers of NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel all support CASO technology.