VMware WDDM Video Driver Scores Higher Than VMware SVGA II Driver In Windows 7 64bit?

Question

From all the documents on-line I have read from the VMware site, I got the impression that the VMware SVGA II driver was more capable than the VMware WDDM driver. With tables showing SVGA II having support for 3D and Shader Model 3 while WDDM did not it seemed obvious. However, my Windows 7 64bit Windows Experiences scores show WDDM with a score of 4.5 and SVGA a score of 1.0. The 1.0 was rated for both graphics areas of the SVGA but the WDDM driver scored 5.1 for aero and 5.4 for 3D. This is totally opposite of what the VMware documentation for Workstation 7 describes the drivers are for. Is there some big documentation mix up here?

I'm asking because I spent some time documenting that techs in my area should use the SVGA II driver for 3D based on the VMware documentation but now I'm think the documentation is wrong. The Windows 7 scores are contradicting the documentation with WDDM showing far higher than SVGA II. What is the story here?

Solution

WDDM drivers have more robust feature sets presented that the older driver model does. WDDM is required for Aero under Vista and above. You should also see this VMware KB article that says not to install the SVGA driver from the tools.

Comments

[Developer]

Yes, I wonder why is that by default the driver installed in the VMware tools is SVGA II not the WDDM ?

[raja]

because not all users would want the additional overhead (I would suspect that most wouldn't)

[Developer]

ah.. IC it is simply because in using the WDDM driver (typically for 3D instensive GUI in VMware View) it needs to have minimal 8 MB of RAM. OK I'll just select auto to reserve more RAM into the Hypervisor.