Windows 7 Receives Partial DirectX 11.1 Features - implications?  

News article:
Windows 7 update brings some DX11.1 features - The Tech Report

Partial quote:

Last week, a Microsoft developer stated that DirectX 11.1 would remain a Windows 8-only feature. That remark was true—but, as it turns out, only partially so. According to a post on the MSDN Games for Windows and DirectX SDK blog, there's a new patch out for Windows 7 that includes "portions" of the DirectX 11.1 runtime.

The patch is available here from Microsoft's Support site. It's also being rolled out as part of the Internet Explorer 10 Release Preview for Windows 7. The official release notes say this platform update "improves the features and performance" of components, including:

Direct2D
DirectWrite
Direct3D
Windows Imaging Component (WIC)
Windows Advanced Rasterization Platform (WARP)
Windows Animation Manager (WAM)
XPS Document API
H.264 Video Decoder
JPEG XR codec

I'm unable to post in the News section of the forum, probably by design, so I thought this was the 2nd best location to post this.

I'm wondering what the effects of these additions might be on Windows 7 usability and gaming in particular. Should people expect to see the same performance boost in Windows 7 that they would receive from gaming in Windows 8 using directX 11.1?

Well that's good news! Still, I wonder how this narrows the performance gap between Windows 7 and Windows 8 in gaming.

That's different from what I've heard reported. I've heard it reported that there can be a 10 fps difference in some games, such as Battlefield 4, from user feedback. It's been suggested that this difference is caused by memory management differences, basically a reduced natural system load.