Earlier this week I wrote about about Microsoft’s last minute change to RDP in Windows 7, where all DirectX components will now be rendered on the host. I based my post on an MSDN blog post by Microsoft employees Christa Anderson, Gaurav Daga, and Nelly Porter.

In the comments of the original MSDN post, reader David Rottenberg wrote that this change was a bad idea, partially because host-side software-based DirectX rendering would be slow. Microsoft’s Guarav Daga’s response included:

As for running DirectX applications on Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V virtual machines, there will be the GPU offload hardware assist Calista technologies at some point in the future.

What's this?!? GPU offload hardware? I knew that the concept existed (both with things like NVIDIA's Tesla hardware as well as ASIC-based solutions like Teradici's PC-over-IP. However, I didn't know that Microsoft was planning this for RDP. I did a quick Google search for [calista hardware] and found this PowerPoint presentation by Nelly Porter from WinHEC 08, the same conference that prompted my November 2008 update about Calista.

Source: http://www.brianmadden.com/blogs/brianmadden/archive/2009/06/24/Microsoft-RDP-host_2D00_side-rendering-Calista-plans-include-optional-GPU-offload-hardware-custom-chips-Hyper_2D00_V-is-required.aspx