Direct2D can minimize CPU usage and utilize hardware rendering on a graphics card with minimum support of Direct3D Feature Level 9 with WDDM 1.1 drivers.
Applications can choose to use it exclusively with CPU, the so-called software rendering by using it in conjunction with WARP10 in situations when hardware capability is not available, such as when running within a device with minimal GPU support, under terminal service, Windows session 0, or when graphics rendering is performed in a remote server with the graphical result sent back to the client device.
Win2D is a highly-efficient WinRT wrapper of Direct2D and DirectWrite designed from the ground up to integrate seamlessly with XAML Canvas control while preserving the power of the underlying graphics subsystem.
The release of Windows 10 in July 2015 brought important updates and new features to Direct2D such as the performance improvement of rendering scalable text without font rasterization, the ability to download the needed font from the cloud on demand without requiring the font installation step, an optimization for faster image loading and image effect rendering, and a more sophisticated way to apply gradient brush through the use of 2D mesh made of gradient patches.
The post continued: "Second, to improve performance when rendering irregular geometry (e.g. geographical borders on a map), we use a new graphics hardware feature called Target Independent Rasterization, or TIR.
TIR enables Direct2D to spend fewer CPU cycles on tessellation, so it can give drawing instructions to the GPU more quickly and efficiently, without sacrificing visual quality.
DirectX 11.1 hardware is already on the market today and we’re working with our partners to make sure more TIR-capable products will be broadly available.
[29] Google Chrome uses its own 2D library called Skia, which in turn renders through ANGLE on Windows.
[30]) In Firefox 70.0, on old hardware, Direct2D is disabled on blacklisted old graphics drivers if they lack features and area is blacked out e.g. in Google Maps.