I was looking around, trying to decide what would be best for this new AMD card that doesn't work in XP, and I ran across this,
Feature Highlights of the AMD Catalyst™ Windows® 8.1 Preview Driver: WDDM 1.3 driver model support for the following products...
There aren't many cards supported, so, you would think there was something special about it. Or maybe, it's just a lousy Preview driver...
I do have 'the card' in Windows '8.0' at present. I'm just wondering if I should try out the 8.1 Preview with the 'limited' driver support.
Decisions, decisions...

These are the features in the new WDDM 1.3 standard:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/dn265512(v=vs.85).aspx

• Enumerating GPU engine capabilities
  An interface that's used to query a GPU node's engine capabilities.
  
• Using cross-adapter resources in a hybrid system
  Describes how to handle resources that are shared between integrated and discrete GPUs.
  
• YUV format ranges in Windows 8.1 Preview
  An interface that's used to signal user-mode display drivers that video inputs are either in the studio luminance range or in the extended range.
  
• Wireless displays (Miracast)
  Describes how to enable wireless (Miracast) displays.
  
• Multiplane overlay support
  Describes how to implement multiplane overlays.

So, will this supercharge SETI, or kill it stone cold dead? If you install a 7750 in XP with an older OpenCL supported card, reinstall OpenCL for the older card, every time an App queries OpenCL support, XP instantly reboots. Not even enough time for a BSOD...reboot. I'm just wondering what would happen with this driver and BOINC...

WDDM specifies features a driver should support. This should be completely separate from OpenCL which is a different standard.

[Edited to add] If you want to make sure you still have OpenCL functionality, you may want to see if AMD has released a fully WDDM 1.3 / OpenCL complaint preview driver for Windows 8.1.

It says it supports OpenCL;

Support for AMD Features, including:
AMD Eyefinity
OpenCLâ„¢
OpenGL
UVD
AMD Dual Graphics/AMD CrossFireâ„¢ Technology
AMD Overdriveâ„¢
AMD Catalyst Control Center/Vision Engine Control Center

Maybe I'll give it a try in a few days once I recover from my bouts with the 7750 in Linux and OSX on a Mac. Hopefully, someone else would have tried the 8.1 driver by then :-)

The biggest remaining issue with ATi OpenCL drivers - CPU availability required.
Even with quite low CPU usage CPU core should be freed to load GPU fully.
Cause we see such behavior not under all drivers (for same app) this could change in future driver revisions.
So, worth to try and see how app behaves under new driver and fully loaded CPU.

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SETI apps news
We're not gonna fight them. We're gonna transcend them.

I just ran a bench on win 8.1 preview using 13.4 drivers.
Works fine w/o problems.

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With each crime and every kindness we birth our future.

I just ran a bench on win 8.1 preview using 13.4 drivers.
Works fine w/o problems.

and CPU usage?

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SETI apps news
We're not gonna fight them. We're gonna transcend them.

I just ran a bench on win 8.1 preview using 13.4 drivers.
Works fine w/o problems.

and CPU usage?

I posted the complete bench at Lunatics.

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With each crime and every kindness we birth our future.