The OS will support a new API (application programming interface) called DirectX 11 that enables better gaming through more realistic graphics and faster playback of multimedia files. The software giant is working with top graphics chip makers Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices on those features.

The DirectX 11 graphics drivers are designed to help Windows 7 effectively break up tasks over multiple cores to boost application and graphics performance. For example, Windows 7 will process video faster by unloading the task from the CPU to graphics processor cores.

Nvidia has been able to use DirectX compute capabilities in Windows 7 to accelerate tasks like manipulating images or playing DVDs via its graphics processing unit, said Ned Finkle, vice president of strategic marketing at Nvidia, in a video posted on Microsoft's Web site.

"Microsoft did a number of things within the operating system that allow us to take the computing horsepower we developed for visual computing and apply it to a range of tasks that have never been seen before," Finkle said.

Beyond simple multimedia tasks, AMD said DirectX 11 harnesses the massive parallel processing capabilities of GPUs to improve gaming on PCs, said Neal Robison, director of independent software vendor relations at AMD.