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At the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference
downix writes "At Toms Hardware they're running an article where they discuss the next-generation Windows graphics system. The big part of the scoop, it's being done via DirectX. Have to validate those 2Ghz CPU's and GPU's that need their own nuclear power plant to run somehow." Some other interesting things there - quiet PCs, more about the Oqo, etc.
Graphics hardware gets to power the Windows shell, and compositing is going to be the big deal. Windows will be treated like surfaces, as opposed to rectangular blocks of bits, as they are now. Everything, in effect, is a texture. GPUs certainly know how to move textures around, and manipulate them, and work with them. Longhorn puts the pressure on the 3D engines of GPUs, and Microsoft is exploring minimum hardware requirements and standards for OEMs to aim for.
If windows are textures, it seems like it will be pretty difficult to get perfect 1-to-1 mapping of pixels via a graphics gpu. Right now, the only thing that is a big deal is "jaggies", but noone expects a perfect image of textures. I know part of this is the game itself, but it is very hard to make textures fit exactly how you want them to.
Sounds neat tho, if they can pull it off. Middle of the next decade indeed.
room101 -- how much can you stand before they break you?
(they always break you eventually)
Have to validate those 2Ghz CPU's and GPU's that need their own nuclear power plant to run somehow."
Ya, and they can use the cooling towers to cool those bad boys too!
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Some weasel took the cork out of my lunch.
Personally, I see little driving the next generation windows boxes. I mean seriously, most computers that are 3 years old will do most things the average person could ever want. It'll burn CDs, play DVDs, read email, do word processing, email, blah blah blah...
What's next to drive people to upgrading? Will the game market be enough to drive the market?
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Some weasel took the cork out of my lunch.
As Pratchett said (in The Truth), do they mean transparant as in you can see through to their motives or transparant as in you can't see their motives at all.
"Professional" level is, as I recall, 48 bits. It's not the colours, it's the math. John Carmack explains it much better than I; perhaps he will. :-)
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
You slipped a couple of decimal places. 10 cents per kwh, not .10 cents. So burning 300 watts of electricity costs $21.60 per month, not $0.22.
Yes, absolutely. Running computers really is expensive over a long period of time.
300 watts is more than the typical computer really uses. 60 to 100 watts continuous is more realistic judging from my UPS data output. Even then, $84/year is not trivial (this is the cost of a good component upgrade, these days).
There are reasons why initiatives like Energy Star exist. World-wide, I would bet the equivalent of an entire power plant output is devoted just to keeping our computers idle. It is easily argued that this is lots of money and other resources going straight down the commode.
What portion of California's recent energy crisis was due to tens of thousands of computers running unused?
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin