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Longhorn's Windows Graphics Foundation Examined

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the closer-looks dept.

Matt J writes "Dave Salvator at ExtremeTech goes over some of the graphics designs for Longhorn. 'David Blythe of the DirectX development team gave a very interesting talk about the upcoming 3D graphics architecture in Longhorn, the next major revision of Windows. Called Windows Graphics Foundation (WGF), this new architecture will usher in some major changes to how 3D graphics operations get handled by Longhorn. These changes extend well beyond Longhorn's Avalon technology, which will render the Windows Desktop using a GPU's 3D graphics processing power rather than the traditional 2D blitter. WGF will instead define the core 3D operations themselves.'"

9 of 399 comments (clear)

  1. Windowing by ChozCunningham · · Score: 5, Insightful
    It would be nice to see some of the Linux GUI developers implement a fully vector-based scalable windowing system. This would put linux one visual step ahead of MS, as they are half-way there with the Longhorn GDI replacement.

    An intelligent GUI would be settable to any virtual resilution, with elements that are fully scalable, from icons to "system" fonts. This is an inevitable feature on the desktop, and I wonder if any proposals are in the works.

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    Looks good for your age..
  2. Wow. This is amazing. by samrolken · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Even if this comes from Microsoft, this is pretty amazing stuff. The OS-level ability to use the 3D acceleration features of the card by more than one application at a time may prove to be as important to future computing as the ability to create 2D windows at the OS level. What *should* be more amazing is the response of the open-source community. I think we should all unite in an effort toward a new advanced graphics architecture. Maybe this is something IBM or SGI could reasonably invest in.

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    samrolken
    1. Re:Wow. This is amazing. by TrancePhreak · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Wow, a comment that doesn't bash on anybody but instead incites hope into the public. It's so rare I see an example of this here. I hope people follow what you say as I belive 2D/3D games have shown how they can better that genre, as hopefully 2D gui's in 3D hardware can better themselves.

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      -]Phreak Out[-
    2. Re:Wow. This is amazing. by be-fan · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Open source will handle this challenge quite fine. It's not a unified effort, but all the pieces are falling into place:

      1) OpenGL 2.0 should easily be a match for whatever the successor to Direct 3D is. A lot stuff mentioned in the article is also in OpenGL 2.0.

      2) The freedesktop.org folks are working on building an X server that sits on top of OpenGL.

      3) Some DRI folks are working on an OpenGL implementation that can operate without the X server, to support using the X server on top of it.

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      A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
  3. Sick of the Longhorn hype yet? by Cid+Highwind · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I know I am! With the hype machine running flat-out this far before the launch date, Longhorn is starting to sound like Microsoft's version of Copland...

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    0 1 - just my two bits
  4. No, it's not by rd_syringe · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The difference is that one is a "suggestion" while the other is a company actually getting off their asses and implementing it system-wide. Where is that happening in OSS right now?

    I've been saying this since Longhorn's features were announced, Linux desktops will be severely behind if they don't hurry up and move into the modern age that Longhorn and future versions of OS X are competing in. But no, we're still stuck with deskop emulators hacked on top of an ancient X protocol server with no unified development API. Hell, not even a way to install and uninstall things, because it's not really a seamless desktop but a cludging-together of 20 different projects in order to emulate a desktop operating system instead of actually being one.

  5. A few things... by rd_syringe · · Score: 4, Insightful

    1.) Typing "M$" doesn't make you clever or witty.
    2.) NT isn't based on DOS at all. Nobody knows what you're talking about there.
    3.) Select HTML format next time.
    4.) This technology is not "unimpressive." Only to elitist Slashdot snobs who think XFCE is still a cool idea. The rest of the world wants to move to a modern, 3D-based compositing architecture. Where is that happening in Linux? 2006 is just a year and a half away. Well?

  6. Is it just me? by soimless · · Score: 3, Insightful

    is it just me or is this a lot of Acronyms with a lot of theroy and ideas an no real proof its going to work or not. Longhorn is still in development and still a way off things tend to change and it may be good or bad. the way i see this article is a marksmen shooting at a target years away and truely its luck if he hits the bullseye or not.

  7. Re:Cool! by goMac2500 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    To answer your reply, Mac OS X does indeed route drawing through the graphics card. It has since 10.2. http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/quartzextreme /