Windows Longhorn to make Graphics Cards more Important

Renegade334 writes "The Inquirer has a story about MS Longhorn and its need for better than entry level graphics cards. This is due to the WGF (Windows Graphics Foundation) which will merge 2D and 3D graphics operations in one, and 3D menus and interfaces that require atleast Shader 2.0 compliant cards. Supposedly it will really affect the performance of the new Microsoft OS." This has been noted before in the system requirements for Longhorn, but it would seem the full impact is slowly being realized.

Comments

Welcome to the Present

[Oculus Habent]

Mac OS X uses the graphics card heavily for much of its interfaces. All Macs sport at least a Radeon 9200 (Mobility in the iBook G4), and Apple takes advantage of those cards in plenty of apps... note the multi-person video chat layout & details in iChat AV, or the compositing

That's not a knock on Windows - just an aside, really. The consumer graphics of PCs have been steadily improving, and there's little reason to not make use of that power. The only problems could be in the low-end motherboards offering cheap integrated video. Inevitably, some people are left out in the cold. Time to start moving to nForce or Radeon IGP, PCChips!

I wonder if they'll have a cool Genie effect for minimizing... ;)

Re:Welcome to the Present

[mcc]

Making use of the available graphics power just makes sense, and Apple was smart to be the first to realize this. After all, window compositing is something you're going to have to do at some point anyway; why not offload that task onto that part of the hardware that's actually designed to composit things?

But when you step into the realm of "hey, we've got this power-- let's waste it on something!". Then you're doing something really bad. Using pixel shaders to draw drop shadows on semitransparent textured menus or somesuch begins to fall into this territory.

In the first case you're taking the present advantages offered by the hardware and leveraging them to improve the consumer experience. In the second case you're taking advantages offered by your hardware and eliminating them-- removing the power of your 3D hardware (which technically is there for the applications, not the OS, to use) by making sure that the 3D hardware is continually tied up running the particle engine floating around the talking paper clip or Enlightenment logo or whatever. This degrades the potential consumer experience because it means the consumers don't get to use the hardware they paid for, the OS is too busy using it.

The difference between these two situations may be a little bit subtle and a larger bit subjective, but do you see the distinction here? Because given the curve of resource usage their OSes have followed in the past, I kind of doubt Microsoft does...

No biggie.

[stratjakt]

You can get a card today for ~80 bucks that fit the bill. Even PCI models, if you're that far out of the loop. By the time longhorn is released, they'll be commonplace.

Frankly, I can't wait to see this. All that GPU power of my 9800 is basically being wasted 99.99999999% of the time right now.

Why spend $200-400 on a new card?

[csoto]

Just plunk down $500 for a Minimac.

Quartz Extreme makes good use of the graphic hardware of any Mac. Many applications use this to their advantage.

Re:Lobby

[jellomizer]

Guess what things change. Back in the 80s when the Mac was released People said the same thing. Why do you need a GUI Interface where we can get all that we need done in text mode. GUI is only for games and cute apps. Then by the Mid 90s GUI became nessary for most modern computing needs. Besides just allowing ability such as WYSWYG Word Processing. The windowing interface made it common to have multible apps open at the same time where you can see information on one app and the other. Yes Desqview could do that too in text mode but it was difficult to get the data you needed without the resolution. Then you were paying $200 or More just for a card that can do "Ultra High Resulution" 640x480 at 16 colors. Shortly after all the computers needed them there production price went down to match competition.

The same will happen with 3d cards after longhorn is released in some times in the distant future. The prices will go straight down, because there will be more then just 2 that will make a Longhorn compatible Video Card.

I can't justify this... if it was an option, sure, no problem, but a necessity... Nobody is forcing you to upgrade you will not be put in Jail if you use your 8088XT with MS DOS 2.0 with 256k of RAM and a CGA (2D 4 Colors at 320x240, 2 Colors 640x240, 16 color Text Mode) Video card. But honestly as time goes on the system requirements for new systems increase. It is the same for Most Linux Distributions, Mac OS, BSD, Solaris... It happens deal with it.

Re:Is this necessary

[eV_x]

Let us all not forget that many years ago the video requirements of modern interfaces were substantially different than now. Things must progress and evolve. Interfaces will become heavier on some levels but easier on others, but you can clearly count on the advancements of technology to help OFFLOAD the strain to new devices and components. By Longhorn doing this, my guess is that my CPU will actually get less of a load on most things by making the graphics board do what it does better than a general purpose CPU.

You can't stop evolution simply because you can't keep up or you get comfortable.

I am consistently blown away by people who make comments like this:

"Am I one of the only ones who prefers usability, stability, and performance... to eye candy?"

Do you watch TV? Do you look at magazines? Style is here to stay my good friend. I don't know about you, but I DO care about what my OS looks like. If I wanted my OS to look and feel like a windowless brick room with flickering flourescent lighting, I'll skin it that way myself.

Do you even use modern software? Almost all of it is skinnable. Why do you think that's popular? Because people are bored? No, because modern software is generally an extension of your personality. My guess is yours is like vanilla ice cream.

On top of that, you are CLEARLY in the minority.

A couple scenarios:
Do you drive an old beater for a car because it "does the job"?
Do you live in a tiny room with an integrated flip down bed and sit on the floor to eat because it's a more efficient use of space?
Do you wear burlap clothes because it seems more practical?

I'm sure you talk tough on computer crap, but you probably are wasteful in other areas. People like me DO care. I care about my car having the latest features. I care about my house being more than just a few walls with a ceiling. I care about personality and enjoying what I'm working with and where I live.

"But do I really need to get new hardware... for eye candy?"

Mr. Vanilla: Do you realize that every game id and Valve release sells new hardware? Oh, that's right, you wouldn't know because you're too busy with your CGA graphics board playing pong so you're not forced to "upgrade".

Rock on - now excuse me while I go play my 8-Track.