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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.
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...
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
Using Windows as a way to sell more hardware!
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.
That's just plain stupid. Grandpa & Grandma want to check their email and pics of the grandkids, why on earth should they require a Radeon MegaXP293823-XtremeSLI+ to do that? I hope there's an option to disable all that cycle-wasting crud or MS may be shooting itself in the foot: how many offices will spend a few hundred dollars on individual video cards just to upgrade the OS? What about those machines with onboard video (ala Dell?)
Trolling is a art,
"KDE: Gets 5000% performance out of your graphics card by using our patented 'It Doesn't Use Fucking Pixel Shaders Just To Display A Fucking Menu' technology!"
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.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
IIRC, longhorn installer will check your graphics card (if it's lower than X fps then...) and will enable or disable 3D functions depending on if you've a good or bad graphics card
In short: the "3d mode" it won't be the one available. There will be a much lighter desktop available (somewhat like current XP or something like that, you'll miss all the 3d stuff but...)
In other news, Microsoft issues critical security warnings about bugs that let hackers run 3D viruses and worms natively in windows.
lol: You see no door there!
I've used Windows since 3.0. I'm a Windows (.Net) developer. And I agree that the gee-whiz factor will be great. Animations, depth to menus... it'll be gorgeous.
But... It doesn't matter how fast computers get, Windows Explorer Shell always seems to become less snappy, even on fresh installs. XP made the start menu slower than ever as it retrieves nonessential metadata on the shortcuts. Myriad Shell extensions, over time, bring the Explorer UI to a crawl.
Sexy is great, but I have to use it every day. It's just not worth making the UI dog even worse.
It's the end of the world I tell ya. End of cheap PC's, an affordable mac. What's next? 100 dollar iPods?
Jisho - A Japanese English German Russian French Dictionary for the rest of us.
Wow! A 3D Blue Screen of Death? That would look really cool with Shader 2.0
"Who says nothing is impossible? Some people do it every day!" - Alfred E. Neuman
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.
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
No, not 3D interfaces in the way you're thinking. Think of it this way: every window is now an DirectX object. No need for redrawing by an app. Since every window is now a 3D object (one with only one pixel depth), you can do simple things like moving all the maintenance of a windows' DC from the app itself to the OS.
That's what Quartz Extreme does on OS X. This is just Quartz Extreme on PC.
Is this going to be another case of where Microsoft tries to copy Apple, but misses the point?
Mac OS X 10.2 introduced "Quartz Extreme", which uses your graphics card to composite your screen. This meant that dragging windows around now required almost no CPU power at all. In 10.3, they introduced several 3-D effects to enhance the interface - most notably a rotating cube when you switch users.
There are two key points that Microsoft seems to be missing, though:
* Mac OS X looks exactly the same if you don't have a powerful enough graphics card, and screen redrawing is not too slow. Having a graphics card just makes the system more responsive because the CPU is doing less of the work.
* The system degrades gracefully - if you don't have a powerful enough graphics card or run out of video RAM, certain 3D transitions may be skipped. But everything will still function, and everything will look the same.
It's too early to tell, but it is starting to sound like Microsoft may be creating a new interface that requires a super graphics card, leaving those with only cheap integrated video with a completely different interface. To me that sounds like a recipe for tech support hell - novice users won't understand why their screen doesn't look like someone else's.
There's been a slump in the computer sector due to the massive roll out around 2000. Not too many people buy a new computer within a couple years. It wouldn't surprise me if most people were still using the systems they bought 4 years ago. If they're using XP, it's a software upgrade only.
When XP came out my dad, a programmer for a large corporation, eventually bought a new computer from Dell with XP on it about a year ago. His previous system was a 350Mhz Dell. A programmer myself, my top system is a 1.2Ghz Duron running Win2K. I've had it for a couple years.
When Longhorn comes out it's time for an upgrade anyway and most people are going to buy prebuilt systems. Those prebuilt systems will have a (barely) sufficient graphics card.
GeForce FX 5500's are well under $100 already. In a couple years when Windows needs that kind of card to run, they'll be dirt cheap and onboard.
And it'll be just in time for when people are looking to upgrade their computer hardware anyway.
Complaining that MS is forcing upgrades is as silly as claiming ID Software forces hardware upgrades. I still use 2000, could use 98 if I wanted. I could also play Wolfenstein 3D and stick to a 386. Something needs to drive the market. If there was no need for better hardware, there'd be no better hardware. It's all artificially driven anyway. There's no objective reason why we need fancy pants graphics in any software. There's no objective reason we need high quality, drive space/CPU/Memory eating, audio/video.
In short, who cares that MS is making greater graphics demands for it's OS? They've done this with every release. Even Linux is making greater and greater demands. If you want the all the graphics pizzaz of Windows 3.11, use Windows 3.11. Some of us like an OS that looks "pretty."
If you want a plain text OS, then use DOS or ditch the GUI of Linux and have fun.
Work Safe Porn
Grandpa & Grandma will probably be dead by the time Longhorn comes out.
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
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.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I'd say that 3D acceleration is a Good Thing. After using QuartzExtreme on multiple macs, I have to say it makes a massive difference in most apps. It *does* speed up even moderately easy 2D things, like word processing apps. Also, where you notice the most difference is when switching between programs. Basically you've already got the images loaded in video ram, so a lot of stuff is instantaneous. And yeah, iChat AV wouldn't be quite as pretty on Win XP.
But the real question is: why are pixel shaders needed? Unless you're doing strange reflections or simulating bumps or playing around with reflectivity in realtime, I can't imagine a use for them. I certainly can't see why you'd need anything more than simple textured quads or triangles. Oh, and some sort of alpha support for shadows. All of that sounds like a TNT2-era card, like the one I used to use to do Quake II.
What this really feels like is Microsoft pushing hardware adoption again. Ever notice how new motherboards don't come with USB drivers for Windows XP? How you have to upgrade to the latest service pack to get USB support? Partly piracy curbing, and partly I think to keep a hold by forcing people to use approved hardware.
- Cloud
So is Longhorn going to have any new useful features or just sit there and look pretty?
-- Microsoft is the most expensive commodity operating system and office suite vendor in the marketplace.
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.