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Intel Publishes Its First Modern Windows Driver for PCs (pcworld.com)
Intel has published its first Modern Windows Driver for several of its modern integrated GPUs, representing a new way for graphics drivers to be pushed to your PC -- and something to keep an eye on until the new driver infrastructure settles in. From a report: Modern Windows Drivers, also known as Universal Windows Drivers, are a new feature of the Windows 10 October 2018 Update that takes advantage of the UWP infrastructure within Windows 10. As Microsoft explains it, a Modern Windows Driver is a "single driver package that runs across multiple different device types, from embedded systems to tablets and desktop PCs." The first Intel driver to take advantage of this is labeled UWD 25.20.100.6444. Microsoft doesn't intend for you to do anything different to obtain the new Modern drivers. If you own a prebuilt PC, the PC maker will continue to be the first place you should check for updated drivers, according to an Intel FAQ. That's because the universal driver includes a base driver, plus optional component packages and an optional hardware support app. The latter two are written by the system builder or OEM, while the former is written by the GPU maker itself.
These fuckers better be available for download separate from the Store.
http://progressquest.com/spoltog.php?name=Son+Of+Son+Of+DarkRookie
No, I don't want your bloated driver code that you had to make run on all these different systems. I want the driver that was designed to be efficient on the hardware and OS that I installed.
Bleh.
On a regular basis, when the "updates" and "patches" are pushed out, we invariably have people whose drivers have been replaced by these supposedly universal drivers.
Then we have to go back and put in the original drivers we use in our images to get them up and running.
I wonder how many end users will be afflicted by this bug and not have any clue how to correct things?
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Modern bugs
Yup, here comes modernity.
does it fix any floating-point errors?
Sounds related to making sure Windows S devices can be kept up to date. I'm thinking of devices in the Surface Go class (I don't know if that has an Intel GPU or not, but you get the idea - that kind of a device).
Only apps can app apps, and appy Apptel knows that modern appy app apps need modern appy app drivers!
Apps!
The original USB 1.0 standard had written into it the ability to have a universal driver system. When plugged in the device would upload a drive payload in a Java applet to allow at least partial operation until a platform specific drive could be found. For security reasons and the fact Java wasn't installed everywhere that was quickly dropped from the USB standard. Microsoft is just replicating that idea but in .NET instead of Java.
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_novelty
"The appeal to novelty (also called argumentum ad novitatem) is a fallacy in which one prematurely claims that an idea or proposal is correct or superior, exclusively because it is new and MODERN. "
A single package necessarily contains lots of optimizations for multiple platforms that takes advantages of the peculiarities of that platform. Packaging them altogether in one, simply means drivers you don't need are waiting on drives you do need to be fixed to make the bundled fix.
But hey.... it's *modern*, so that's good right?
So to get one driver, I have to have all drivers. Nice going.
driver are belong to MS.
Some Intel video driver packages are well over 100MB. If you are counting bytes, the actual driver files for a particular machine are only a small fraction of the package.
Intel isn't the only vendor with bloated drivers, just the first one that comes to mind.
How long has it been since Intel last published drivers if a new release is being referred to as modern? The way it's repeatedly phrased makes it sound like Intel hasn't dabbled in drivers since Windows 95.
Next year sees the biggest change in Windows to date, as MS launches the Xbox Two- a 24gb+, 1080TI+ class GPU, and 8+ Zen2 core CPU. For FIVE HUNDRED dollars. And it runs full windows store apps with keyboard and mouse- a full non-win32 PC as well as a console.
With this new console PC hybrid, thanks to AMD and TSMC's new 7nm process, high end gaming PCs are literally rendered obsolete pricewise. The rest of the 'independent' PC market must follow the Xbox Two's example, and finally accept the death of (third party) win32 support- hence Intel's actions.
Microsoft hopes to gain full control of all software running on future PCs- like Apple does today with iOS. Before FULL comes the Google android 'experience' where 'sideloading' is seen increasingly as an 'illigitimate' way of using your PC.
Now to the dribblers, yes I know Microsoft has had CRIPPLED non-win32 versions of windows before, and even a broken ARM version. But today, the NEW non-win32 windows, that also supports ARM, is the MAINLINE 'Windows 11' that will come to life with the Xbox Two. Its entire selling point will be that unbeatable hardware spec for that unbeatable 500 dollars. Sony has the PS5 in the same timeframe, but that console, probably with slightly lesser specs than the Xbox Two, focuses on a AAA VR experience. And the PS5 cannot be used as a general PC, of course (at best it could be given Android app store support).
All industries change when the 'race to the bottom' perfection of mass produced items reaches a key moment. The 'big tin' PC finally stops making sense, even to 99.9% of PC enthusiasts. Neither AMD nor Nvidia wants to offer DISCRETE GPUs of 1080TI+ performance for any kind of sane price. Nvidia's latest slightly better 2080TI costs well over ONE THOUSAND dollars, and the chip breaks down after several hundred hours of use.
Efficiency of scale, focusing on a single perfected design (the console) cannot be beat or even approached. But the tech in consoles, until 7nm, always ran behind reasonable power wokhorse PC specs. No longer. 7nm changes the world. And gives Microsoft the monopoly control over commercial software Gates always dreamt of.
UWP (is that the acronym?) is designed from the ground up to kill the freedom win32 programs gave us. Even today a win32 program runs like a dream on Windows 10, whereas games written to UWP container specs take forever to load, cannot allow seemless ingame switching to the desktop, and use far more resources with a truly lousy memory management system. Inside, Windows 10 fully supports all the Win32 APIs going back to day one, and they are light and highly efficient. Paid shills who'll try to tell you Win32 is obsolete or 'insecure' or works less well with Windows 10 are outright liars.
UWP has NSA back doors backed into its fundamental design. The Intel CPU flaws that serve the intelligence community were the original backbone of UWP thread mechanisms. Win32 programs can be made secure by skilled programmers, UWP programs cannot, since they must rely on MS black-boxes.
It doesn't matter. No-one will be able to argue against the specs and cost of the Xbox Two.
If we're using a computer more than a year or 2 old, nobody (Intel or otherwise) is going to update the driver anyway. Especially, no OEM is going to develop or update auxiliary packages attached to Intel's driver for anything more than a year or 2 old, if that - same time frame as firmware updates in general. Tablets in particular are abandoned upon shipping by the OEM, and this delivery track will not change that. So all that anybody would get with these is the Intel driver delivered through the Store rather than though the traditional driver update methods. I think the comment pointing out the Windows S connection has it right.
To their credit, HP provided SPECTRE-related firmware patches for certain enterprise-targeted computers going back 5 years or so. I think some other vendors updated machines that old or even older.
Granted, 5 years isn't nearly long enough, but it was more than 2.
Expect "big name" companies that have "a lot to lose" in terms of alienating customers to fix critical security bugs for more than 2 years, especially when large customers or large classes of customers - think corporate - are involved.
Bottom line: The company's "fix it or not" attitude will be driven by money. If you buy a 3 year old used PC or graphics card that wasn't used much by "customers that count," though, then you are probably out of luck.
So now all our drivers can be giant bloated pieces of shite that force down updates whenever changes are made in support of some device no one uses or cares about! I LOVE the idea that my computer is going to be one giant repository of driver code that has nothing to do with my system and that this huge database of drivers will be requesting updates through the Microsoft Store ensuring that every time I turn on my computer I am reporting every last detail of my system config and usage through that platform! I'm sure this will have exactly ZERO impact on my usage and that I won't be harassed by those "Schedule when to install Windows Updates" prompts anymore because these will all happen in the background, continuously, especially while I play video games and need every last bit of bandwidth! The FUTURE is here! /s
When new hardware only offers support for the new driver model, old OS's wither away.
What a great opportunity to learn another process to update a specific piece of hardware!
Nevermind those "package manager" quantum dot LED lights over there.
They've only been around for several decades.
Get our oil lamp instead! The very best oil lamp that was ever made!
This is just a standard PC, like a Dell, in a slightly unusual packaging.
The only difference is that it has Digital Restriction Management. So there may be a bog-standard PC inside, but you'll never get to use the thing as a PC.
- - - - -
Why? (I assume everyone here knows this, but just in case:)
Because a personal computer is a *universal* information processing device, that is personal to the one *programming* it, to do what he needs.
In this case, it certainly is a PC to the Content Mafia, and to Microsoft. But they wrap it into a set of fixed-function modules called "apps", like an outdoor kiosk device. And you never get to actually access the PC below it.
Cause then the coke heads of the Content Mafia couldn't keep their imaginary artificial scarcity monopoly up. A monopoly over making copies of the work of their victims (artists), that guarantees them (but not the artists) free money without working for it. By simply handing out mere copies. *Our* money, that *we* actually *had* to work for. Not also mere copies of our money!
So on the Linux front do things get better or worse?
I almost transitioned an older laptop to Linux but tried Win10 first and the graphics drivers were much improved.
I has a nice big disk and a CDROM to rip music with... Then cygwin rsync to other machines and Bob's yer uncle.
Un-documented hardware is a global security risk.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
So on Weds of this week I was using my PC - Intel 6th gen NUC - when suddenly the screen flickered black for a moment. And suddenly my audio had stopped working, and there was a big red X on the volume icon in the systray. Yes, Windows 10 had helpfully auto-updated my perfectly working graphics & HDMI audio drivers to what it thought was better - killing my audio.
So I went to downloadcenter.intel.com to re-install the drivers *I* want to use (because f*ck you, Microsoft) and these UWDs were the only ones available. With some trepidation I downloaded & installed them. They appear to work perfectly, albeit without the GUI applet that the older Intel drivers had.
TL;DR: these new drivers work better than what Microsoft foist on you. And once again, f*ck you, Microsoft.
(yeah yeah, "cool story, bro"... bite me, I just wanted to vent my ire)
You, right here in that post, PERFECTLY describes the problems with Americans.