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Windows Operating Systems Graphics Software

Longhorn's Windows Graphics Foundation Examined 399

Posted by CowboyNeal 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.'"
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Longhorn's Windows Graphics Foundation Examined More

Longhorn's Windows Graphics Foundation Examined

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  • Windowing (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ChozCunningham ( 698051 ) <slashdot.org @ c h o z cunningham.com> on Friday July 30, 2004 @11:47PM (#9850476) Homepage
    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.

    • Re:Windowing (Score:2, Insightful)

      by shird ( 566377 )
      How would it put them one step ahead when MS are already half way there and Linux hasnt got anything like it at all? They are behind, not anywhere near 'one step ahead'. If anything, it might put them on the same level.
      • Where this to come about, then GNU/Linux would be ahead. And not only that, but ahead in an area that Microsoft definitely wants to go in.

        If there were more people aware of what usability this would create for the end-user, and how much simpler it would be to design graphic interfaces for the coders, I think people would jump on board. And there are sooo many talented OS developers, so it doesn't seem impossible that GNU/Linux could leapfrog MS in a field that they are only matched (beaten?) by Apple's int

    • Y-Windows [y-windows.org]. A replacement for X that is fully hardware-accelerated and can upgrade its own drivers without a restart.

      If people want to beat Microsoft with this technology, Y is the place to go and help out.
      • I'm not sure that it is called Y-Windows. A quick scan of the Y.windows site seems to show that it is an accelerated bitmap desktop windowing system. That would make it rival Longhorn's functionality. Were Cairo actually progressing somewhere, it would be closer to what I am describing, although I am not sure what Cairo's vision of full implementation would look like.

        Remember, scalable bitmaps and alpha blending are already fully available on Mac (natively) and Win (with add-ons [stardock.com]).

        • Re:It's called Y-Windows (Score:5, Informative)

          by Osty ( 16825 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @12:23AM (#9850653)

          Remember, scalable bitmaps and alpha blending are already fully available on Mac (natively) and Win (with add-ons).

          It's native in Windows, as well, since Windows 2000. Just because you need a separate application to enable it in apps that don't specifically support the Windows 2000+-specific extensions doesn't mean it's not native to the system. See the alpha-blended fade-in/out effects on menus, for example. Microsoft simply chose to go with an understated application (and yet still gets blasted for "annoying" menu animations), while Apple went over the top.

          • One thing that's fairly consistent about Microsoft is that they wait for the hardware to catch up to the software, and then, when it's 'ready', they take maximum advantage. That's why they can be 'late' and still catch up and dominate. (eg. GUIs and 386 machines, or web browsers and 56K modems)

            Anyway, when Windows 2000 was released, there was only one graphic driver that supported the menu effects in hardware (Matrox). Which is probably why they've been fairly conservative about effects, unlike Apple who f
        • Y is not a bitmap windowing system. It's vector-based and contains its own widgets and plans to be an entire unified desktop environment (as opposed to hacks on top of an X server, which is what KDE and GNOME are...sorry, it's true).

          There will be an X compatibility layer, but the idea is to finally replace X and learn from the mistakes of the past.
          • So is "the community" behind this? It appears to be the key step to the Linux Desktop. Accessability, and application dev-times would both benefit.

            The last I recall on /., people seemed unenthusiastic. Perhaps the X-compatability needs to be developed in parallel? Or has so much work gone in to KDE/Gnome that intertia is in their favor? Or is there a OSS office-politics/personality-clashes type issue going on? I suspect the problem is that many people can imagine the usefulness of this.

          • Technically KDE, GNOME, CDE and the like are not hacks as far as being a desktop environment on X since the X server and the Window Manager/Desktop environment were always meant to be separate, but they include hacks such as window transparency.
      • Should it be referred to as "Y", "The Y Window System", or "Y Windows" ..?
        I don't care.
      • Well, I recommend signing up for the mailing list (I've been on it since it was slashdotted a while back), but they really do not welcome much actual help yet. They are doing some stuff that can only be done by a few developers at once -- refactoring a lot of the underlying code. So a lot of people with good ideas have been pretty much blown off. I am sure they will solicit more help when the time is right.
      • I just emerged it, since it was in portage and gave it a quick spin. There isn't much to see as such, but it does look pretty nice, especially with the windows blending into each other and such small effects. It had a few example applications to try out.

        The good part is that it was so easy to try out, since it can run under SDL inside X - all that was needed was the emerge and then 'startY' and off we go.

        I think I'll follow this for a while and see if there seems to actively happen things with it, because

    • Re:Windowing (Score:5, Informative)

      by nathanh ( 1214 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @05:24AM (#9851461) Homepage
      It would be nice to see some of the Linux GUI developers implement a fully vector-based scalable windowing system.

      It's sort of happening already.

      SVG in GNOME and KDE. That's scalable vector graphics at the application level. Some themes already use SVG for icons and window decorations.

      CAIRO offers scalable vector graphics at the X11 level. Nice pics here [cairographics.org]. Hardware acceleration through Xrender.

      Windows are getting alpha channels thanks to XDamage, XFixes and XComposite. Means we'll finally start seeing similar effects to what you get with Aqua on MacOS X.

      All the bits are coming together. If you're willing to play at the bleeding edge then you can see some of these effects today.

  • Cool! (Score:4, Funny)

    by goMac2500 ( 741295 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @11:50PM (#9850490)
    Wow! This makes me jealous... I wish my Powerbook running OS X could do thi.... Oh.... wait....

    • Re:Cool! (Score:2, Informative)

      by JasdonLe ( 680479 )

      Actually, and correct me if I'm wrong, anyone, Mac OS X doesn't do anything like this. OS X only simulates 3D graphics using 2D methods.

      I am by no means a M$ fan, but what they're talking about should blow your PowerBook away.

      • OS X only simulates 3D graphics using 2D methods.

        What's wrong with that? You see the same pixels anyway.

        Do you have to have your window border properly shaded depending on the "light" source, or you'd rather prefer to have your job done?

        • Nothing, but he's correcting the assumption that Apple has already been there, when they haven't. This would be a first.
      • what they're talking about should blow your PowerBook away.

        Except that by then the Powerbook would probably be 4-6 years old and Apple would be unveiling something new. Though I'm by no means an Apple fan.

      • Re:Cool! (Score:5, Insightful)

        by goMac2500 ( 741295 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @12:41AM (#9850729)
        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 /

  • From the article... (Score:4, Funny)

    by joseph schmo ( 223532 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @11:51PM (#9850494)
    One of the first orders of business is to "fix busted stuff," as Blythe put it. These items include no more blue-screens (hard crashes) caused by the graphics driver, and moving more processing into what's known as user mode.

    They're calling this thing WGF (Windows Graphics Foundation). Perhaps instead of blue GPF's it can generate pretty pink Windows General Faults.
  • It's just like OSX's Aqua, rendering the GUI in the graphics card and all...?

    Good innovation.

    • Re:So.... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @12:06AM (#9850563) Homepage Journal
      When was the word 'innovation' used? I can't find it. But since we're on the topic, it is interesting that despite MS being a monopoly, they're still doing major work on their upcoming OS. But... no, we'd rather talk about their OS taking a big step towards (possibly even past) what Apple has done.
      • But since we're on the topic, it is interesting that despite MS being a monopoly, they're still doing major work on their upcoming OS. But... no, we'd rather talk about their OS taking a big step towards (possibly even past) what Apple has done.

        Microsoft is making Windows better than it was before. Excellent!

        Let me know when Microsoft makes Windows good. Or, if not good, at least on-par with modern operating systems.

        • "Or, if not good, at least on-par with modern operating systems."

          Windows 2000, and to a lesser extent, Windows XP. Okay, I don't have >6 month up times, but I don't have in opportune crashes either. If I did, my job as a 3D animator would be in jeopardy. I don't remember the last time I left an over-the-weekend render and came back on Monday to an 'oh shit!. I do remember that it was before Win2k.
        • Windows 2000... XP aswell...
      • *chuckle* Why not? If it becomes accepted that MS is actually innovating, then it can also become a possibility that they are also issuing valid patents to keep us out. As long as other systems are issuing these features before MS can patent them, they will still be overturned.

        Psychological warfare, my friend. People are psyching themselves up against the legal battles to come. ;)

    • Re:So.... (Score:5, Informative)

      by RzUpAnmsCwrds ( 262647 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @12:36AM (#9850709)
      "It's just like OSX's Aqua, rendering the GUI in the graphics card and all...?"

      No. Aqua doesn't render the GUI in the graphics card at all. It does, however, use the graphics card as a high-speed composition engine.

      Aqua is also bitmap based. Despite what many have said, OS X icons are just bitmaps, as are the buttons and other controls. That means that they don't scale very well - just like the widgets in Windows XP.

      With Longhorn, everything is vectorized. You'll be able to adjust the DPI of your display and all of the controls will automatically update to match it. For example, you could have a 300dpi display and then adjust the widget size so you can still read the text.

      People with UXGA 14" notebook displays know all about this. Many choose to run their display at a lower, non-native resolution because the text is too small otherwise. This isn't the best solution. With Longhorn, they'll be able to run at full native resolution and adjust the text size (and the size of the titlebars, icons, buttons, scrollbars, and everything else) to make everything usable. Plus, they get the benifits of high resolution: clear, crisp text and objects.

      • Re:So.... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by melatonin ( 443194 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @02:30AM (#9851044)

        Aqua is also bitmap based. Despite what many have said, OS X icons are just bitmaps, as are the buttons and other controls. That means that they don't scale very well - just like the widgets in Windows XP.

        Yes, Aqua is one mega-gigantic compositing engine. The power of that shouldn't be underestimated, but I'd expect Longhorn to be able to do that fine. However, Quartz 2D is also a complete vector rasterizing engine, implemented (I assume, it'd be stupid if not) in AltiVec. Why use a GPU when you have multiple vector processors on a G5? (With oodles of L2 and L3 cache to eat on). FYI, writing vector graphics code with AltiVec is very yummy. If you look at the Quartz 2D API, there are no direct compositing functions; it's all vector-graphics. You can take pixmaps and composite them together (using the 'over' operator). Although I guess when they added support for the PDF transparent imaging model (part of PDF 1.4/OS X 10.3), they added support for transfer modes of vector graphics/pixmaps; I haven't looked into that.

        As for icons, it's a heck of a lot easier to 'paint' an icon with pixels than to define a drawing with shapes and gradients. Also, Tiger is going to support 256x256 icons (!). IRIX's window manager (forgot the name) had vector icons. No biggie :P

        With Longhorn, everything is vectorized. You'll be able to adjust the DPI of your display and all of the controls will automatically update to match it.

        Tiger supports a resolution-independent user interface. With Cocoa based on the PDF imaging model, where every coordinate is represented with floats (including mouse position, which kicks in when you have a graphics tablet), it's very easy to scale everything (and rotate! NSView supports arbitrary rotation of views, and all further drawing in the view will be rotated as well).

        It doesn't seem that the Tiger release notes are online yet... perhaps I should shut up.

      • Re:So.... (Score:3, Insightful)

        by aanantha ( 186040 )
        Longhorn's Avalon definitely goes beyond 10.2's Quartz Extreme. Quartz Extreme only 3D accelerates Quartz Compositor. Quartz 2D is still pure 2D. But for the record, it should be pointed out that that 10.2 is 2 years old while Longhorn won't be out for at least 2 years. The difference between Apple and Microsoft is that Microsoft boldly brags about features far in advance while Apple is highly secretive. A lot of people seem to think that Microsoft is overtaking Apple with Avalon, simply because Apple has o
    • Microsoft patented the Apple?

  • Like what's planned for the X windows system? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mr_tenor ( 310787 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @11:52PM (#9850503)

    using a GPU's 3D graphics processing power rather than the traditional 2D blitter.


    Is this like Keith's Getting X Off The Hardware [keithp.com] plans, where he suggests that having your xserver running on top of openGL instead of having to talk to all this messy hardware stuff will make it nicer and faster?

    • No, it's not (Score:5, Insightful)

      by rd_syringe ( 793064 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @12:07AM (#9850568) Journal
      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.

      • Re:No, it's not (Score:5, Informative)

        by be-fan ( 61476 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @12:43AM (#9850737)
        Um, OSS already has:

        1) An X server that does transparency and double-buffering;
        2) An (actually, 2) OpenGL-accelerated canvas;
        3) A window manager that uses said canvas.

        Sure, they are still "in progress" releases, but you can actually download them and try them out, which is way more than can be said for Longhorn.

        • Re:No, it's not (Score:3, Interesting)

          by IntlHarvester ( 11985 )
          There's really two things going here:

          A) The factual question of whether Linux have something like Longhorn in the same timeframe? This depends on not only the availability of the tech, but it's adoption into major frameworks and applications. Open Issue.

          B) The slashdot rhetorical battle where MS Vaporware is countered by links to Open Source Vaporware. Nobody here really doubts MS's abililty to execute, so "So-n-So wrote a paper" or "Here's a sourceforge project" looks a little thin.
        • "Sure, they are still "in progress" releases, but you can actually download them and try them out, which is way more than can be said for Longhorn."

          Longhorn's Avalon is up and running in the PDC released build.

          MSDN members have access right now.

      • Someone's been drinking the M$ marketing koolaid.

        There is plenty of Linux GUI development happening as google and comments here show.

        Fact is, the desktop experience on Gnome/KDE/Linux and M$Windows is pretty much the same at the moment. Configuration is more consistent on M$Windows but Linux is more flexible inside+outside the KDE+Gnome environments.

        I look at such results. All the buzzword compliant bullshit in the world about "unified development API", "seamless desktop" and "desktop emulator" is mea

  • Linux will have this kind of stuff way before long (Score:5, Interesting)

    by auzy ( 680819 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @11:55PM (#9850516)
    We have cairo.. same kind of thing, and people are modifying stuff to implement it everywhere.. Theres also many other technologies to make up everything that Microsofts new one will do (the difference is though that we are much closer to getting a stable version)
    http://www.freedesktop.org/Cairo/Home

    Just dont take all of Microsofts noise too seriously, just be aware that by 2006, linux will have completely equivilent technologies (in many cases we already do), and just cause we dont make much noise about it, dont think that they dont exist, or aren't planned for the near future.

    Honestly, the stuff which I have seen for longhorn so far hasn't been mindblowingly amazing, and are really just things where they are trying to catch up to MAC OS X, or linux

  • WTF? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Fux the Penguin ( 724045 )
    This article makes it unclear if WGF 1.0 is basically DirectX 10.0 or a Longhorn-specific system. If it isn't available to users of older versions of Windows, there is little incentive to rewrite code specifically for it. I think the adoption of Longhorn will be slow as I haven't heard any really compelling reasons to shell out the money for the upgrade.

  • Wow. This is amazing. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by samrolken ( 246301 ) <samrolkenNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Friday July 30, 2004 @11:57PM (#9850527)
    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.

    • Re:Wow. This is amazing. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by TrancePhreak ( 576593 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @12:08AM (#9850575)
      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.

    • Re:Wow. This is amazing. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by be-fan ( 61476 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @12:39AM (#9850717)
      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.
    • I hereby propose my new advanced graphics arechitecture to the community. I call it SuperGL. Its like OpenGL, but its Super so it just has to be lots better!

      I'm sure the IBM and SGI investment dollars will start pouring in any day now.
    • Both X and Windows do 3D acceleration in more than one application at a time right now.

      The real difference is that everything passes through the 3D engine, avoiding the need to implement 2D parallel versions.

      The X equivalent is Cairo and they appear to have switched to an OpenGL backend.
    • 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. I think we should all unite in an effort toward a new advanced graphics architecture.

      Yes [freedesktop.org].

      Anyone find some sample compositing screenshots? I've lost the URL for the KDE ones, and I hear there was some cooler stuff shown by Keith recently...

  • Moving stuff to user mode (Score:3, Interesting)

    by rewt66 ( 738525 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @12:01AM (#9850541)
    Well, about time! Better late than never...

    Oh, moving some stuff to user mode? Well, um, better late and half-baked than never and not at all?

    Seriously, putting stuff in the kernel that should have been in user space is one of the more serious architectural botches in Windows. It has caused massive stability problems. Now it seems that Microsoft is recognizing this, and is starting to undo it. (What they need is to completely undo it, but they have to start somewhere. What they don't get to will continue to bite them until they do.)

  • Sick of the Longhorn hype yet? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Cid Highwind ( 9258 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @12:03AM (#9850547) Homepage
    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...
  • And IT's beige apparently.

    Is this a new section? Or have I just never been here before?

    Ah, well, better than the games section I spose.

  • I'd be happy... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ...if they would just let me move a window around while the application is loading.

  • Is it just me? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by soimless ( 651224 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @12:29AM (#9850675) Homepage Journal
    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.

  • _I_ _don't_ _care_ (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Dwonis ( 52652 ) * on Saturday July 31, 2004 @12:32AM (#9850692)
    The last thing I want is another big Microsoft API. Let me know when the Windows API gets smaller, or when Windows implements the Single Unix Specification in any meaningful manner. I have better things to do than to waste my time trying to write programs against a cumbersome toy OS API.

    • The last thing I want is another big Microsoft API. Let me know when the Windows API gets smaller, or when Windows implements the Single Unix Specification in any meaningful manner. I have better things to do than to waste my time trying to write programs against a cumbersome toy OS API.

      Unfortunately, a lot of the new graphics and OS stuff will be exposed as new .NET APIs, so you'll have to learn those. But if you think about it, this is a good thing since Win32 is getting crufty in some areas, and Win3

  • OSX is alead, but that's not all (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SnprBoB86 ( 576143 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @12:47AM (#9850751) Homepage
    If you read (and fully understood) the article, you would realize that a fully hardware accelerated windowing system is not all that Microsoft promises with this new stuff.

    The other stuff I see as being BIG are the changes to DirectX such as removing a lot of the fixed function pipeline features. They are pushing the GPU to be more generalized which is a good thing.

    Microsoft is really hyping up Longhorn and none of the meat of Avalon has made it into the technical previews. Judging by the Ctrl+Alt+Del animations, the smooth color fades in Explorer, the few existing vector graphics, the other random programmer art in the technical previews, Avalon is going to be IMPRESSIVE.

    Whether you like MS or not (which you don't, this is slashdot), they have the programming and graphical resources to pull this off in a very big way.

    • Re:OSX is alead, but that's not all (Score:5, Funny)

      by dont_think_twice ( 731805 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @12:54AM (#9850772) Homepage
      Judging by the Ctrl+Alt+Del animations, the smooth color fades in Explorer, the few existing vector graphics, the other random programmer art in the technical previews, Avalon is going to be IMPRESSIVE.

      Wow, that does sound IMPRESSIVE. I can't begin to imagine how much more work I will get done with Ctrl-Alt-Del animations and color fades in explorer.

    • Microsoft is really hyping up Longhorn and none of the meat of Avalon has made it into the technical previews. Judging by the Ctrl+Alt+Del animations, the smooth color fades in Explorer, the few existing vector graphics, the other random programmer art in the technical previews, Avalon is going to be IMPRESSIVE.

      The Ctrl+Alt+Del animations and fades are like little grains of sand compared to the internal demos I saw (but can't describe, unfortunately). They were impressive visually, but simply mindblowing

  • You would think that offloading of the graphics work could have been done years ago. It's not like 3D accelerators are something new.

  • Just a random thought (Score:5, Interesting)

    by PotatoHead ( 12771 ) * <doug.opengeek@org> on Saturday July 31, 2004 @01:42AM (#9850937) Homepage Journal
    Does anybody notice that most of the computing industry would be redefined according to Longhorn?

    Now I know they need to build something really different, but are all these differences really worth the hassle?

    Maybe it's just me tired of hearing about software that won't be in use for another 3-5 years as if it's the best thing since sliced bread...

  • GLOW - a GUI built on top of OpenGL (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @01:48AM (#9850954) Homepage
    There have been widget libraries built on top of OpenGL for years. See GLOW [sourceforge.net], for example. It's straightforward to do, and works reasonably well. Works on any OS that will run OpenGL.

  • hahaha (Score:5, Funny)

    by TechnologyX ( 743745 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @02:54AM (#9851104) Journal
    "One of the first orders of business is to "fix busted stuff," as Blythe put it. These items include no more blue-screens (hard crashes) caused by the graphics driver"

    Yeah, that just pushed Longhorn's release back to around, oh, 2020.

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @06:18AM (#9851617)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • what the article says & what it means (Score:3, Informative)

    by nothings ( 597917 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @07:33AM (#9851793) Homepage
    See also the Windows Graphics Foundation power point slides on this page [microsoft.com] for more info.

    KEY: "summary of what it says (paraphrase, not an actual quote)" - what it means - what it means from a perhaps slightly biased POV

    1. "Talk at Microsoft's Meltdown conference: DX Futures"

    2. "Talked about Longhorn's 'Windows Graphics Foundation'" - quote from powerpoint: 'WGF is the "next Direct3D"' - a 3d architecture for both games and for the OS (and maybe for non-rendering tasks)

    3. "Unifying vertex/pixel shaders; support multiplexing by multiple apps" - Microsoft is going to continue driving the process of specifying what next generation hardware's feature sets should be (only natural, since Talisman and Fahrenheit were such succesful designs [com.com] ).

    4. "remove fixed-function pipeline features; everything must be done by shaders" - Because obviously everyone wants to write shaders themselves for everything, even in the simple cases! Yes, please make me look up the Phong lighting formula every time I write a throwaway 3d app! Actually, the article doesn't make clear but the presentation above does that they're continuing to support the legacy DirectX interfaces, and improving support for OpenGL, so at least you can use those interfaces for fixed-function support. But the ppt above does seem to say that the hardware won't implement fixed-function stuff (which makes perfect sense--the drivers can supply an equivalent shader), and it states that a high-level shading language "will be the only methodology for Windows Graphics Foundation", with an example showing a shader iterating over multiple lights and computing the results itself.

    5. "no more caps bits (capability bits)" - Hey, it's yet another of the things that OpenGL got right all along. Not sure what prevents someone from accessing a legacy D3D API and getting at the caps bits there, but at least there won't be any new ones.

    6. "stability; if we're using 3d graphics hardware for basic desktop rendering, it's got to be super stable, and when it crashes, it needs to be able to reset trivially without the machine going down." - the ppt says the new architecture design is trying to reduce driver complexity. I am extremely doubtful about this.

  • SGI (Score:3, Informative)

    by mattr ( 78516 ) <<mattr> <at> <telebody.com>> on Saturday July 31, 2004 @11:12AM (#9852676) Homepage Journal
    For years I've wished linux had vector based desktop so I could have a 3d scroll wheel embedded in irix window frames. You make the wheel turn by dragging over it with the mouse, and all icons in a window grow or shrink smoothly. I also like the way icons would shoot animated rays out for a few seconds after clicking to indicate the program was loading.

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