IT: Longhorn's Windows Graphics Foundation Examined

[ambient-whisper]

sounds exciting :)

[RockinAkin]

Sounds like a needless resource hog.

I'm all for a nice looking interface, but personally, I'd rather have my apps run faster than having a flashy windows interface suck up all the system resources.
I guess time will tell how it turns out.

[CIM]

"The gayest Windows ever!" will be their new motto.

[Jozvex]

I'd rather have my apps run faster than having a flashy windows interface suck up all the system resources.

Half the point is that it WILL run faster! Right now when your just in Windows, how much of a Quadro/GeForce's graphics power/memory is being used? Hardly any as far as I know, it's all the CPU and your regular RAM. By using up some of a highend cards 128/256meg of GPU power you take the strain off the CPU etc. Leaving more for processing what the apps need.

At least that's my understanding.

[onlooker]

It sounds like they just take every word out of Steve jobs last keynote speech about Tiger. When are these guys going to develop their own operating system? Never.. :eek:

[Geta-Ve]

sounds exciting, but i want a screenie!! lol

[zen jehad]

This looks pretty good, Longhorn is shaping up to be one nice OS release. Here's a link to a preview of one example of the tech. inside LH. The media browser. Fairly stunning stuff.

http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=14275

[CIM]

This looks pretty good, Longhorn is shaping up to be one nice OS release. Here's a link to a preview of one example of the tech. inside LH. The media browser. Fairly stunning stuff.

http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=14275

Ugh, such a lame gimmick! It reminds me of some flash web-site that annoys the hell out of you after a few minutes of using it.

[Dougs]

Hey I think it's swell that microsoft is going to have a new operating system,but um,are they actually going to call it...Longhorn? Couldn't they come up with a better name than that?I mean yeah the numbers & letters are getting boring but Longhorn?If I buy this operateing system do I get a cowboy hat and a pair of chaps or what? Longhorn? When I saw this name I said it must be either about some kinda' cheese or a rodeo clown with a laptop.

[zen jehad]

Ugh, such a lame gimmick! It reminds me of some flash web-site that annoys the hell out of you after a few minutes of using it.
Not really. It's a proof of concept which I for one would dearly love to have. especially dealing with tens of thousands of photographs.

There's a number of reasons why this is impressive, especially when it comes to moving the file/folder metaphor forward in the future.

[zen jehad]

Hey I think it's swell that microsoft is going to have a new operating system,but um,are they actually going to call it...Longhorn? Couldn't they come up with a better name than that?I mean yeah the numbers & letters are getting boring but Longhorn?If I buy this operateing system do I get a cowboy hat and a pair of chaps or what? Longhorn? When I saw this name I said it must be either about some kinda' cheese or a rodeo clown with a laptop.

lol, that's what I thought too. But LH is just the codename, and in MS tradition is named after a place, a mountain in this case, I think.

[stenosis|kill]

sounds like the biggest waste of pc powermanagment and a new dimension of m$ own spyware to me.

[Dougs]

Yeah whatever it is ,it is, as long as they don't call it long...horn! I think Bill was sitting on a mountian eat'in some cheese?:shrug:

[zen jehad]

sounds like the biggest waste of pc powermanagment and a new dimension of m$ own spyware to me. How so? Longhorn is pretty impressive as it exists now, and I'm a die-hard Unix user.

[ambient-whisper]

yeah that media management app is pretty neato :D would be really nice to deal with a lot of textures and quickly organizing them.

[leuey]

Yeah - for people like us who care about what their pc is doing and actually have things that need the processer. But for people who have a 3 Ghz processor and use it to read email and surf the web? Might as well use all of that for something....

The spyware aspect is probably legit - but you can turn that stuff off in media player as it exits today.

=G


sounds like the biggest waste of pc powermanagment and a new dimension of m$ own spyware to me.

[Geta-Ve]

Im not a huge bill fan... in fact I dont like bill at all.. and i usualy agree that most M$ products that come out are crap.. but how can you guys deny the coolness of that?! I mean, gimme a free floating camera and let me organize my pictures in 3d space and im a happy guy.. well im already a happy guy but :p just seems perdy cool to me..

Anyways this really does open alot of new directions for everyone.. at least i think so :shrug:

[richcz3]

Sounds like a needless resource hog.

I'm all for a nice looking interface, but personally, I'd rather have my apps run faster than having a flashy windows interface suck up all the system resources.
I guess time will tell how it turns out.An active 3D UI will require hardware that is generaly idle in basic operations to run. I bet it will look cool but at what expense. I am running my AMD64 systems with the classic Windows interface and I'm not missing anything. Not unlike Win XPs release, Longhorn will require some computer upgrade considerations if you want all the bells and whistles running. I hope Longhorn comes with the Classic UI options.

richcz3

[zen jehad]

An active 3D UI will require hardware that is generaly idle in basic operations to run. I bet it will look cool but at what expense. I am running my AMD64 systems with the classic Windows interface and I'm not missing anything. Not unlike Win XPs release, Longhorn will require some computer upgrade considerations if you want all the bells and whistles running. I hope Longhorn comes with the Classic UI options.

richcz3
What sounds good so far, is that most of these effects are done on the GPU, therefore off-loading much of the burden from the cpu. It sounds pretty much that you'l get the effects depending on your gfx board, a bit like what Apple has done with their Quartz Extreme display system. MS' sems to have gone quite a bit further in what they're attempting here though.


There will also be 3 tiers of Window displays. The most basic wil be a classic one taking care of those who have old, or under-powered gfx cards; then there's an intermediate one, and then the full blown one which will make use of the LH display tech. that the card can support.

[Aearon]

[...]. I hope Longhorn comes with the Classic UI options.

richcz3
luckily... it will, i heard that you'll be able to completely switch the gimmicks off, just like most people 'dumb down' their xp to 2000 style ;) (including me)

[percydaman]

hell I took it one step further and removed xp and reinstalled 2k :)

[DaliFan]

People amuse me....

Microsoft should just ship a command prompt. Nothing but a prompt. Oh wait.. you can get that with linux.

That will push the envolope into next genration picture browsing. If they did not try to push then we would be using win95. Knowing Microsoft you will be able to click some button and change it into some boring static browser like the one in xp. More power to those who like old tech.

No one is forced to use a Microsoft product. Heck, if people want they can just install dos and not even use a OS. Now that's fun. You can grab linux free from any number of places. Personally, I will continue playing games, using Maya and enjoying my home computer that I paid a lot for. 10 years from now WinXP and the current state of linux will seem like something from people with no vision.

Besides... Microsoft allows you to turn off almost anything you want. I turned off half the services on my own box.

Push on Microsoft research team... ignore the cavemen :wip:

[Beamtracer]

um,are they actually going to call it...Longhorn? It would be more appropriate if they called it "Long Wait". When's it coming out? 2007? 2008, maybe?

I think it's fantastic that Microsoft is ignoring 64-bit computing, and going to give us a new way of sorting out photographs instead, using a 3D interface.

I just hope this new version of Windows comes in Shrek-green color, just like the previous one.

[Jozvex]

Push on Microsoft research team... ignore the cavemen :wip:

I agree! Geez, people are so negative. I don't see any of those guys creating a new OS, trying to somehow please the entire computing world, which is impossible. Being anti-Microsoft is 'cool' and all but like, real people like you work there, trying to do the right thing. Sure, they've done/do a lot of bad/weird stuff in some people's opinions but being so negative towards a preview of a future product is a bit harsh.

I for one am looking forward to Longhorn.

[DaliFan]

I agree! Geez, people are so negative. I don't see any of those guys creating a new OS, trying to somehow please the entire computing world, which is impossible. Being anti-Microsoft is 'cool' and all but like, real people like you work there, trying to do the right thing. Sure, they've done/do a lot of bad/weird stuff in some people's opinions but being so negative towards a preview of a future product is a bit harsh.

I for one am looking forward to Longhorn.

You pretty much nailed it. It's all spurred on by this cool hip "hate" for Microsoft. Maturity is lacking...

I will give you a example. If say that was coming out in the next version of Suse or Mandrake... the response would be "OMG, THIS IS SO REVOLUTIONARY! EAT THAT MICROSOFT". Then you do have those that honestly want the bare bones of a OS. That is fine but don't push that on everyone else. Get linux and free yourself. You can have all the bare bones you want.

Kinda tired about hearing the toy aspect as well. In 5 minutes you can turn XP into 2k. Period. I can have the ugly grey bar at the bottom and a blue wallpaper. I can turn the start menu into the exact same as 2k in a couple clicks. I can turn off services that I don't like. I guess some people are incapable of learning the very basics of the OS they are in.

Anyway, I am not going to defend the practices of Microsoft. Fact is that I pay a lot of money for a computer and I want to enjoy it. If the research team makes cool stuff as in this thread then great. I look forward to it. People can have their ugly colors and prompts all day. Just don't damn me for wanting to use my hardware to it's fullest. I don't pay for it to run something from the 90s.

Whatever...

[Geta-Ve]

Dali: first off, I agree with you, however secondly sounds like your borderline preaching yourself :p Its so easy for all of us to just be like I hate M$, I hate people that hate M$, I hate people the love M$, I love M$ you should too! lol or what not.. and while I have no solution to this, its also easy for me to say you should stop bitching and all that good stuff, but fact is people have an opinion annndd.... thats that.. we will agree to disagree, then disagree about agreeing to disagree...lol


er.. my point? ummmm.... oh ya...on second thought.. i dont have a point... just like.. dont hate something JUST because its M$.. if it looks cool then give it a chance.. you know?

bah i totally screwed up that...

[Para]

Microsoft should just ship a command prompt. Nothing but a prompt. Oh wait.. you can get that with linux.

As far as I know, Longhorn will have a "bare" installation option that will install only the Longhorn core without anything that would actually be useful. (prompt is far from useful, imo)

But as I see it, Longhorn will be a great divider of people using computers. Those who change to LH will be really happy, no matter what they actually like about it (WinFS and its applications, Aero Glass, ease of use, you name it) and the rest can be just as happy with Windows XP, the last "traditional" Windows.

PS. Longhorn is a bull (http://www.txranger.com/BullIndexImages/BImages/Keystone2.jpg) .

[Geta-Ve]

how can a bull be a long horn? i can see that the bull HAS long horns, but i dont see how it can BE a long horn... :D sorry just had to

[DaliFan]

WTF?

I don't hate people who hate MS. I simply find it childish. If you don't like the company then don't use the product. Bashing a new tech that maybe awesome for sorting and managing a massive amount of pictures is pretty neat. Free with a OS makes it much more cool.

as far as Linux

I bought and paid for Mandrake 10. Well worth it

but uh

carry on

[Doogie]

In case anyone was wondering (remember that Whistler was codename for WinXP). Both were named after ski areas in British Columbia, close to Microsoft's headquarters. At the foot of Whistler Mountain, there is a saloon named Longhorn that serves the local skiing population. So I doubt Longhorn will be the final name.

OSX set a new standard for the graphical OS (just one of them being hardware rendered windows). It will be standard to use the GPU (Graphical Processing Unit, your video card) for window rendering very soon. One big thing is this will solve is the transparency issues both Windows and Linux have had (they've both been faking it). One reason this had to take longer for PCs is that Apple can just decide "All new hardware we ship will have a GPU that our OS needs." Microsoft doesn't have this luxury, so they have to make sure GPUs are widespread and supported incase of driver error or missing 3d card. Since Longhorn is also, perhaps, 4 years away, Linux should have something similar by then (judging from Project LookingGlass and Y Windows).

I'm interested to see what Longhorn will contribute but perhaps they shouldn't have announced all the planned features so soon. They seem to be pulling back a lot of big features, and some of the hype seems rather transparent. For example, WinFS will just be a layer on NTFS that adds journaling (like ext2 is to ext3 is for Linux)... and though NTFS is better than Fat32, I dont like it much (like the fact it is tied to the registry of the OS you formatted it on).

Sorry if I ranted on too long. (feel free to bring up if I have any info wrong)

[zen jehad]

I think WinFS has always been a layer on to of NTFS, the scaling back of WinFS was mostly to do with Network WinFS, I'm not to sure, but I think that's what happened.

Another thing I am looking forward to is double buffered screen redraws in the explorer.

[zen jehad]

hell I took it one step further and removed xp and reinstalled 2k :)

lol, god, I've thought of doing that many a time. XP's default theme is like something a cat has regurgitated, Classic is what I end up going back to.

Longhorn though, has a really sweet GUI, minimal, no funky gradients, looks professional, and seems to be the first decent GUI I've seen them produce for years.

[NanoGator]

Sounds like a needless resource hog.

I'm all for a nice looking interface, but personally, I'd rather have my apps run faster than having a flashy windows interface suck up all the system resources.
I guess time will tell how it turns out.

You'll change your mind when you buy a 300 dpi LCD.

[NanoGator]

"The gayest Windows ever!" will be their new motto.

"Look at me! I have an opinion!"

http://www.reflectionsoldiers.com/smilies/allhail2.gif

[Doogie]

I think WinFS has always been a layer on to of NTFS, the scaling back of WinFS was mostly to do with Network WinFS, I'm not to sure, but I think that's what happened.

Yeah, that was an example of "transparent hype" I had mentioned. I do think they had bigger plans for it that had been cut back.

[Para]

Since you asked for possible corrections/comments, here ya go:

OSX set a new standard for the graphical OS (just one of them being hardware rendered windows). It will be standard to use the GPU (Graphical Processing Unit, your video card) for window rendering very soon.

Actually OSX has been ripping Longhorn features for their two latest builds (can't remember the code names, I'm not a zoologist ;)). Apple only managed to get those features out in a fairly reasonable time frame since they just added those features to an existing OS. It's possible though that Apple has to draw at least the HTML-based GUI thingie away because of copyrights and patents, but we'll see what happens...

One reason this had to take longer for PCs is that Apple can just decide "All new hardware we ship will have a GPU that our OS needs."

So true. It took MS years to get to the point when they could actually tell Intel that they need create a DX9 compliant on-board graphics chip (in case you didn't know, Intel is actually the biggest graphics chip manufacturer in the world) and seems like those chips are finally arriving in about 2 years.

They seem to be pulling back a lot of big features, and some of the hype seems rather transparent. For example, WinFS will just be a layer on NTFS that adds journaling (like ext2 is to ext3 is for Linux)...

Only "mistake" I saw in your post. WinFS is a layer to NTFS, that true but it's not just a journaling service. It's kinda hard to explain but I think the easiest way to describe it is that with WinFS you can have thousands of files in the same folder with zero-information naming scheme (like file0001.mp3, file0002.mp3 and so on) and what you actually see is those files arranged by either the album name, artist, length etc. meta data that exists for the files. That meta data can be hooked to any file in WinFS meaning that you can just write a description to a file (like "VID0239.avi - Me with my family on the beach during summer holiday") and later on perform a super-fast search for all of your holiday movies. One of the differences to ext2/ext3 is that WinFS doesn't need to be updated on a daily basis by a script or a line of code to be up-to-date.

[Ondrayce]

Longhorn System Requirements:
http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,1995,1581842,00.asp

Microsoft is expected to recommend that the "average" Longhorn PC feature a dual-core CPU running at 4 to 6GHz; a minimum of 2 gigs of RAM; up to a terabyte of storage; a 1 Gbit, built-in, Ethernet-wired port and an 802.11g wireless link; and a graphics processor that runs three times faster than those on the market today

I thought the operating system was supposed to operate the computer, not the other way around.

[Doogie]

Para> I remembered the file thing, but didn’t think it was that big of a deal since Shake has been doing that since I started using it. I knew it was going to be more than just journaling... I'm just disappointed it's still NTFS. (fast searching will be much appreciated)

Of course Apple rips off other operating systems (everyone rips off each other). It's always been that some of their newly touted features were originally shareware apps integrated in to the OS. But I dont think I really have to tell anyone that OSX was a big step that raised the bar for what's expected in an OS.


As for the system requirements, that sorta reminds me of 2-4 years ago when I heard what was expected for Doom3. Longhorn isn't designed to run on computers sold today, but the ones that will be sold in more than 2 years from now. That's something incredibly hard to judge. I'm sure there's incredible leeway in their design. Heck, I can get rid of all the visual designs in WinXP (and extra services) and have my RAM usage be lower than a stock Win2k install.

[zen jehad]

Yeah, that was an example of "transparent hype" I had mentioned. I do think they had bigger plans for it that had been cut back.
Not really though. Although MS said they will cut some features in the initial release of LH, the only thing of note are certain aspects of the networking featires of WinFS. In reality though, this has virtually no obvious effects on the client version, and mainly to do with those usnig the server version. I guess the initial feeling to MS saying this makes one think that there is a problem in Redmond, but if you look at what they did, it's really got no impact for the vast majority of users.

[zen jehad]

Those system requirements above are bogus and are not what LH requires to run. They were dismissed a while ago.

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