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    Home Latest News

      Microsoft Reinvents Desktop Graphics in Windows Longhorn

      By
      Dave Salvator
      -
      July 30, 2004
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        Microsoft Corp. is working away on the next-generation of Windows, code-named Longhorn, due in 2006. According to developers, the new operating system will reshape the Windows graphics architecture, from 2D to 3D, with the Windows Graphics Foundation.

        The new architecture was given a sneak peek at Microsofts Meltdown conference, which is all about building games on Windows. Originally started as a compatibility test-fest for hardware makers and software developers, the event has matured into a Windows game developer convention. Highlights from this years gathering, held July 27th and 28th in Seattle, included presentations about the companys XNA development tools and how to get the most out of Direct3D and DirectSound.

        One of the more exciting parts of the conference was a talk entitled “DX Futures,” where the Redmond software giant went over some of the architectural details of Longhorns graphics architecture, which have some big in changes in store for Direct3D.

        During the event, 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 WGF (Windows Graphics Foundation), this new architecture will usher in some major changes to how 3D graphics operations get handled by Longhorn.

        These WGF changes extend well beyond Longhorns Avalon technology, which will render the Windows Desktop using a GPUs 3D graphics processing power rather than the traditional 2D blitter. The foundation will instead define the core 3D operations themselves.

        For starters, it appears that, as some rumors have suggested, the distinction between vertex and pixel shaders will essentially go away. Instead, there will be what Microsoft is calling a Common Shader Core that will contain vertex and pixel shader operations.

        Blythe hinted that other kinds of shaders may become available in this framework, though he declined to elaborate as to what those might be. Some possible features that could be added here would be collision detection, and more interestingly, physics calculations. Theres been a fair amount of published work coming out of academia about using GPUs floating-point horsepower to model fluid dynamics, and the movement of gaseous clouds (like smoke).

        The line between vertex and pixel shader ops and instructions has been blurring for some time already. There was even some speculation that ATI pushed the R400 out to be the R500 because this architecture was going to try to unify its vertex and pixel shader units. It would appear WGF will lay the groundwork for that unification.

        Other major changes call for the GPU to be available to multiple applications simultaneously. Blythe articulated what he termed a “crawl/walk/run” strategy, where an initial feature set would be introduced in WGF 1.0, when Longhorn ships. Other features would be folded in as they became stable and ready for release.

        For instance, WGFs scheduler will be tasked with keeping multiple 3D applications fed and happy. This scheduler will likely have a three-step rollout:

        1. Schedule batches
        2. Schedule contexts
        3. Preemptive context scheduling

        Given Avalons 3D-centric architecture, this feature will be crucial to keeping Longhorn running smoothly in multitasking environments, where each application requires ready access to its displayed data.

        We have some concern that the word “preemptive” doesnt appear until the third stage of this rollout. Windows has had a preemptive multitasking model since Windows 95, and that model has worked fairly well.

        /zimages/1/28571.gifApple is touting the graphics of its forthcoming Mac OS X 10.4, aka “Tiger.” Click here to see a slide show of the images.

        However, if an applications display processing chores cant preemptively be given higher priority when that app comes into the foreground focus, we wonder if there might be some perceptible latency as other instructions are retired and the in-focus apps processing gets the drivers full attention. The answer to that question will likely have to wait until the Longhorn beta sometime next year.

        One of the first orders of business in 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 whats known as user mode. This initiative dovetails with the Longhorn Display Driver Model (LDDM), outlined at this years WinHEC conference.

        /zimages/1/28571.gifTo read the full ExtremeTech story, click here.

        Dave Salvator
        Dave came to have his insatiable tech jones by way of music8212,and because his parents wouldn't let him run away to join the circus. After a brief and ill-fated career in professional wrestling, Dave now covers audio, HDTV, and 3D graphics technologies at ExtremeTech.Dave came to ExtremeTech as its first hire from Computer Gaming World, where he was Technical Director and Lead (okay, the only) Saxophonist for five years. While there, he and Loyd Case pioneered the area of testing 3D graphics using PC games. This culminated in 3D GameGauge, a suite of OpenGL and Direct3D game demo loops that CGW and other Ziff-Davis publications, such as PC Magazine, still use.Dave has also helped guide Ziff-Davis benchmark development over the years, particularly on 3D WinBench and Audio WinBench. Before coming to CGW, Dave worked at ZD Labs for three years (now eTesting Labs) as a project leader, testing a wide variety of products, ranging from sound cards to servers and everything in between. He also developed both subjective and objective multimedia test methodologies, focusing on audio and digital video. Before all that he toured with a blues band for two years, notable gigs included opening for Mitch Ryder and appearing at the Detroit Blues Festival.
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