[Pc_Support] Re: [OT] One more time … Windows Vista system requirements

[Bryan J. Smith]

On Wed, 2006-06-07 at 11:55 -0400, Fred A. Miller wrote:
> http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=10&tag=nl.e539

On Thu, 2006-06-08 at 06:11 -0400, Mike McMullin wrote:
> It's nice to know that my video cards (on five systems) won't even
> meet the minimum Vista install standards.

Yep, you _must_ have a DirectX 9 era video card -- and you still get
_no_ GPU off-load.  That is because Windows Graphics Foundations (WGF)
1.1 is completely based on DirectX 9.  That means at least an integrated
graphics generation of NV44 (GeForce 6100) and little else -- typically
stuff that is just coming out from ATI and Intel.

So anyone who hasn't bought a PC with integrated graphics within the
past year when Vista comes out can't even run it.  Let me say that
again, I'm not talking about not running the Avalon presentation system
"well" -- I'm talking about virtually not being able to run it at all!
WGF 1.1 seems to be a pretty horrendous and inefficient API and off-load
(possibly lackthereof) for just running the old GDI/Explorer interfaces
on Avalon.

Now let's say you want to actually take advantage of GPU off-load -- the
whole reason for WGF/Avalon -- to make the experience faster and
smoother like MacOS X's QuartzExtreme, SuSE's Xgl, etc...  You're
basically dropping money on a $300 video card!  And why is that?
Because DirectX has never been (and possibly never will be) OpenGL.
Avalon really relies on serious GPU horsepower so DirectX can do basic
things that OpenGL does on hardware from 4 years ago!

Microsoft was supposed to have DirectX 10 completed by now, and Windows
Graphics Foundations (WGF) 2.0 in Vista.  That would have, allegedly,
brought DirectX up to par on OpenGL in many regards that would make
Avalon usable on lesser hardware.  From my understanding, Microsoft was
getting serious (especially now that it owns many patents) on just
leveraging various OpenGL/ARB extension support in most hardware that it
has ignored for the longest time because they're not use for games --
until now for DirectX 10 / WGF 2.0.

But in any case, WGF 2.0 is _not_ going in Vista.  Microsoft is stuck
with all the limitations of DirectX 9 in world setup, standard GPU
off-load (or lackthereof), hack upon hack to handle all the GDI/Explorer
interfaces in Avalon itself, etc...  And it really sounds a lot more
like more software layers than hardware speed-up -- stuff that Microsoft
never would have needed for gaming in DirectX 9, but now finds itself
longing and wishing it would have (let alone just stuck with OpenGL back
in the mid-'90s on Chicago in the first place, like it did NT).

Hence why Vista can't do squat on anything but on expensive, 2004+ era
leading-edge video hardware, or 2006+ chipset integrated hardware --
whereas SuSE and Fedora can take basic, 2001-2002 era hardware, or
2003-2004 chipset era integrated hardware -- and do _full_ GPU off-load.


-- 
Bryan J. Smith        Professional, technical annoyance
mailto:b.j.smith at ieee.org  http://thebs413.blogspot.com
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