Windows VISTA Reviewed by CNET: "Warmed Over XP"

[schmosef]

I've wondered about this for awhile now. How is it possible that MS can create a GUI (Aero) that is incapable of being used on hardware (specifically graphics adapters) that other platforms have no trouble with. To be more clear, how is it that OS X's GUI has been capable of (almost) all that Aero is since its release?

This is not an Apple is better than MS comment either, because I truly believe MS could have easily made Aero run on older hardware. So it either comes down to ineptitude in coding or playing into the wishes of the hardware and system vendors (as in helping generate sales).

Apple gets much more control of what hardware their OS runs on. They can be very specific in the way they optimize their APIs. Microsoft has to take a much more general approach. Microsoft wanted to ensure a certain baseline user experience; they had to draw the line somewhere.

Video cards that don't support Aero (like anything from Matrox) will still work (and from what I once read on Matrox's support forums they work very well) with Vista.

[Jessterw]

That's not my point. My point is that Apple was providing the capability for Aero-style effects in their OS on hardware that is now several years old. Nevermind the current hardware that PCs and Macs have in common that Aero either won't run on or is downgraded.

MS' reasoning behind the compatibility levels for Aero was more than just a technical decision, though I don't doubt that it was partly a case of their wanting to provide this sort of GUI without having the time to truly optimize it.

[Hulk]

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/01/29/xp-vs-vista/index.html

Not good.

[DGhost]

Brian - Intel's drivers for the GMA950 chipsets have come a long way even between the drivers included inbox and the ones now available on Intel's site.

You are right, most companies like that won't upgrade. In fact, most of Microsoft's business is not going to come out of retail sales. It's going to come out of new PC purchases and business liscences. Most businesses are not going to simply upgrade to Vista without upgrading other software either - when they do upgrade they will upgrade the whole platform and all the software.

I worked computer service for a while and most of the time, even when replacing broken business computers, we reinstalled the old Windows version and all the old software unless there was a specific reason it couldn't be installed. We were still doing Win98 installs in the days of Windows XP.

Jesster - Does OS X 10.4 support higher end effects on legacy hardware?

Nope. Not according to Apple.

Quartz Extreme
Some appealing graphics effects, such as the "rotating cube" effect you see when using Fast User Switching to switch users, are powered by Quartz Extreme. Quartz Extreme uses OpenGL and a supported graphics card to reduce the number of onscreen calculations being performed by the CPU. To take advantage of Quartz Extreme, you need one of the following graphics cards:

ATI: Any AGP-based ATI RADEON GPU, with 16 MB VRAM or better.
NVIDIA: NVIDIA GeForce2 MX or later, with 16 MB VRAM or better.
Core Image
Other graphics effects and optimizations in Tiger, such as the ripple effect that shows when you place a widget on Dashboard, are driven by Core Image. When a programmable GPU is present, Core Image uses the graphics card for image processing operations, freeing the CPU for other tasks. To take advantage of Core Image, you need one of the following graphics cards:

ATI Mobility Radeon 9700
ATI Radeon 9550, 9650, 9600, 9600 XT, 9800 XT, X800 XT
nVidia GeForce FX Go 5200
nVidia GeForce FX 5200 Ultra
nVidia GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL, 6800 GT DDL
If you have a different card, contact the manufacturer for Core Image compatibility information.

Hmm. The minimum requirements are quite similar to Aero Glass's...

Lemme travel back in time to the various versions of Quartz Extreme... First up was what was introduced in 10.2, which simply used the graphics card to combine the different rendered textures. Windows rendering was still handled by the processor. Next improvement came in 10.4, which introduced Quartz 2D Extreme and Core Image. Quartz 2D Extreme bumped it up to allow the graphics card to actually aid in the rendering of the textures. Details are sketchy on support for this, although it appears it was not enabled by default and it was not widely supported by video card drivers. Then Core Image enables fancy effects and faster video rendering, but it requires a DX9 class graphics card.

Kinda funny story though... Microsoft has, since late 2001/early 2002 been pushing DirectX 9 as the platform for Aero Glass, although at the time it was referred to as GDI+ 2.0. They were pushing design specs to developers and details came to light by WinHEC 2002. It was spec'd from the start to include support for everything OS X 10.4 introduced and when they demoed it in 2003 it was working, although obviously not final build quality.

It's not that Apple's product is technically superior. It's that 1) the community receives less attention, 2) they market it better, and 3) they control the platform. They didn't start shipping graphics cards that supported Quartz Extreme as a standard option until their 2002 product line, and even then it was limited to their PowerMac G4 line. The PowerBook G4 was *not* capable of it until their fall refresh (the Gigabit ethernet edition). Simply put, when they released OS X 10.2 most Mac's were *not* capable of taking advantage of it. Users either had to upgrade their hardware or buy new computers in order to support it.

It's easier to look back and see where a platform has succeeded than it is to look back and see how it sucked when it was released.

This is why I am so pissed off that Intel decided not to support the GMA900 products in Vista, despite the fact there should be nothing holding them back except drivers. If they supported it, a lot of computers sold in the last 2 years would support it out of box. Unfortunately, Intel would rather sell new chips than allow people to make do with what they have.

[Jessterw]

What I was driving at is that many of the effects that Aero (Glass) utilizes has been done on other platforms on lesser hardware than that which Aero can. True, Core Image and Quartz Extreme are newer and do require newer hardware than what the previous graphics engines did.

Side note: what you quoted isn't entirely based in reality as my iBook has a Radeon 9200 and will work with Core Image and Quartz Extreme (some tweaking is necessary obviously). Apple was pushing hardware sales more than anything. I'm sure that the same might be true of Aero on both counts.

I wasn't arguing for technical superiority anyhow, I was arguing that MS is crippling the user experience to an extent that they shouldn't have to. I've played with Vista a bit and it's readily apparent that MS either did not feel the need or have the time to truly optimize the graphics engine/code. It's not a knock against MS so much as it's an indication of the restraints they were under to get Vista shipped.

[DGhost]

Understood.

On a purely technical standpoint, I am willing to bet that Microsoft decided to target DX9 as the platform so that they could offer a consistant user experience. Instead of having several different versions, with different effects and different code paths, they have one. They were looking at what PC's in 2005 would be shipping with and realistically DX9 cards were quite prevalent then. Indeed, the Intel GMA900 was released in 2004 and is perfectly capable of supporting it. Realistically, the market was ready. I believe every major vendor had a DX9 integrated graphics chipset in 2005. The delays they faced probably just reinforced the decision.

You have to remember that the Parhelia was originally billed as being GDI+ 2.0 compatable, way back when it was released. Then it magically disappeared off their spec sheet... Of course, it has also gone through numerous changes since then... there was the code reset in 2004 where they switched from the Whistler codebase to the Server 2003 codebase. There have been numerous rewrites of components between then and RTM as they migrated components out of kernel mode into user mode. Lots of tweaks to the driver spec, etc. Hell, it's amazing developers have working drivers out now. Performance will only improve as the hardware vendors optimize their products.

Interesting that you can get a 9200 to work with Core Image... I was under the impression that it required pixel shaders which are only supported under OpenGL 2.0 - something not entirely supported on the 9200. It makes me wonder if they have a software GL2 implementation in there that it uses...

[Jessterw]

Well not everything works very well or at all under Core Image, so it's possible there is some sort of software support in there.

I think I'm more nonplussed about Aero because on the system I had a play with it on, it was far from the fluid experience I expected. This was using the most recent public pre-release version on a brand new Vista-ready system from Dell.

As an aside, is it just me or does the whole glass look strain anyone else's eyes? The amount of visual distortion that happens with a number of windows open ruins whatever appeal Aero Glass had going for it. But that's neither here nor there.

[Dr Mordrid]

Slower in encoding is no suprise, and IMO if I need a quadcore to run as fast as todays dualcore they can keep the SOB. Pffftttt...

[VJ]

Windows Vista: 15 Reasons to Switch

1. Interface
Make XP look like vista (ok, no glass, but with a Matrox card you don't have it anyway)

2. alt + TAB with preview
TaskswitchXP
alt+tab replacement powertoy

3. taskbar thumbnails
Visual task tips

4. readyboost
Seems one way of upping the minimal requirements...

5. performance tools
Plenty of those around

6. security
Most of us already run a third party fire wall and spyware blocker

7. search
google desktop anyone?

8. widgets
Samurize

and the list goes on...


I'm not saying not to switch, I'm just pointing out that all the reasons that are cited to encourage one to make the switch can be overcome in XP alone. Very few are technical reasons, most are simply aestethic. Until the OS has proven its security, I'm not buying into their "security aspects".

Most softwares (and even drivers) are still in beta when it comes to their Vista versions. So until that is settled, I'm not switching. I'm currently running a Vista installation on a VMWare for test purposes, and apparently one has to activate it or it craps out after a month (which is quite a pain if you don't have internet on that PC).


Jörg

[Jerry Jones]

PC MAGAZINE on Windows Vista: "Look Before You Leap"

Link to article: http://tinyurl.com/2gpkju

Cons: Hefty hardware requirements. Minor bugs and rough edges in UI. Lack of a killer app to compel adoption. Many features also available for Windows XP users.

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[schmosef]

Microsoft needs their own version of the iLife suite. Gates promised it. I hope they deliver.

[Jessterw]

Well MS essentially already has the majority of the iLife applications covered with Windows Media Player, Photo Gallery, Movie Maker and DVD Maker. So you're really only missing a GarageBand and iWeb (which is crap anyhow) equivalent.

I couldn't say whether any of those are on-par with or superior to their iLife counterparts.

Even if MS did introduce an iLife-like suite that offered advantages over the aforementioned in-built applications, I'm not sure they would match Apple's pricing scheme for iLife ($79, or $20 for a 5-license family pack).

[ND66]

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/01/...sta/index.html

Not good.

But why, is it because of the Aero graphics thing????

...OpenGL support was dropped along the way, meaning that Windows Vista currently offers horrible performance for graphics applications utilizing the Open Graphics Library.

I was shocked to see the benchmarks for UGS NX and other designing software.
Does all the software has to be rewritten for Vista or will the Open GL come later?
If Microsoft makes the Open GL obsolete, this could be a pill too hard to swallow for many designing software companies out there.

.

[Nowhere]

...
Brian - I should mention that I generally also come from the standpoint of video game development/etc. Intel Integrated graphics have completely killed the low end PC's capability to play games. They are still almost directly descended from the i740 graphics core and and still do not play most recent games well. Vertex Shaders are supported only in software, they can barely handle running of legacy applications, and Intel's driver team really doesn't even bother with compatability testing. It's a mess, and it prevents most of the computer market from ever getting involved with mainstream gaming.
...

it goes the other way, most of the computer market doesn't care about gaming anyway...

[DGhost]

@ND66 - Microsoft changed the way video drivers interact with the system. One of the sideaffects of it was that it broke the way OpenGL ICD's interacted with the system when the compositing desktop was enabled. End result of this is all major vendors have had to modify their OpenGL ICD in order to get it to work.

As of today both ATI and NVidia have OpenGL stacks that work under Vista. Both companies, however, will acknowledge that there is massive performance degredation with them due to the fact they are new and unoptimized drivers.

This is, essentially, no different from when Windows XP was released. XP did not ship with any sort of hardware accelerated OpenGL ICD. Instead, it included an OpenGL->DirectX translation layer (which is still in Vista, btw). Most vendors did not have optimized OpenGL ICD's at the time (NVidia was one of the few, due to their awesome Windows 2000 support) and there was a performance hit for quite a while when using OpenGL under XP.

It took ATI forever and a day to get performance to a reasonable level. I don't think they ever did get XP/OpenGL performance on the pre 9xxx series Radeons to even come close to their 9x performance. They wound up having to rewrite the OpenGL ICD at some point just because it was so poorly performing.

Anyways. End result is that it's going to take a little bit for OpenGL to get up to speed on Vista.

@Nowhere - true. Unfortunately, if Intel had actually bothered trying to support gaming on the GMA900 or GMA950 cores, then they might not be having such a rough time with Vista.