As always Microsoft creates a lot of hoopla around the birth of their new operating systems, and the unveiling of Windows Vista (aka “the OS formerly known as Longhorn”) hasn’t been an excpetion either. A collegue of mine drew my attention to some detailed information about Vista and the way it is going to work with games. Well, on the surface there is a lot going to change. If it’s all for the better? I don’t know.
Now, let’s look at some details that came through:
“Vista uses the Windows Graphics Foundation, or WGF. WGF 1.0 will use DirectX 9.0c as its primary interface, but Vista will also have the Next-Gen 3D API build in. You can see it as DirectX 10, but it’s officially called WGF 2.0.
One of the important features of WGF is the Longhorn Display Driver Model (LDDM). It is possible with LDDM to install a new graphics driver without even rebooting your system.”
Now, there is a nice advantage I like. Even with Linux you need to restart the X-Windows-server if you change the driver. I suspect that Vista has some kind of mechanism like that as well (so it just restarts the GUI in the background instead of rebooting the whole PC)
Now some more details:
“VISTA CHANGES PC INTO GAME-CONSOLE
Dean Lester, the General Manager of Windows Graphics and Gaming says Microsoft is making the gaming-functionality of Windows Vista the same as a modern game-console, but wants to keep the advantages of PC gaming like high-end graphics and sound hardware, online communities, community support and downloadable content.”
Now there is an interesting thing. Is Microsoft playing safe here, in the sense that if the new Xbox flops, they can still gamble on Vista? This snippet here is kind of reveiling:
“Microsoft has announced that the Xbox 360 controller will work on Windows Vista too. They did this because they want the game mode of Vista to be an upgraded version of the Xbox 360. The Xbox 360 and Vista both will use a new technology that makes games run at the fastest speed possible. Because Microsoft is the ‘leader’ of the Xbox and Windows, they made it possible to connect your Xbox to your PC and download special content and updates for your games, without having to subscribe anything. The Xbox 360 uses the new multiple internet connections technology seen in Update 10. Downloading files can take some time, but thats not a problem anymore, because now you can play a game offline or online and download certain files at the same time! This is one of the advantages over the PlayStation 3 and the Nintendo Revolution. The XBox 360 has a lot more advantages, but the reason for all of that is the company thats behind the Xbox, Microsoft, the most powerful software company in the world. They made sure Sony and Nintendo couldn’t make use of these new Windows technologies. So if you want compatibility between your console and your PC you’ll have to buy a Xbox 360. It looks like Microsoft again has found a way to eliminate the competition.”
But no good news without bad news. I have been really opposing the whole DRM (Digital Rights Management) thingy that the industry is proposing. Lucky I have never had to mess with it within XP. Now, with Vista it’s going to be another story:
“COPY PROTECTION
Microsoft has teamed up with Disney and a lot of music labels to improve copy protection for movies, music and software using digital rights management functionality in Vista. Microsoft said they will use heavy copy protection schemes, so users won’t be able to copy digital media. This may scare of a lot of consumers, but Microsoft doesn’t worry about that, because eventually everyone will go Vista (their words). This means no Warez anymore.”
Well, I got news for MS: I do not want to mess with DRM and shit like that. If push comes to shove, I will just go Linux! (I just upgraded to SUSE 9.3 on my old Athlon 1.33ghz).
Another good sounding feature:
“MULTIPLE INTERNET CONNECTIONS
Vista supports a new technology that has been developed. With this technology you’re able to use multiple internet connections (max 4) at the same time. For example: You have an DSL internet connection with a download speed of 100Kb/sec and a cable inter net connection of 80 Kb/sec. And you’re downloading a file from a different user who has an upload speed of 140 Kb/sec. When you’re using those two internet connections, the DSL connection starts to download 100KB/sec and the left 40 Kb/sec gets downloaded by the cable connection. This means you’ll always be downloading at top speed, as long as you can afford multiple internet connections. Because of this you’re able to play up to four different games at the same time online with just one internet connection.”
Thats nice for instance when you have a wireless connection and a regular (like I do have at work).
Now, another thing that drew my attention:
“HARDWARE FOR VISTA
Some hardware will be specially made for Vista. Before Vista will be released in 2006, Microsoft will start the biggest marketing campaign ever, not just for the most advanced piece of software ever developed by more than 80.000 people (not only Microsoft), but also for the hardware that will be developed especially for Vista. As you’ve read before, there will be special harddrives, but there will also be special videocards that will have to work constantly at 100%, extra fast memory and new dual-core processors to support the new multi-application technology Vista uses. For Vista Hyperthreading is a old technology. Vista will take full advantage of it, but compared to the new technologies of the processors that are being developed it doesn’t really help at all. There also will be newer soundcards to support the high sound quality that is possible when Vista is released. All hardware manufacturers are doing their best to get their new hardware finished before Vista is released. Microsoft promised that the prices won’t go trough the roof.”
Again: I suspect that MS works closely together with Intel. Intel almost lost the race for a 64bit platform with AMD, but now is coming back strong. The same will go for other manufacturers.
Speaking of hardware, this is one last snippet I’d like to share:
“- there will be NO graphical difference between an ATI or nVidia card anymore, the only difference will be overall performance
– WGF 2.0 allows GPU processing without CPU intervention”
Alrighty, that IS interesting.
With all the pro’s and con’t I am very interested to see this OS being launched. Maybe XP was the last OS I used, but my next step will definately be towards the 64bit platform, may it be Linux, Apple or maybe… Vista…
The original source of the story can be found here.