Before we start discussing Longhorn's 3D UI, I'd first like to acknowledge that I think the most important information disclosed at this year's WinHEC show was regarding the Next-Generation Secure Computing Base (NGSCB), formerly known as "Palladium". Both ET and PC Mag have provided brief overviews of NGSCB here(Opens in a new window) and here(Opens in a new window). And yes, many presenters actually did pronounce the acronym as something akin to "ing-scub", to obviate the need for saying "Next Generation Secure Computing Base" or "N-G-S-C-B" over and over in their speeches…
After spending much time over the past three days in the NGSCB technical sessions (requiring miles of walking to room 385 at the far end of the incredibly long Morial Convention Center in New Orleans, where all NGSCB sessions were held), I was inundated with technical details, and I'll be condensing the volumes of important information into a (hopefully) readable story very soon. If you want to take a peek at various Microsoft NGSCB white papers first, check out www.microsoft.com/ngscb(Opens in a new window) and www.microsoft.com/resources/ngscb(Opens in a new window).
Suffice it to say, Microsoft speakers kept reiterating that NGSCB ≠ DRM, though it does appear NGSCB will help facilitate implementation of iron-clad DRM technology. Microsoft stated that NGSCB will first be targeted at helping businesses secure their computing environments, protecting billions of dollars of business assets. Many people fear that DRM is NGSCB's primary goal, but Microsoft claimed that helping Hollywood protect its assets is only a small part of the overall secure computing story.
Aside from NGSCB, there were numerous interesting sessions on Longhorn audio, video and graphics futures, and next-generation platform designs, as Loyd Case has covered in his show reports.
I attended a special presentation on the future of 3D graphics presented by Dave Kirk, Nvidia's Chief Scientist, and I'll be delivering details soon. Also, more info emerged on the NEWCARD specification, the follow-on to CardBus that was originally disclosed at IDF a few months ago, and highlights will be forthcoming. But one of the final conferences sessions that caught my interest was "Hardware Accelerated Graphics and Desktop Composition" in Windows Longhorn. I'll discuss some of the presentation slides detailing the key features of the new 3D UI, and you can watch a few video clips showing off some of the capabilities.
Literally held during the last session time-slot of the trade show, I found the presentation called "Hardware Accelerated Graphics and Desktop Composition" delivered by Kerry Hammil, a Program Manager in the Windows Client Platform Group at Microsoft quite interesting. We'll first start by discussing the two Tiers of UI "experiences", an overused term Loyd rightly mocked in his WinHEC Day Three Report(Opens in a new window). I'm also really sick of hearing the term "ecosystem" overused when referring to the environment and support structure surrounding every new technology introduced by MS and Intel lately too. OK, rant over, so lets get back to the story.
Kerry actually described more than just the key features of the new 3D Desktop Composition Engine, adding in details on how Longhorn will handle high pixel-density displays, hardware-accelerated vector graphics, images, 3D, and ClearType text, along with core design requirements for graphics hardware subsystems for Longhorn systems.
Users will get two new Longhorn UI experiences, the first being called Tier 1 (not the final name), a DX-7 baseline that all Longhorn systems must support. The more advanced Tier 2 requires high-end DX9-based hardware.
It's likely that users will be able to switch between Tiers depending on their circumstances. And corporations who want to gradually ease into the new UI Tiers of experience might first opt to use a provided Windows 2000 compatibility mode, until they ramp up their support staff.
Rather than recreate the wheel and rewrite Kerry's slides, we'll present some of them below starting with the Tier 1 and Tier 2 definitions.
Editor's Note: after this story was originally published, ET forum contributor "Cafemomo" mentioned Apple has being up and running with their Quartz Compositor engine in OS X, which is now hardware accelerated as Quartz Extreme in Mac OS X 10.2 (Jaguar), and that MS is once again playing catch-up and acting as if it's new stuff.
Below is a slide depicting the lack of 3D acceleration in today's Windows desktop UI. Ever notice how annoying it can be when you move an overlaid window elsewhere on your screen, and a white spot is left in the space of the underlying window -- which must be repainted? That's a typical artifact of the 2D GDI-based UI processing today.
And here's a definition of 3D desktop composition, where D3D is used to render the desktop. Yes, it will be similar to how 3D applications are rendered, with multiple frames/second. And many special 3D effects can be performed, with smooth animations, transparency, and various cool effects.
Desktop Composition will allow flicker-free animation and video playback. I expect to see many new and interesting (and probably a few not so useful) desktop interface enhancement programs after Longhorn ships. I think we'll see an exciting transformation in how information is managed and presented on the desktop. And I think we'll finally see sensible, high-speed third-party 3D interfaces created using Desktop Composition APIs – instead of the many goofy, slow, and obtuse attempts at 3D interfaces in the past.
ATI and Nvidia will also be very happy campers now that Microsoft has declared beefy DX9 graphics is required for the best Longhorn experience. Intel, on the other hand, will need to get its embedded graphics act together .
Kerry implored graphics developers to develop stable hardware and drivers. The Windows 3D UI must be rock-solid, since it's the primary system interface for the user.
The next page details technical requirements for a Tier 2 experience.
As mentioned, a graphics card must be ultra stable to provide 3D UI functions to the OS. Here's a list of key qualities:
The Tier 2 experience can work on desktops, laptops, and Tablet PCs, and of course power consumption will be a big deal in mobile designs. Rendering 3D UI surfaces is resource-intensive, and the GPU must handle many of the chores. Therefore, Microsoft has defined specific Tier 2 operational requirements for the graphics subsystem, including the graphics driver, basic GPU features, video memory, and video bus bandwidth, as seen in the following four slides.
Note that while videos can be played back as textures (a standard GPU feature for some time now), applications using video overlays will not work with the Desktop Composition Engine, and Microsoft must figure out how to support the large variety of video applications that presently use overlays.
Finally, here are a few short videos showing some of the features of the Tier 2 UI.