DirectX 9.0 Desktop for Longhorn??

[cbuchach]

I have been reading some of the info related to the newly announced chip by 3DLabs and was intrigued by what was being said about Longhorn. What I gathered is that Longhorn will basically have Direct3D running all the time and use it to display the desktop and program windows and all that. I really hadn't heard anything about this prior to today and was wondering if anyone might have any more in depth information regarding this aspect of Longhorn, ie., any good weblinks or personal knowledge of the next Windows release.

I guess I think that this would really be a revolutionary step for the Windows GUI. I mean I thought the WindowsXP GUI was a pretty good step up from Win2K, but if Longhorn allows texturing and 3D accelerated desktop features--that would be quite cool in my opinion.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

why dont they concentrate on making the windows gui better instead of flashier? i dont know how involved MS is with this, but they really need to improve things...i just *used* OSX for the first time last night (i had played with it a bit in stores before), and man, it kills windows. it looks a million times better, AND i can go open a terminal and be right at home, not to mention it has great multimedia capabilites (i.e. i can watch videos, dvds, etc, without hassle - unlike linux or bsd's). apple did a great job...

 

[n0cmonkey]

<< why dont they concentrate on making the windows gui better instead of flashier? i dont know how involved MS is with this, but they really need to improve things...i just *used* OSX for the first time last night (i had played with it a bit in stores before), and man, it kills windows. it looks a million times better, AND i can go open a terminal and be right at home, not to mention it has great multimedia capabilites (i.e. i can watch videos, dvds, etc, without hassle - unlike linux or bsd's). apple did a great job... >>



OT response: Told ya

 

[JetBlack69]

Here is a site that might help you:
http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/longhorn_preview.asp

Hope this helps.

 

[N11]

<< why dont they concentrate on making the windows gui better instead of flashier? i dont know how involved MS is with this, but they really need to improve things...i just *used* OSX for the first time last night (i had played with it a bit in stores before), and man, it kills windows. it looks a million times better, AND i can go open a terminal and be right at home, not to mention it has great multimedia capabilites (i.e. i can watch videos, dvds, etc, without hassle - unlike linux or bsd's). apple did a great job... >>



Funny thing, a friend of mine said the exact same thing a few days ago.

I'm almost tempted to try it out...

 

[Buddha Bart]

I wonder, if its constantly running directx, what does this mean for OpenGL games? I'm not familar with how these work, can the system run from a dirextx desktop, but kick over to an OpenGL game, and then back with out any problems? Could the game run windowed?

If this makes OpenGL games and development more of a hassel, it would be a pretty effective way of microsoft leveraging its desktop OS to take control of the gaming market, and then into 3d accelerator hardware.

bart

 

[Milliamp]

Toms hardware did a quick run down on WinHEC that covered Longhorn

 

[Skawttey]

I agree with some of the other people who said MS should make Windows better, not flashier. I would gladly have the planest GUI in the world if it was functional. I do not want my computer to be working harder to display my desktop than the latest 3D game

 

[Milliamp]

I am running XP but I killed the default fisher price UI with it and am using mostly the 2000 theme. My UI of choice would be KDE 3's .NET theme and Macromedia's new UI for their new MX line products.