I wonder if the modern UI on windows 8 is designed for 2d GPUs (ie EGA/VGA)

[Hugo Drax]

Whenever I look at windows 8 2d 16 color flat no 3d whatsoever Modern UI, I get the impression it was designed to operate fine on a 2D card like a SuperVGA adapter from 1991, ie Diamond speedstar with a Cirrus logic bitblit accelerator.


Maybe there is some plans for a supercheap 100-150 dollar laptops in the future that will not be able to do 3D graphics at all and this is the reason Windows 8 is designed for such a low common denominator visual hardware.

IT makes sense that they have to hide the charms and made the UI scroll sideways, for future 640x480 8 inch laptops?

 

[Nothinman]

That seems extremely unlikely. Even the cheapest SoCs have some level of hardware acceleration so there's really nothing to be gained by targeting hardware from over 2 decades ago.

 

[paul878]

Windows 8 just don't make sense. Hope MS do a better job with Windows 9.

 

[Dahak]

Windows 8 just don't make sense. Hope MS do a better job with Windows 9.

nope, if you read the leaked news about Windows Blue, its going to be more the same. Tweaked Modern UI

 

[Hugo Drax]

That seems extremely unlikely. Even the cheapest SoCs have some level of hardware acceleration so there's really nothing to be gained by targeting hardware from over 2 decades ago.

Well they must have some idea for taking back the desktop 2 decades. Why use EGA/VGA type UI elements then. Especially in an era where people now own desktops that can do 100 Gigaflops LINPACK (that blow away 18 million dollar super crays in the 90s) and GPUs (ie your basic intel 4000 HD on the cpu) that blow away 50 thousand dollars+ graphic visualization systems 2 decades ago.

Microsoft must be thinking something big if they choose to ignore 20 years of progress in terms of HW technology and roll the clock back to 1991.

 

[Nothinman]

Well they must have some idea for taking back the desktop 2 decades. Why use EGA/VGA type UI elements then. Especially in an era where people now own desktops that can do 100 Gigaflops LINPACK (that blow away 18 million dollar super crays in the 90s) and GPUs (ie your basic intel 4000 HD on the cpu) that blow away 50 thousand dollars+ graphic visualization systems 2 decades ago.

Microsoft must be thinking something big if they choose to ignore 20 years of progress in terms of HW technology and roll the clock back to 1991.

The look and feel may seem toned down, but according to everything I've read it's still hardware accelerated. They just dropped the "bling" of glass and made the desktop match the aesthetics of Metro.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/...celerating-everything-windows-8-graphics.aspx

 

[Hugo Drax]

The look and feel may seem toned down, but according to everything I've read it's still hardware accelerated. They just dropped the "bling" of glass and made the desktop match the aesthetics of Metro.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/...celerating-everything-windows-8-graphics.aspx

The dropped more than just the "bling" I mean look how stark this new UI elements look. Its white on white. It is like running an old windows version of excel on a EGA screen. I do not see other than basic bitblit and 2d rectangle draws etc.. does the 3D gpu have anything to do except sit idle.

A Cirrus Logic CL-GD5434 should be able to handle all the Metro UI needs.

 

[Nothinman]

The dropped more than just the "bling" I mean look how stark this new UI elements look. Its white on white. It is like running an old windows version of excel on a EGA screen. I do not see other than basic bitblit and 2d rectangle draws etc.. does the 3D gpu have anything to do except sit idle.

A Cirrus Logic CL-GD5434 should be able to handle all the Metro UI needs.

Windows and Office aren't the same thing and neither does Office use anything in Metro/Modern UI. The color scheme they chose for Office 2013 is definitely crap and they need to release an update that gives more contrast, but you can't determine how the thing is drawn by it's look and feel. Just because it's flat with solid colors doesn't mean they're back to using old bitblt drawing for it.

 

[Gunbuster]

The new UI is about pushing content forward. 99% of the time you don't use charms so it makes no sense to have them on screen all the time.

The other options are a 3D interface with explosions and lens flare to open an app, or maybe a full 3D personal jet you have to navigate through end up at a faux leather calendar like apple...

 

[ViRGE]

Windows and Office aren't the same thing and neither does Office use anything in Metro/Modern UI. The color scheme they chose for Office 2013 is definitely crap and they need to release an update that gives more contrast, but you can't determine how the thing is drawn by it's look and feel. Just because it's flat with solid colors doesn't mean they're back to using old bitblt drawing for it.

Exactly. Dropping of transparancy was arguably for optimization reasons. But flat, primary colors instead of gradients and patterns? That's entirely for aesthetic reasons; it has no impact on performance.

They're following the rest of the industry in styles right now. Everything from Mac OS X to websites like The Verge and AnandTech are doing the same thing. Flat primary colors are the "in" thing at the moment.

 

[Imaginer]

The new UI is about pushing content forward. 99% of the time you don't use charms so it makes no sense to have them on screen all the time.

The other options are a 3D interface with explosions and lens flare to open an app, or maybe a full 3D personal jet you have to navigate through end up at a faux leather calendar like apple...

And I like that with the Modern applications. On a touch screen and desktop, it feels cleaner in terms of workspace. I wish more software developers jump on this like hiding the ribbon till you pull it up. Of course, frequently accessed functions that should be there all the time should still exist, but not to the proliferation as it was before.

Just like the minor start button. (though it always has been there, just that redundancy and mouse moving inefficiencies had been removed on screen - I am talking about the windows key on any current keyboard and the windows button on laptops/tablets nowadays)

 

[JimmiG]

Exactly. Dropping of transparancy was arguably for optimization reasons. But flat, primary colors instead of gradients and patterns? That's entirely for aesthetic reasons; it has no impact on performance.

They're following the rest of the industry in styles right now. Everything from Mac OS X to websites like The Verge and AnandTech are doing the same thing. Flat primary colors are the "in" thing at the moment.

I don't know - the flat 2D look seems to be unique to Windows 8 at the moment:
http://blogs.parallels.com/consumer...esktop-7-supports-os-x-108-mountain-lion.html

Look at the screenshot - Windows 8 is the one that stands out as looking totally different. OSX looks more similar to Win7 than Win8.

Even Android and iOS look like a "normal" user interface, adapted for smaller touch-enabled screens. They may not support multiple, re-sizable windows, but they still have the concept menus, combo-boxes, checkboxes and 3D-like icons representing real-world objects rather than the flat, 2-colored 2D "tiles" of Win8.

This is the only thing that comes close to the look of Win8:
http://iwastesomuchtime.com/on/?i=37153

 

[ViRGE]

I don't know - the flat 2D look seems to be unique to Windows 8 at the moment:
http://blogs.parallels.com/consumer...esktop-7-supports-os-x-108-mountain-lion.html

Look at the screenshot - Windows 8 is the one that stands out as looking totally different. OSX looks more similar to Win7 than Win8.

I don't know. Get rid of the wallpaper for something flatter, and you'll see just how flat Mac OS X is.

http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/ViRGE/MacOSX10_8.jpg

It still has slight gradients, but for the most part it's blue, white, and grey everywhere. In fact it's a small miracle they didn't get rid of drop-shadows (yet).

It's definitely not as flat as Windows 8, and I'll grant you that. In this case I would argue that MS is still following a trend started elsewhere; they just cranked it up to 11 in the process.

 

[Hugo Drax]

I don't know. Get rid of the wallpaper for something flatter, and you'll see just how flat Mac OS X is.

http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/ViRGE/MacOSX10_8.jpg

It still has slight gradients, but for the most part it's blue, white, and grey everywhere. In fact it's a small miracle they didn't get rid of drop-shadows (yet).

It's definitely not as flat as Windows 8, and I'll grant you that. In this case I would argue that MS is still following a trend started elsewhere; they just cranked it up to 11 in the process.

Notice the subtle shadows etc.. indicating two windows overlapping. Also take note of the subtle gradations and differences between the UI elements which make it easy to determine different functional areas etc..

OS X has a minimal look but it is nothing like the stark EGA look that windows 8 provides.

What Windows 8 has is totally flat 2D and seems to act as if it was designed for a hardware/palette starved bitblit accelerators of 1990 but with lower than SVGA 256 colors.

Lots of white spaces in windows 8, and WinRT does not even allow overlapping windows.

WindowsRT is supposed to be the direction Microsoft is going in the future for its OS.

 

[Nothinman]

Notice the subtle shadows etc.. indicating two windows overlapping. Also take note of the subtle gradations and differences between the UI elements which make it easy to determine different functional areas etc..

OS X has a minimal look but it is nothing like the stark EGA look that windows 8 provides.

What Windows 8 has is totally flat 2D and seems to act as if it was designed for a hardware/palette starved bitblit accelerators of 1990 but with lower than SVGA 256 colors.

Lots of white spaces in windows 8, and WinRT does not even allow overlapping windows.

WindowsRT is supposed to be the direction Microsoft is going in the future for its OS.

I think you're reading way too much into things here.

 

[dawks]

I think you're reading way too much into things here.

Yea, really. It has nothing do to with a Cirrus Logic graphics chip from the early 90's. Its all about style and design. Design goes in trends just like everything else. Right now multiple LED's are the in-thing for car head lights.

The interface may very well be using some of the most advanced DirectX features available on high end systems these days. Won't stop the designers from going simplistic. But even low end cards that support DX9 have plenty of power for Win8 UI elements.

That drop shadow show in ViRGE's screenshot definitely takes some horsepower to render, especially when the windows are moving around. Looks clean and simple but the alpha blending pushes GPU's nicely.

Maybe we can take this a step further and postulate that a Microsoft Manager is a shareholder in Matrox and he wants to increase Matrox sales by dumbing down the Windows UI so it can run on their slow-ass chips, increase their sales and the MSFT Manager can retire on his huge Matrox shares.. I bet thats why!

 

[zCypher]

I think you're reading way too much into things here.

Yup. Microsoft has designed 8 to run better on less hardware, not older hardware. It supports most of the latest hardware out of the box, which can't be said about Vista or 7 anymore. It is an evolution of their OS in more or less every sense, the only debate is whether you like the new Metro UI and whether you think it was a shitty thing for Microsoft to force it. The rest can't really be denied, tons of improvements are made to the OS and I don't think any of them have anything to do with reverting the OS to run only on limited hardware, to trap us all in 640x480 with 16 colors. LOL.

Typing this on a 2560x1440 screen, and it looks great! Mind you, I don't use the Metro UI, but the rest of the OS exhibits the same flatness.

 

[lxskllr]

I like the look of Win8. I have problems with usability, but based solely on appearance, I think it looks good.