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Windows Longhorn UI Videos and Screenshots | |
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| Time: 01:19 EST/06:19 GMT | News Source: PC Watch | Posted By: Jonathan Tigner | ||
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Neowin has come across screenshots and videos from WinHEC 2003 of Longhorn alpha build 4015 and some of the current capabilities of its impressive UI. The shots originate from a Japanese site called PC Watch. For those fluent in Japanese, wanting to try their luck with a translation site, or who just like looking at pictures, there is more WinHEC 2003 news at PC Watch. The rest can click the headline to proceed to Neowin. | ||
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| #1 By 2459 (69.22.78.22) at 5/9/2003 2:25:30 AM |
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Not to start another Apple vs. MS/Mac vs. Windows thread, but MS started this before Apple.
http://research.microsoft.com/ui/TaskGallery/pages/video.htm This isn't a reflex decision and it has long been planned. This dates back to 1996 http://research.microsoft.com/~dcr/talks/3dui_primer_holder.htm More info (including mockup and actual prototype UI shots) accessible from the top menu. This post was edited by n4cer on Friday, May 09, 2003 at 02:38. |
| #2 By 2459 (69.22.78.22) at 5/9/2003 3:07:01 AM |
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I was well aware of that gimmicky concept. Remembering it from years ago, I was actually going to reference it in my above post, but I opted not to, because, when you think about it, they're hardly the same thing. The environment is still 2-D, it's only that the windows that are represented as three-dimensional sheets. The other thing was more of a series of virtual "second displays."
Task Gallery and the current UI share many concepts. Though the desktop environment of Longhorn is currently 2D in appearance, as far as I am aware, it ends there. The desktop is rendered using the GPU's 3D pipeline. It could be 3D if they wanted, but it currently has a flat Z plane. I know it wasn't a "reflex decision," as I said it was the obvious and eventual next evolution in GUI, a more complex manipulation of on-screen elements. I understand this is just a tech demo of sorts, but Microsoft isn't really accomplishing anything here. I disagree. There is a seemless mix of 3D graphics, video, and animation and the ability to perform complex, normally intensive tasks with little load on the CPU because it utilizes the 3D pipeline of the GPU. Cleartype is no longer software rendered, and is accelerated. Hardware shader effects and other GPU functions are available to the standard desktop. The windows in Longhorn aren't just accelerated, by the content in the client area as well. Windows and content can be scaled to accomedate displays with higher resolutions and pixel depths. There's a lot there if you look. I'm hoping in Longhorn for something more akin to what Apple accomplished with the "sheets" dialog boxes. The possibilities of this technology could turn the eye-roller that is that current Longhorn sidebar of sorts into something actually useful with respect to both its function and screen real estate. Apple came up with sheets mainly due to their bad handling of multitasking under previous versions of MacOS. System event dialogs would get hidden behind other windows, but would be modal so you'd wonder why you couldn't access you app. Windows hasn't really suffered from this problem because such dialogs were asociated with their parent Windows like sheets are now. For something useful (besides what's memtioned above), how about accelerating the actual drawing of UI elements and not just the compositing operations which is the only thing Apple does. Creating more generalized interfaces for devices, file formats, and UI ellements. |
| #3 By 2332 (65.221.182.2) at 5/9/2003 9:45:31 AM |
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I'm still not sure how this could be an Apple rip-off when OS X can't do any of the things shown in the videos.
As Paul says here: http://www.wininformant.com/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=38990 Quartz is very good at applying pretty effects to non-interactive events. For instance, how a window is minimized is 100% controlled by the OS, so in order to make the window bend and shrink, all the OS needs to do is take a screen shot, and distort the bitmap. Microsoft's stuff does something entirely more impressive. It can size, warp, and do nutty stuff with any window at any time in real time. As was demonstrated, a window can be warped whie in use. Now, I'm sure you could do this on a Mac by taking tons of screen shots at an almost constant rate and just displaying them as fast as you can... but you'll need a Mac that is a wee bit faster than anything available on the planet. It's just not feasible, nor is it an elegant solution. Eh, but what do I know. |
| #4 By 8589 (65.64.202.68) at 5/9/2003 12:28:19 PM |
| Longhorn 4015 has the same problem Windows 2003 Server RC2 did in regards to ATI 8500DV 64mb card and the Asus A7N8X motherboard. That is, the ATI drivers can't stay loaded, even the ones supplied by Microsoft. And 4 colors suck at 640x480 on a 20inch monitor. I even tried installing Cat3.2, but they failed to load, even after resetting to Vanilla VGA. I now it is a pre-Beta, but with Windows 2003 RC2, that should not be a problem. I know it isn't the system, as Windows XP Pro SP1 with all latest patches runs great, no video problems whatsoever. |
| #5 By 61 (65.32.171.144) at 5/9/2003 12:56:28 PM |
| EWW: Win2k3 Server comes with a great default video driver. It runs in high color high res, but doesn't have any other features that aren't needed by a server, and as such, it's a very stable driver (which is why it's the default driver, and the OS doesn't load video drivers for your specific card). |
| #6 By 3339 (66.219.95.6) at 5/9/2003 1:21:27 PM |
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RMD, I'm not sure why you think OS X is taking screenshots when I have in fact seen nearly identical presentations as these done with Quartz in Test environments... What about watching a movie shrink and expand (in slow motion) while the window plays, for example? (a feature that is actually part of the OS--not a test) This isn't a screen capture--this is the live window. I've seen similar effects produced with a live app window where during the transform you could see information being updated in real time in the window... Quartz doesn't just take a screen capture of any object before it executes a transformation.
And, yes, as I said, I've seen other tests that show the power of Quartz but are not implemented in the UI--the same as I expect for much of what we are seeing in these videos. |
| #7 By 7754 (216.160.8.41) at 5/9/2003 4:00:23 PM |
| I hope that they find some functional purposes for the technology beyond just the "ooh ahh" factor. I have nothing against a cool-looking interface, but I hope they use this technology for more than just effects for effects sake. |
| #8 By 3339 (66.219.95.6) at 5/9/2003 4:01:27 PM |
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kevin, yes, windows are textures but it doesn't mean they are not live in real-time. His perception is that everything is a screenshot under manipulation when Quartz can clearly transform windows with live data.
becker, actually Quartz can zoom windows. They have tested and hidden this feature in different builds. This capability was used as a feature to "minimize in place" but certainly the functionality is there is magnify as well... as currently, you can zoom any area of the display with Quartz using the Zoom feature now. Capabilities are one thing; enabled features are another. |
| #9 By 2332 (216.41.45.78) at 5/9/2003 4:27:04 PM |
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#12 - sodajerk ...
First off, it's not live data. It's not the output drawn by the windows. Quartz takes the output, applies it to a texture, and then resizes it. There is a big difference. With textures, you must be able to allocate enough memory to hold the entire full size version, then resize it to fit your new display area. The way Longhorn does it doesn't require this, and is therefore far more flexible and powerful. In other words, one has to ask why this "hidden" feature wasn't enabled in OS X... perhaps because it's incredibly slow? As far as the movie goes, that's not quite the same thing. A movie is rendered quite differently than a window. In fact, a movie is just a series of bitmaps written directly to video memory. It's pretty easy to size and scale that... pretty much all media players on the planet do it. As far as your zoom idea, Windows has a magnifier application that does the same thing... again, it's simply doing a somewhat intelligent texture resize. If you have some documentation that suggests otherwise, I would be interested to see it. Also, if you'd like to inform us on how to enable this secret feature of OS X, then please, do so. |
| #10 By 3339 (66.219.95.6) at 5/9/2003 4:37:37 PM |
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Yes, it is live data. There is no reason a 2D OpenGL texture cannot be updated and in fact, they are. I've seen it demonstrated which is enough for me. I've seen many, many people misinterpret how Quartz operates by citing docs--I'd much rather cite what I've seen it actually do.
Why not enable it? For one, what can you do with the live data from a window if it is in the process of being transformed through some animation into a minimized window (something that takes between a fraction of a second to two seconds anyway)? Actually, you are wrong about the video. Quartz handles QT as well. You're not knowing this indicates to me that your knowledge of Quartz is limited and circumspect to say the least. Everything that has been stated about Quartz applies to mpeg and QT movies. A QT movie is composited onto a 2d OpenGL surface. This does not have to occur in a player and it isn't restricted to scaling. I've seen movies warped into beachballs and bounce around the screen while playing outside the context of a media player. Mac System 7 had a magnifier too, but OS X's Zoom functionality is not a simple texture resize. It's a true 3D transform--displaying a slight fish-eye affect around the edges to produce a magnifying glass-looking effect. Again, this is not a simple resize, but a true 3D transform on live data. How to enable "Minimize in Place"? Copy the Dock.app from 10.1.x series and overwrite the Dock.app in 10.2.x. You now have Minimize In Place. This post was edited by sodajerk on Friday, May 09, 2003 at 16:54. |
| #11 By 3339 (66.219.95.6) at 5/9/2003 4:45:25 PM |
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Oops, I take that back. "Minimize in Place" is not in 10.1.x. It may be in a latter 10.1 build--maybe 4 or 5. And it is in "almost" all of the pre-Jaguar builds. It was removed for 10.2. (If I recall correctly.)
You can see a screenshot of it however at neowin: http://www.neowin.net/comments.php?id=10903&category=main&page=0 ...although this will not dissuade you from your impression that Quartz is incapable of transforming live data. |
| #12 By 3339 (66.219.95.6) at 5/9/2003 5:16:08 PM |
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becker, I understand the benefits of zooming a window, and that this feature isn't available in OS X currently. My point being Quartz is capable of this transformation--in fact, this window resizing is the most basic 2D scale we have discussed so far--despite what RMD is saying is IMpossible.
"Capabilities are one thing; enabled features are another. I don't really know what you meant by that..." What I mean is this is solely a technological capabilities demonstration--the sort of thing I saw 3.5 years ago for OS X. The features for Longhorn will certainly be less than what we are seeing now. In fact, reading PT's ShortTakes, it sounds like there are going to be three tiers of UI, and only the most advanced machines are going to be set to the highest tier. I also mean that Apple planned to have a very capable engine for many features that haven't appeared yet. It's a matter of how you want to do things. Release a bunch of "features" right away that aren't "useful" so they don't get used, or set up the fundamentals--teach your users that it isn't just eye candy, that it does have meaningful consequences--and then as processors and GPUs improve and your optimizations improve, introduce more features. If I haven't said it before, I have no problem with MS following Apple's lead, nor do I have concerns about MS leapfrogging Apple in some areas--what I do take issue with is someone saying Quartz can't do this, can't do that... Especially from the same people who say its all useless eye candy... I appreciate the philosophy of not unleashing many animations and transforms just because you can... but rather slowly developing meaningful and useful concepts over time and by degrees of acceptance. This post was edited by sodajerk on Friday, May 09, 2003 at 17:47. |
| #13 By 3339 (65.198.47.10) at 5/9/2003 5:50:54 PM |
| Also, becker, to clarify, the OS X zoom is not screen-wide zooming. The cursor is the area of focus, and it creates a magnifying glass effect over the areas that you focus on with the cursor. This is the clearest example I can provide of a 3D transform happening on live data. This is why I cite it: from a capabilities perspective--not a feature-parity perspective with Window Zooming. |
| #14 By 3339 (65.198.47.10) at 5/9/2003 6:00:12 PM |
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"Let’s say you are using a program that can't be resized well, who knows why, but lets just say resizing it would require scrolling. With the feature that Windows will have you could simply zoom the window you are working on to 75% and continue to use it like normal."
Actually this example doesn't hold up. If you zoom the contents of the window to 75% size, the window also resizes to 75% of it's size. So, yes, you could, Zoom Down. Which would reduce the size of the contents of the window as well as the window. Then Resize the window so that you don't have to scroll. But that's two steps instead of one (scrolling). I still see its usefulness however. "In fact, because Windows will not use pixels for drawing its windows, there may be no concept of actual-size." Is this really true? I'm curious. For one thing, most of the contents of the window are still going to be bitmaps anyway--unless it's entirely text and win-specific controls. As far as I have read, I haven't seen anything about windows being 100% vector based. In fact, everyone mention "compositing many times per second"--there is no need to composite windows if they are 100% vectors. |
| #15 By 2332 (65.221.182.2) at 5/9/2003 7:50:08 PM |
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"Yes, it is live data. There is no reason a 2D OpenGL texture cannot be updated and in fact, they are."
Sigh... obviously we have different definitions for live data. My definition is whatever is drawn on the display surface (i.e. the memory buffer) BY THE PROGRAM FROM WHICH IT ORIGINATES... not from some bitmap that's resized and redrawn continuously. "I'd much rather cite what I've seen it actually do." Incredible. So you can tell what code does based off just looking at the results? Man, you must be a human decompiler! "For one, what can you do with the live data from a window if it is in the process of being transformed through some animation into a minimized window (something that takes between a fraction of a second to two seconds anyway)?" Huh? I don't have any idea what that sentence means. Are you saying that OS X doesn't have this "feature" enabled because there is no reason for it? Then why did they create it to begin with and include it in production code? It was probably turned off because it's slow and/or a memory hog... if it exists at all, that is. "Actually, you are wrong about the video." Actually, no, I'm not. I'm not aware of any video format/player on any system that doesn't draw directly to memory buffers or VRAM. "seen movies warped into beachballs and bounce around the screen while playing outside the context of a media player" And from this you concluded that it's not being drawn directly on buffers? LOL. "It's a true 3D transform--displaying a slight fish-eye affect around the edges to produce a magnifying glass-looking effect. Again, this is not a simple resize, but a true 3D transform on live data." No, it's not... no matter how many times you say it. It's a true 3D transform on a texture which has had the output from the window captured and overlayed onto it. Of course, you can easily prove me wrong by simply providing some documentation that says otherwise. As far as your instructions for turning on these hidden features... nice try. "Minimize in Place" is just that... it minimizes windows to the main screen and not the doc. It was part of OS X Jaguar but removed later on... for some reason. Below is an interview that sheds some light on Quartz. http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/archive/macosx-talk/2003-February/007558.html |
| #16 By 3339 (66.219.95.6) at 5/9/2003 8:15:48 PM |
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"So you can tell what code does based off just looking at the results? Man, you must be a human decompiler! "
Why would understanding the code be necessary--according to you, it's impossible to produce a real time 3D effect with Quartz. Which is ridiculous and discreditable by observing with your eyes. "It was probably turned off because it's slow and/or a memory hog... if it exists at all, that is." So: your point was that Quartz wasn't capable of it. I'm just discrediting that claim. "Actually, no, I'm not. I'm not aware of any video format/player on any system that doesn't draw directly to memory buffers or VRAM. " Who's talking about a format or a player. Quartz can pipe QT/mpeg through the GPU. Insist it doesn't all you want, you will only further demonstrate that you don't understand Quartz. "And from this you concluded that it's not being drawn directly on buffers? LOL." No, from all the docs, specs, literature, Apple employees I've spoken to who have informed me and from my own clear as day experience of seeing video transformations which I know are using QE. "It's a true 3D transform on a texture which has had the output from the window captured and overlayed onto it." The 2D surfaces are being composited--those surfaces are live. They are not "screenshots" until they've been pumped through the QE compositor. They do not need to be re-captured per event update. |
| #17 By 3339 (66.219.95.6) at 5/9/2003 8:25:52 PM |
| Maybe what would be more helpful, RMD, is if you explain what LH does differently. |
| #18 By 2459 (69.22.78.22) at 5/9/2003 11:01:22 PM |
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Previous posts and that Omniweb link pretty much sums things up.
OS X only accelerates compositing operations. LH accelerates both compositing and actual rendering (drawing) of desktop components and their client areas, including things such as anti-aliased text rendering, all through the 3D pipeline. For further reference, here are excerpts from docs on Apple.com: "The core portion of the Mac OS X graphics and windowing environment is called Quartz. As depicted in Figure 3-3, Quartz has two parts: Quartz 2D and Quartz Compositor. (The Quartz Extreme layer is integrated into Quartz Compositor.)" For a very simplified comparison, think of it like this: Say both acceleration technologies are called Quartz Extreme (for extreme simplification purposes), Apple integrated Quartz Extreme only into the Compositor. Microsoft integrates Quartz Extreme into both the compositor and the renderer (Quartz 2D). Microsoft's Quartz 2D is actually Quartz 3D because unlike how Apple handles drawing via the CPU and the GPU's 2D pipeline (effectively software rendering), Microsoft also uses the GPU's 3D pipeline for this, in addition to compositing. This provides hardware accelerated drawing and compositing of all elements on the desktop, while having the side benefits of allowing an app developer direct access to all of the GPU's 3D capabilities (pixel/vertex shaders, etc.) for direct manipulation of desktop content, and the impact on the CPU for complex/extreme drawing and compositing operations is minimal. Looked at from another angle, here's an explaination using the Omniweb interview: "I think that the big limitations here are that Mac OS X's Quartz interface is currently software based... He's speaking of Quartz 2D. With LH, this is hardware accelerated using Direct3D. "If we could render in hardware (as today's 3D games do), we wouldn't need fast write access to random chunks of video memory... "Now if we could get specialized hardware that could render Quartz 2D drawing primitives! That would be the start of resolution independent displays... not that CPUs couldn't do the heavy lifting, it would just be nice to offload that and have it done locally on the adapter. Then in theory the backing buffer would only need to store the drawing primitives." This is essentially what MS is doing with LH. "Currently on my system the screen is 1920x1200x32 (8.8 MB to back just the display) and I have many windows open (~10), ones from Mail.app, Safari, Finder, Project Builder, iTunes, etc. Looking at window information with Quartz Debug I estimate that the total RAM required to store all of the windows is around 37MB (not counting off screen ones). If I had opengl / dvd / quicktime content open the ram needs would be even higher. So my current desktop would already exceed video adapter hardware with 32MB of VRAM and nearly top out 64MB adapters." This is why MS is recommending GPUs with 128MB framebuffers (64MB minimum) for the best (Tier 2) experience. |
| #19 By 3 (81.131.120.114) at 5/10/2003 3:32:47 AM |
| Do you know this is the first time in months I've actually enjoyed reading a thread as no one is getting at each other! |
| #20 By 2332 (65.221.182.2) at 5/10/2003 12:00:32 PM |
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.... deleted my post because n4cer did such a good job of shutting Sodajerk down. :-) This post was edited by RMD on Saturday, May 10, 2003 at 12:03. |
| #21 By 3339 (66.219.95.6) at 5/13/2003 6:08:53 PM |
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Actually, no, enforcer isn't telling me what Longhorn is doing. Everything I have read suggests that DX (which is really just wrapping GDI+) is being used to render but only to the video buffer before compositing.
The only difference you are seeing is that Windows already used more hardware acceleration for graphic output to begin with. You just talk on and on about Quartz but you make a number of mistakes. I'm unsure of where you get the quote from but you are making a strange distinction between Quartz 2D and 3D when there is no difference. That quote is misleading you: Quartz is OpenGL, QT, PDF (not just 2D) and QE is just the compositor. That I agree on. But no one has actually demonstrated that the ENTIRE graphics system is processed by the GPU ONLY. As far as I can tell LH is doing something very similar to Quartz. I would expect that if the ENTIRE graphics system is actually offloaded to the GPU plenty of people would say that. I haven't gotten anyone from MS to say so. PThurott is unwilling to say so (I pointed him to WinHEC docs that show that the DX processing of rendering is largely GDI+, and all he would say is"All I know is what MS is telling me..."). So... if anyone can show me evidence that the GPU is doing all rendering and compositing, I'll be satisfied. Of course, then, I will tell you the disadvantages of this. Of course, by the very nature of the tiers I'm almost 100% certain that rendering is not being executed by the GPU any more than it is today. This post was edited by sodajerk on Tuesday, May 13, 2003 at 18:11. |
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