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[May 5, 2003]
WinHEC 2003: First Look at Longhorn Graphics






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Paul Thurrott
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Paul Thurrott's WinInfo





During a pre-show demonstration yesterday of the Longhorn graphics subsystem at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) 2003 trade show in New Orleans, I saw for the first time some of the advanced video effects that Microsoft will enable in the next Windows version. Longhorn, which is due in late 2004 or early 2005, includes a completely new desktop composition system that replaces the model earlier Windows versions used with one that is more technically advanced, visually appealing, and scalable. The early test versions Microsoft is showing at WinHEC include amazing animation effects, smooth window scaling, and advanced window translucency.

The change is startling. Earlier Windows versions rendered the Windows desktop as one display surface; each window was a region on that shared surface. In the new model, individual windows are responsible only for drawing their own surfaces and then only when other windows aren't hiding those surfaces. In Longhorn, each window has its own, full-featured surface, independent of the other windows, and each window acts as if it's always 100 percent visible, forcing it to redraw itself constantly. Likewise, the desktop is rendered many times a second by combining the contents of each open window. These changes require significannot
ly more graphics resources than earlier Windows versions, but Microsoft notes that most modern PCs have 3-D graphics power to spare. For those PCs that don't have the hardware necessary to take advantage of the full Longhorn...