Has Longhorn's "redefinition" pushed DX10 forward?

[Temporary Name]

Previously, it seemed all but inevitable that Longhorn would be finalized sometime in 2007 (probably late in '07), and that DX10 (as the core of the Longhorn Graphics Foundation) would not necessarily appear before then. However, now that Microsoft has trimmed some features and is committed to a 2006 release date, it seems inevitable that DX10 will be released next year.

Has there been any word of a beta before year-end?

 

[Diplo]

Unless, of course, DX10 is one of the many things that gets trimmed from the initial release...

 

[Temporary Name]

I think the funky new GUI (and therefore LGF) is mandatory. If Avalon and WinFX are going to be available for XP, Longhorn has to bring something new to the table.

 

[davepermen]

it brings a new os, with major refactoring in the background..

windows 2000 and windows ME look the same, too.. one is win98 with a new "skin", one is.. a new designed os (based on NT, of course)..

you know wich one you would choose..

 

[Temporary Name]

This is NOT comparable to the Win98 to Win2K transition, where the OS was entirely different under the hood.

Longhorn was originally Windows XP + WinFS (the database+filesystem), Avalon (the presentation-layer replacement for GDI+), Indigo (the communication layer for web-based applications and data abstraction), Aero (the new GUI), and the WinFX API.

WinFS has been pushed back, and Avalon, Indigo, and most of WinFX will be available separately for XP. So what's left for Longhorn, if not Aero? The elements described here comprise a large chunk of the OS - there isn't much left for a "major refactoring". Sure, there will be a better help system, much better control of audio and alerts, etc., but it would be like the 98SE to 98ME transition without Aero. And after describing Longhorn as "transforming" on multiple occasions, I doubt Microsoft would settle for that.

Anyway, this is off topic. I'm wondering about DX10, not Longhorn...

 

[Headstone]

The biggest problem holding back the release is the new file system. It is totally borked atm and they may have to revert back to a version of NTFS.

 

[Temporary Name]

As was mentioned earlier in this thread, the Friday announcement indicated that WinFS has been pulled from Longhorn, and won't be available until some time later.

 

[skazz]

I got the impression that Avalon was going to work on DX-9....

I assume things like the new improved hotfix approach (the wonderful new windows installer 3), reduction of number of reboots, that sort of tech will make it to longhorn, and that DX-10 will also be in longhorn, but it wouldn't surprise me to see a version of Avalon/Aero available on top of DX-9c/d/e/f/whatever for Windows XP.

cheers, Skazz

 

[Lezmaka]

The biggest problem holding back the release is the new file system. It is totally borked atm and they may have to revert back to a version of NTFS.

It's not a brand new file system, it (WinFS) is NTFS.

Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows Windows Longhorn FAQ[/url]]Q: I keep hearing that WinFS is a new file system. Is Microsoft abandoning NTFS?

A: No. WinFS is implemented as an add-on to NTFS and is not a completely new file system. Rather, it is a new storage engine built on the NTFS file system.

 

[skazz]

At one point there were rumours that WinFS really would run directly on top of Yukon, but given the delays of Yukon and the ambitious nature of running the file system 100% on a relational database, they quickly brought the goal down to running better search and catalogue options on top of NTFS.

Or something like that

The 4071 longhorn beta was interesting in at least giving a glimpse of the new file system look and feel, even if the performance was definitely not acceptable...

 

[Headstone]

From the little that I talked to one of the programmers about I gathered that it was a totally new file system and not NTFS.

 

[compres]

From the little that I talked to one of the programmers about I gathered that it was a totally new file system and not NTFS.

It is still NTFS.

 

[flick556]

From the little that I talked to one of the programmers about I gathered that it was a totally new file system and not NTFS.

It is still NTFS.

My understanding is it's still ntfs but you are no longer in direct control of where files are stored, instead you control an abstraction layer through meta data and a releational database, files are then stored based on usage patterns.

 

[flick556]

From the little that I talked to one of the programmers about I gathered that it was a totally new file system and not NTFS.

It is still NTFS.

My understanding is it's still ntfs but you are no longer in direct control of where files are stored, instead you control an abstraction layer through meta data and a releational database, files are then stored based on usage patterns.

 

[nutball]

From the little that I talked to one of the programmers about I gathered that it was a totally new file system and not NTFS.

It is still NTFS.

My understanding is it's still ntfs but you are no longer in direct control of where files are stored, instead you control an abstraction layer through meta data and a releational database, files are then stored based on usage patterns.

Oh goody. Like it's not difficult enough to find out where Windows put my files as it is.

</offtopic>

 

[Dave Baumann]

I got the impression that Avalon was going to work on DX-9....

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/display/graphics-reqs.mspx

According to that Longhorn's UI now has three levels: Software (limited to Win2000 style), Aero and Aero Glass. The basic Longhorn interface, Aero, now appears to require PS2.0 and Aero Glass appears to have VS2.0 as a recommentation, so the minimum to get the Longhorn interface is DX9.

However, that doesn't necessarily pertain to game functionality.

 

[Trawler]

Oh goody. Like it's not difficult enough to find out where Windows put my files as it is.

</offtopic>

One of the goals of WinFS is to make it easier to find files. To be honest, if implemented properly, it could be quite good. You'll be able to 'tag' files in much the same way as you tag emails in Gmail, rather than just dropping them in one single folder.

While programmers can't get as low level as they once used to, WinFS lays out a much richer structure to search and manipulate files. There's plenty of articles on MSDN about this if you're interested.

Should be good for us business systems programmers, but whether the new system will allow decent performance for apps that need it (mission critical and games, of course!) remains to be seen.

I can't say I'm a fan of the approach to using both NTFS and Yukon (that's news to me). It should be a clean break. Maybe with the further delays they'll move foward with the pure Yukon solution?

 

[KimB]

Hrm....how often do people actually search for files, though? Seriously...I do it maybe once every couple of months. I don't see it as being that necessary to supplement the filesystem for something I don't see people doing commonly. It'd be better just to have a better search engine, one that stores data from previous searches.

 

[Scali]

I can't say I'm a fan of the approach to using both NTFS and Yukon (that's news to me).

What's wrong with NTFS then?

 

[Diplo]

Hrm....how often do people actually search for files, though? Seriously...I do it maybe once every couple of months.

I was hoping it would have something equivalent to views (think either SQL views or the kind of filtering via meta-data you see in Outlook 2003 or Opera's M2 mail-client). Using Yukon you'd be able to create 'virtual directories' based on a view. In pseduo-sql this would be something like:

CREATE FOLDER WordDocs AS SELECT *.doc FROM C:/

This would create a 'virtual directory' (or folder) which contains every word document on your hard-drive, regardless of physical location.

In other words, you should be able to use any kind of meta-data to group together files of a similar nature. You might have MP3s strewn around your hard drive, but could create a virtual folder based on meta-data (found in ID3 tag) such as artist or genre. You might organise your photo collection into different views based on size or which camera took them etc. There are lots of interesting applications from being able to use a relatively high-level SQL-like language to query the filestore (rather like an advanced version of Index Server query language).