News Microsoft previews Avalon graphics engine

The point is your opinion was off topic. Although it wasn't obvious that you were not talking about this release of Avalon which is why people objected. If you want to make the point make it in a thread that's relevant or start a new thread.

Anyway, dragging this back on topic, is there anyone who's tried this out that can tell us what their findings are? Do the fancy new graphics only apply to software that uses it? What exactly is contained in the download? Is it just an API? Does it include information for developers on how to use it in their programs?

 

ok well I'm sorry if they do but its history and facts are facts.
And we all know no one ever goes off topic in forums.

 

"History is written by the victor" --Unknown

History is a subjective account. And as for facts, you haven't actually mentioned any to back up your subjective opinion.

...and we all know no-one ever gets picked up for it either.

 

Easy tiger, dont take this downhill

 

I was simply asking how you could make such an assumption in your opinion. I just read every thread and happen to disagree with all of your arguments that's all. Nothing personal, just, i dont agree... just like those 10 other people it seems

 

sorry I guess I’m just in a bad mood. I didn't mean to blow up at you I'm just sick of people 20 people pouncing on me because of my opinion in every thread.
All I was trying to say was that it seems like MS products generally have alot of bugs in their first version releases and they have to immediate release patches to correct it. i.e. win95, win98, and we won't even touch winME and there are others like winMedia player all of which you have to wait a few months to get if you want a version that is stable. So from my view they don’t beta test their products long enough and I hope they don't do the same thing with this seeing as it is integrated into windows itself and could cause a possible win meltdown.

 

Ill give you the 9x range, but NT based stuff is 'alright'. You cant really compare stuff like linux to it cause the linux kernels are constantly updated and are less of an incremental "commercial" product, although this has changed 'recently'. It's usually 3rd party drivers which dont help either - you've got 100s of companies producing 100s or 1000s of PCI/AGP/USB etc stuff for it and then its all expected to work together in an OS under every situation - takes a while for it to get ironed out. True the NT range do need a couple of service packs to make em worth while though.

 

2000 and upwards are pretty good imo
NT4 and below was pretty dire
XP is great
people who complain about how XP looks too 'fisher price' and then talk about how nice OSX looks need to be slapped about a bit with the hypocrit stick
(not aimed at anyone in particular btw, just something i notice people often moan about)

l

 

XP can look any damn way you want it to look as well, OSX if you please

back on topic though: has anyone tried this yet? ive still got it sitting here but a daren't install it until i hand in some uni work on friday

 

yep. got the thing installed. however you wont notice anything untill you get some software to play with. im currently on the hunt now for anything that i can play with.
ideas anyone while i

 

Yes, but it takes a lot of work to make a custom theme, etc. With the options that are presented to you there's not a ton to work with.

 

or you can just download one for several thousand availible on the intarweb

but that is another topic entirely, lets try to keep focussed on this thread

LAGMonkey- so em, what does it do then?

 

well nothing atm, But if you mosey on over to over HERE
MS has provided a nice little explination of what its going to do.
in the short hand version.... makes it look a bit more funkey like OSX when programmers can be assed to use the code.

 

pfft
sod that then

 

Ok I read it and now I'm seriously confused I got that it lets programmers make a new graphic for a window that it will only draw once because it will store the image with the graphics card so windows wont have to access the program every time the window is brought to the front of any other windows but the rest kind of lost me.
Sounds like it would help windows refresh times but wouldn't storing the info on the graphics card be bad for gaming? It sounds like if you have another window open while using the graphics card you wouldn't get the full potential of the card because part of it is being used for windows graphics.

 

Without reading all the explanatory blah I would assume that when you start up a game the whole windows desktop would migrate to main RAM (or more likely, swapfile) and all the GPU memory would be available for the game. When you exit the game relevant parts of the desktop would migrate back to GPU memory. Unless you play the game inside a window, in which case its smaller resolution would demand less GPU memory anyway.

 

and here as well http://www.softpedia.com/get/Office-tools/Other-Office-Tools/Avalon-Community-Technology.shtml

 

Have you not read the page?

You'll be riveted to your chair looking at this stunning bird, but other people will see an old crone. Bin there, dun that.

 

Just downloading it right now from microsoft. Might give it a go as my win XP was going to be reinstalled in a couple of days anyway.

Edit- I kinda misunderstood what it does. Guess I wont be installing it after all.