gOt !t.....Microsoft explains how Windows 8 smokes Windows 7
Microsoft spelled out acceleration improvements in Windows 8, in a
blog post Monday. Needless to say, Microsoft says the overall experience
is a lot snappier.
The latest Building Windows 8 entry, penned by Rob Copeland, the group program manager at Microsoft's graphics team, is titled Hardware accelerating everything: Windows 8 graphics.
Some context is first provided at the top in order to illustrate how Window 8 "builds on the well-established foundations of DirectX graphics" in Windows 7.
(Credit: Microsoft)
(Credit: Microsoft)
The latest Building Windows 8 entry, penned by Rob Copeland, the group program manager at Microsoft's graphics team, is titled Hardware accelerating everything: Windows 8 graphics.
Some context is first provided at the top in order to illustrate how Window 8 "builds on the well-established foundations of DirectX graphics" in Windows 7.
In Windows 7, we expanded the capabilities of DirectX to provide a common hardware-accelerated graphics platform for a broader range of applications. Whereas previously, DirectX mainly provided 3-D graphics, we added functionality for what we call "mainstream" graphics. Mainstream uses [include] web browsers, email, calendars, and productivity applications...With these additions, DirectX became a hardware-accelerated graphics platform for all types of applications.
- Internet Explorer 9 as a starting point: Because Internet
Explorer 9, Windows Live Mail, and Windows Live Messenger make
"excellent" use of DirectX, they're good examples of what other apps
might do. "This led to a number of investments to ensure mainstream apps
were fast and looked great."
- Text acceleration: Text is used a lot in Windows, so
accelerating text rendering in Web pages, email programs, and instant
messaging is a high priority. Microsoft says it has continued to improve
text performance in Windows 8. (See graph and link to video below.)
-
Geometry rendering: Microsoft also made "dramatic performance
improvements for 2D geometry rendering." Geometry rendering is used to
create tables, charts, graphs, diagrams, and user interface elements.
For Windows 8, improvements "have primarily focused on delivering
high-performance implementations of HTML5 Canvas and SVG technologies
for use in Metro style apps, and webpages viewed with Internet Explorer
10." (See graph and link to video below.)
-
Image rendering: "Several improvements" have been made for
working with images and photographs using the JPEG, GIF, and PNG
formats. Improvements include "Faster image decoding by expanding SIMD usage on all CPU architectures." (See link to video below).
- Example of rendering improvement: When video is
playing, the browser must update the portion of the window containing
the video but not the text. "To improve apps that don't need to redraw
the entire screen for each frame, we optimized how DirectX deals with
redrawing just portions of the screen and how it scrolls." This "reduces
the number of times graphics data needs to be copied in memory, it also
reduces power consumption, thus increasing battery life."
(Credit: Microsoft)
(Credit: Microsoft)
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