WGF 1.0 and 2.0, What does this mean for games?

[mayro]

This is a game/Software/Hardware question.

Ive heard that the ATI 520 will support WGF 1.0, which ive heard is the equivilant to Direct x 9.c+ or L for longhorn. Ive heard that soon after the release of this, the 2.0 will come out and that will be the one that we are really waiting for. Does anyone know what this 2.0 will bring for games? Will it be worth the wait?

What is the major differance's between the two? When will games support it? Will you have to have Longhorn to use it?

All these questions, many of which there probably isnt a awnser too. I want to upgrade this christmas but, if 2 months down the road a new, needed format comes out, I dont want to be stuck looking like a idiot. Im also not to thrilled with the new impliments going into Longhorn, the idea of BIG BROTHER forceing me to not do what I want to do is disturbing.

 

[Shakermaker]

The ATI 520? Never heard of it. Linky?

 

[Iced_Eagle]

520 is the next-gen 512mb ATi card, mostly rumors at this point last I checked... Though the Inquirer has a pictured of it

WGF / Avalon will be ported back to work on Windows XP and Windows 2003 (server edition too I think)... So no it will not be Longhorn-exclusive AFAIK...

Where did you hear for the plans that 2.0 will be the one that gamers are waiting for? I haven't heard anything about WGF 1.0 yet in detail

WGF for those that don't know is Windows Graphics Fondation... Google is your friend

 

[PvtRyan]

Only detail I've heard that there's no distinction between pixel- and vertexshaders anymore.

 

[Cole]

Did a quick google heres something nice,

The majority of users don't care about a graphics card because this majority uses only 2D operations, or should I say they need it just to draw and show picture on displays.

Some will use the graphics card to accelerate video files or help decode DVD content. but that's about it. The big mass of users don't care about 3D games or any kind of shaders. This is about to change with Longhorn.

Longhorn will feature a graphics subset called WGF (Windows Graphic Foundation). Its goal is to unify 2D and 3D graphics operation in one and will bring 2D Windows drawing and 3D operations together. Nowadays, 3D is done using a Direct X subset with the current version 9.0c.

Longhorn will also use 3D menus and 3D interfaces and will require at least Shader 2.0 compliant cards, so it will make the graphics card an important part of your PC. Nowadays, Windows doesn’t care much about graphics until you play your DVD or start a 3D game. In such cases, Windows actually benefits from graphic card acceleration whether we talk about video or 3D acceleration.

Also,

MICROSOFT'S GRAPHIC group is very close to finally releasing the long awaited next generation DirectX. You can forget the name DirectX as Microsoft has decided to call this one WGF (Windows Graphic Foundation).

The interface will, for the first time, reunite Direct Draw part that was mainly used for drawing 2D windows and Direct 3D part of DirectX used to draw 3D scene.


WGF will unite them into one item. It is intended to change things by allowing graphics subsystems to be served with as much performance as you will need.

Windows always had rather good looking graphical user interfaces and that's not going to change. But Microsoft also wants to give 2D elements some special features and effects to snazz things up.

Why is it important to have the WGF 1.0 specification? If you are a hardware vendor such are Nvidia or ATI or even S3 and XGI you need this final specification to allow your engineers to experiment with hardware designs in order to bring WGF 1.0 compliant hardware when things are good and ready.

As for the next generation of cards such as NV50 and R520, if the vendors feel like it they could theoretically make them WGF compliant. I am certain that at least one of those chips won't be WGF compliant as it does not make any sense. Longhorn is two years away.

WGF will bring Shader Model 4.0 to life.

More,

"We use to call it DirectX 10, later someone called it DirectX Next and now we have ended up with name Avalon. No one ever gave a clear answer what Avalon will be.

We know it is the codename of Microsoft's next generation Longhorn User interface that runs on top of next generation DX Next.

We present the name Avalon as codename for graphic subsystem which Microsoft plans to release with Longhorn. As we said in our previous article Avalon will be available for Windows XP and some other versions of Windows as well.

The easiest way to describe it is the fact that Avalon is basically DX10, or "DX Next", wrapped under a User Interface. OpenGL will run on top of it due to security reasons, but Avalon tends to remove the bad old legacy habiits of the old DirectX marchitecture.

We also can confirm that Longhorn will introduce a 3D desktop and therefore Avalon will have to fix some stuttering effects that occur in the current DirectX.

Avalon will change the look of the desktop I believe that is the most important aspect for most of us. Whether we want it or not, even our mobile phones will have 3D interfaces not to mention our Windows. It's an inevitable future that we simply can not escape."

Heres a nice long article,
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_zdext/is_200407/ai_n7183840

To prove a few things said before I'll quote it,

For starters, it appears that, as some rumors have suggested, the distinction between vertex and pixel shaders will essentially go away. Instead, there will be what Microsoft is calling a Common Shader Core that will contain vertex and pixel shader operations. Blythe hinted that other kinds of shaders may become available in this framework, though he declined to elaborate as to what those might be. Some possible features that could be added here would be collision detection, and more interestingly, physics calculations. There's been a fair amount of published work coming out of academia about using GPUs' floating-point horsepower to model fluid dynamics, and the movement of gaseous clouds (like smoke).

The line between vertex and pixel shader ops and instructions has been blurring for some time already. There was even some speculation that ATI pushed the R400 out to be the R500 because this architecture was going to try to unify its vertex and pixel shader units. It would appear WGF will lay the groundwork for that unification.

Alot of stuff in the article I linked.