2D, Acceleration, And Windows: Aren't All Graphics Cards Equal?

Windows: Mouse As Window-Washer?

Let’s think back to 1985. This was the year that Mikhail Gorbachev became secretary general of the Communist party in the USSR, the year that Amadeus won the Academy Award for best picture, and the year that Ronald Reagan was sworn in for a second term as the 40th US president. Incidentally, and almost unnoticed, 1985 was also the year that Microsoft Windows 1.0 was first released.

“Window-less” Windows without even overlapping display areas

The idea of overlaying a virtual graphical interface on top of a character mode operating system wasn’t exactly earth-shattering, not even in 1985. In fact, this very approach is what companies like Microsoft and Digital Research used at this time to broaden their market appeal and to make PC technology accessible to a larger population of potential buyers and users. The idea was to make this software user-friendly enough so that non-IT professionals could put it to work without having to climb too steep a learning curve. Interestingly enough, contrasted against Windows 1.0, Digital Research’s GEM multi-user OS did support overlapping display windows back then.

Only from Version 2 forward does Windows really live up to its name

If 1987 had come and gone without the introduction of Windows 2.0, which did manage to support multiple, overlapping display windows, it’s entirely possible that nobody would know about Microsoft Windows today. In fact, Windows owes its very survival beyond the first two years of its initial introduction to someone who still holds great sway at Microsoft today — namely, Steve Ballmer. His advertising spot for Windows 1.0 remains unforgettable to this day, as does his chutzpah in pricing Windows 1.0 at the astonishing price of $99 (a veritable fortune in 1985), despite its lack of genuine support for real display windows. This guy has real entertainment value, and a genius for marketing.

Ever since the release of 2.0, Windows has been able to deliver (at least) evolutionary, if not revolutionary change in its subsequent major releases. In fact, revolutionary change is the sort of issue we’d like to address in Windows 7, the company's most modern release.

The latest version is the one that raises the very questions that forced us to look back to Windows’ very beginning. Our reasons are both simple and illuminating. Thanks to our comparison of windowing techniques, we learned that there are really two sides to the Windows graphics exercise: the graphical user interface, or GUI (we don’t include user customization here, but rather concentrate on the basic desktop look and feel), including window handling and management, plus the basic graphics functions used to create the desktop environment. In fact, windows display and management are two separate, if inter-related, activities in the Windows OS. Where the look and feel of the Windows interface has continued to change and evolve, underlying basic 2D graphics functions have remained surprisingly unchanged over time.

Well-informed readers already know that no pure 2D graphics really occur beneath a windows-oriented user interface. That’s why we explain in the next section that there is only a small set of 2D graphics commands, which must be examined in light of their rendering on a physical display as more or less three-dimensional in nature.

  • fatkid35
    next, toms finds bigfoot eating a chupicabre! WTF? nice catch guys.
    Reply
  • pcxt21
    Very nice work! Until that little update I was ready to put my old Matrox Millennium (1996/1997 I think) 2d accelerator back into my gaming rig...
    Reply
  • For those who still remember Matrox...shouldn't that be included in the test as well? Ancient history shows that it was the best card to be paired with VooDoo when first released...:P
    Reply
  • one-shot
    LOL. The clip of Steve Ballmer looks like an ad from the late Billy Mays. To think he's the CEO of Microsoft after watching that clip makes me laugh. I'm going to watch it again.
    Reply
  • chookman
    I actually went to put a Professional Matrox card (G550 PCI-e) in my Windows 7 machinde for a few more displays... alas it seems most of the range doesnt have Windows 7 drivers yet :(
    Reply
  • killerclick
    Hey, I have GF7050 on my motherboard but I'm not using it!
    Reply
  • belardo
    The sad thing is, as shown was that Windows 1.0~3.0 were never an operating system, ever. 1.0~2.x we're never really used by anyone, yet Amigas and Macs had full GUI functionality since 85/84... Windows3 was at least usable, but still a single-tasking POS, and yet MS-DOS was able to dominate the computer industry... not because of talent, but because of luck, good moves by Gates & Ballmer and the stupidity of IBM. It kind of worked out anyway thou.

    Think about it, it wasn't until the tail-end of 1995, with the release of Windows95, did MS produce an actual GUI OS for the general public, 10 whole years after Apple's Mac and the Amiga by chicken lips. Atari only copied much of the hardware abilities of Amiga with a variant of a MS-DOS clone.

    Only business bought PC-Clones in the 80s~90s, paying around $1500~4000 per desktop. Since IBM didn't make the OS and the hardware was generic, it was super easy for clones to exists. Home users bought Amigas and Macs and laughed as DOS users... but in the end, they lost to the clones.

    At one time in 1990, the Computer Shopper Mag was about 500 pages (phone book) with at least 500 Clone companies advertising.

    Windows is still the Copy-Cat OS. Its still an ugly beast under the hood. At least Windows7 runs good and looks nice.
    Reply
  • Raid3r
    Indeed, way to take one for the team..I am one of those 2d workers and greatly appreciate the foot that was used to affirm the position of 2d recognition on these "new" cards. I can't say it enough.
    Reply
  • micky_lund
    woot for toms...
    catch some more massive companies out, and make them fix up their drivers
    Reply
  • belardo
    I just finished reading this entire article. A good one too guys.

    While I had my rant about old MS days, I did work in the PC field starting with 3.1. We'd benchmark various video cards with programs that would test lines, boxes, etc. This WAS important for some games like DOOM and Quake which were not "true" 3D cards we have today.

    For every new type of PC build or a clients computer, I would save these generic overall system benchmarks. And I *have* notice different 2D performance abilities of computers and the various cards. All super fast compared to the 90s, but I've seen a GF card perform worse than an older ATI, but also an older ATI work a bit better than a newer one. These are all WinXP and don't have anything to do with the problems of Win7 and/or DX11... Part2 isn't out yet... but I would be curious to see if the problems in Win7 happens in Vista with DX11 installed hmmm.

    ATI has been putting all their work into 3D gaming performance, its good to see that they have put a team to fix their 2D issues. There is a good chance that this is a DX11 issue they were not aware of. Since Nvidia doesn't have any DX11 parts (but a DX10.5) - this "bug" doesn't yet show... but I'm speculating of course. :)

    With the eye-candy of Win7, the 2D performance *IS* important for those doing work, watching videos, etc. No good excuse to miss this, and hopefully ATI will have it resolved in 1-2 months.

    PS: Your memory usage chart of vista vs Win7 shows exactly WHY Vist . That is why Windows7 runs pretty good on a 1GB computer, but Vista still needs at least 3GB for a bottom-end PC. My notebook has Win7rc with 1GB, runs fine.

    Hey, will your results sometime include intel graphics? After this bug-issue is resolves, include overall-2D scores with your graphics Charts. :)

    Reply