Graphics cards open new Windows

[Wee Gordon]

Graphics cards open new Windows

Microsoft's new operating system, Vista, which is due to go on widespread release in January 2007 will make big demands of your computer's graphics capabilities.


In the old days the PC did not have much in the way of graphics. On WordStar, just about the first ever word processor for the PC, you could have any colour you liked - as long as it was green.

For PC users that has all changed, the world is full colour and funky is now the watch word.

Of course if you are a Mac user you are obviously sitting there smug in the knowledge that you have been funky for ages, but for PC users funky now means lots of horsepower and a graphics card.

These days the only real reason for more powerful graphics on the PC is to play games.

They all need lots of power and today's graphics cards have that in spades, but under the fans, heat sinks and brightly coloured designs, the chip looks just like most other chips.

The new cards are seriously powerful. You can now get a card array as powerful as the IBM Deep Blue computer that beat Garry Kasparov at chess in the 1990s - and that is pretty powerful.

But despite this awesome power, it only really shows itself in the subtleties of the image and in the realm of physics.

New concept

"What we're looking for is new usage scenarios," said Terry Makedon of ATI.

"There is no longer a need just a need for a graphics card to display things on a screen; you can do other things on it, such as physics, advanced lighting, advanced shader problems are now going to be solved.

"The whole physics market is in its infancy. It's a brand new concept, it's something that a lot of people are not familiar with.

"It does add a brand new level of realism to gaming."

Adam Foat from nVidia said: "The best way to think about physics is actually how things move in the real world.

"Imagine if we had a pile of tin cans that we knocked over, you couldn't tell how those tin cans were going to fall because it would all depend upon how you hit them, which angle you hit them at, and how they fell to the ground and how they reacted with each other, fell off the table and onto the floor. That's physics."

He added: "What we have to do is create an engine that actually reflects that, actually recreates that on the PC.

"In other words, trying to make it a random engine, trying to make the PC understand that if you tell it to knock those tin cans in a different angle in a different way, it will react as it would in real life."

Welcome to the world of the computer gamer where you get a new graphics card and concept every six months or so.

Compatibility problems

But that is changing, the term Aero Glass may not mean much to a lot of you at the moment but it is the name that defines the new, less violent world of graphics.


AERO REQUIREMENTS
1 GHz processor
1 GB of system memory
Graphics processor supporting DirectX 9
128 MB of graphics memory
40GB hard drive with 15GB free

It is the 3D front end for Windows Vista, Microsoft's new operating system, which is due next year.

"The effects that you get in Windows Premium are absolutely fantastic," said Mr Foat.

"It means your operating system will look completely different to any OS you've seen before."

"There are some very cool visual features in there, the main one being what we call Aero Glass. This allows the windows to be transparent and you can move them around in a 3D environment."

But the not so good news is that not everyone will have a PC that will be compatible.

"A lot of people buy PCs that do not have a separate and discrete graphics card," explained Mr Makedon. "They have something called integrated graphics, which is basically built into their motherboard.

"Typically today you may buy an Intel PC that has graphics built in. That's where the questionable part may be - it may or may not work with Aero."

But of course if you buy a card yourselves you will be fine.