Joe Beda - What hardware will Longhorn/Avalon need? | TheChannel9Team

Karim
Trapped in a world he never made!

Yeah, so what hardware will Longhorn/Avalon need??? Is 64MB a requirement for a Tier 1 experience, or is that subject to change? Please change the subject to "Joe Beda mentions a specific graphics card and suggests Longhorn might just possibly work with it, but don't hold him to that."

Also, have you considered "Presentation Manager" as a name for the desktop compositing engine? Now that you guys are working with IBM again, I think it's fair game. LOL

JBeda
Avatar stolen directly from messenger

Karim wrote:

Yeah, so what hardware will Longhorn/Avalon need??? [snip]

Also, have you considered "Presentation Manager" as a name for the desktop compositing engine? Now that you guys are working with IBM again, I think it's fair game. LOL

After WinHEC, I'll feel more comfortable speaking publically about our required and recommended hardware. I'll point this thread to our main PM in that area and maybe she'll be fine with talking to this early.

As for Presentation Manager -- I hadn't heard that yet. That name hasn't come up in our discussions but it would be pretty funny!

vanlandw

when MS supports 64 bit....that is when i purchase my new terminal

interesting watch

lars

Well, mentioning a single graphics card is way better than the good old "I cannot comment on features or requirements of upcoming Microsoft Products". We're moving in the right direction here.

/Lars.

sbc
GW R/Me

Surely Avalon isn't really needed for the server version? A Windows server should be able to run on a low spec graphics card (as low as 2MB or even lower). Most of the time, you probably wouldn't even need to turn the server monitor on but use Remote Desktop.

There should be a Windows without all the bells and whistles (except for services like IIS, Active Directory, Indigo)

It probably wouldn't even run on machines that run NT/9x - what options do those users have (without upgrading their hardware)? Not all servers require the latest Pentium/AMD processor (i.e. like file servers, which only really need fast SCSI hard drives).

A server version that is specific would be good (i.e. you may only want an email or proxy server and not need the extras) - otherwise you are not getting good value for money.

scobleizer
I'm the video guy

That's true. Servers don't need the visual googaw that the client-side versions need.

We haven't started talking about the Longhorn server side yet. Almost everything in Longhorn we've discussed has been client versions only.

sbc
GW R/Me

Indigo is probably the main thing for the server. All Longhorn client will really need is the client tools (and maybe a mini-server for testing).

I assume Indigo is also client independent - i.e. non-Windows clients can 'consume' the web service.

I think RSS (or its successor) would probably be a good thing to somehow integrate (as long as you kept to the spec)

JBeda
Avatar stolen directly from messenger

sbc wrote:
Surely Avalon isn't really needed for the server version?

Even though Avalon isn't going to be key to most servers, I think that it is necessary to have a base level of the platform available all the time. It doesn't have to be pretty and it doesn't have to be super fast, but applications have to work. I think that there is something to be said for a Windows application runs on Windows whatever the version.

Win2k3 server comes with hardware acceleration turned off by default (to minimize crashes in the video driver). If we do the same thing moving forward (I have no idea one way or the other) you can bet that we will make sure that applications still run. All of Avalon graphics has a software fallback.

Beyond that, you can do cool things with AValon that don't stress the hardware and aren't "cool flying stuff". We are also a new UI toolkit and framework. Say what you will about cool graphics, but even a server can use good UI on occasion (if you aren't the the type to do everything on the command line).

Also, we want to make the remoting (Remote Desktop and Terminal Services) work super well with Avalon. In that case the parts of Avalon that do stress the graphics hardware (the composition process and all drawing operations) will happen on the client machine. This means that Avalon will be running on the server but the heavy graphics lifting can be done by the client.

Joe

sbc
GW R/Me

In this article on the WinNETMag site it says that the even the lowest tier of Aero needs a 32MB 3D graphics card. Why can't it run on a lower spec one (i.e. 8MB), or even on a 2D one? Where would this leave laptops with only 8MB graphics RAM (or even ones with 16MB)? I suppose they would have to stick with XP (although by the time Longhorn comes out, the laptops will be upgraded - if they can afford to).

Or is that only if you wish to use Aero (as the article also says there is a fallback to Win2k UI - which surely should work even on 4MB cards)?