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

[cinergy]

[citation][nom]notty22[/nom]Because its only ATI that has the problem. Even Nvidia's IGP performs satisfactorily. Lack of testing, rushing out a product before its right. This is poor. Fermi may be late, but it will be right.[/citation]

Fermi be "right". How do you know that? Why don't you just stop trolling already.

 

[belardo]

[citation][nom]notty22[/nom]This is no news to the enthusiasts, ATI drivers. One more reason to go green, Nvidia,[/citation]

Smiley face guys... yeah, and the $400 GeForce is still slower than a 2year old $50 motherboard IGP, so thats not impressive either!

[citation][nom]BartG[/nom]So the Vista bashers now need to rethink why they dont like Vista, its not the OS (even though its not perfect), its the lack of 2D performance from your cards![/citation]

Er, no. This is (so far) more of a DX11/Win7 issue. Vista is crap because of its memory management is in the toilet full of doodoo. Didn't you read the article? That info about the memory is old news, but recapped for those who missed it. Why do YOU think Vista PCs need 4~8GB of RAM to function to do the same thing a 1~4GB WinXP or Win7 system?

Driver issue and a change of how graphics is done after 20+ years for MS.

 

[marraco]

Excellent work, Wallossek!

It's sad that you don't also have kicked nVidia butt.

We can blame 3DMark for not being also a 2D benchmark. AMD and nVidia only cares about mainstream benchmarks.

 

[envolva]

Lol, is that why I have friends complaining about the ATI 5870 framerate while playing flash games?

Or they are just paranoid and have some other issue?

 

[belardo]

[citation][nom]Smushers[/nom] Windows 3.x and Mac OS 9 & earlier were cooperative multi-tasking OSes, and thus suffered the same fatal flaw.[/citation]

Actually, a form of task-switching. A program can block other programs for using resources.

[citation] Windows 9x offered preemptive multi-tasking and memory protection ~~ Prior to the MultiFinder's creation in 1988 (OS 5), there was no multitasking at all, and the Desk Accessories had to be written using drivers to emulate it. That's the reason Mac OS X was created; all the previous versions were such utterly irredeemable, insecure, unreliable pieces of shit [/citation]

Yes, many people know this (should at least). While what Apple had, did work pretty good for its time, it was limited and as you say, POS. OS-X, is based off of NextStep (Steve Job's computer company before Apple bought him/Next in which he pretty much fired everyone). Win95, while an important first step for MS - was horrible to use. ugh.

[citation]I don't know what an "actual GUI OS" is in your mind, but it doesn't seem like Mac OS classic qualified by your own standards. OSes can run within OSes, and I don't just mean emulating hardware running a "full OS," but rather the definition of an OS doesn't require that it be capable of running completely on its own.[/citation]

OS = Operating System. It controls the computer and Disk Operations (DOS), etc. By your own definition to a degree, you agree Windows 3.x couldn't do ANYTHING on its own. When you bought a PC (legit or otherwise) in those days, you got MS-DOS 6.22 with Win3.11 until Win95 came out. Windows 3.11 was a Graphical shell, it has all the limitations of MS-DOS because that is what it was. Same lame shit 8.3 character names... meanwhile, modern computers had such nice things as 24~64(whatever) character (upper and lower case) for file names.

Hence, going into the Microsoft-PC world of computing with Win3.x was plain horrible for those who are used to more powerful OSes, some that multi-tasked.

Seriously, when Windows 3.0 came out and the PC world pissed in its pants with $2500 386-25mhz PCs with 2~4mb of RAM... us Amiga users were shaking our heads and laughing at you. (Or PC guy from the Apple ADs since some people think they are real) lets see, Multi-tasking, graphics, sounds and other fancy features since the 80s that Microsoft didn't ever invent or brought to the market first. But Amiga got screwed by stupid Commodore, oh well.

 

[carlhenry]

it'd be interesting to see intel graphics. i think they have a decent 2d acceleration. oh, btw good article!

 

[Ciuy]

gj Tom

 

[gamerk316]

I've seen plenty of GDI based applications fall falt on their face performance wise, so im not shocked about 2D performance. Didn't think it was THAT bad though...

 

[vasilecelmare]

@dimitrik - very good observation. Engineering are just doing what MARKETING says. This is how the world works now... Tragic.

 

[portlandtom]

As a software developer I have implemented an application that does direct calls to the Windows API. In particular I have implemented a WM_PAINT callback.

For years I've noted that portions of the dialog box did not repaint properly when uncovered by another window. After reading your article I tried the Aero theme and it resolved the issue.

And all this time I thought it was a bug in my software. Thank you!

 

[pcwlai]

Without this article, we may need to accept slow 2D performance in the new product generation...

Well, I would like to address why programmers not trying to minimize the redraw of windows which is actually encouraged by Microsoft as well.

Imagine you need to update a rectangle in the center of a window while some other window is overlapping portion of it. If is already not easy and time consuming to compute the lines remains to form the visible portion.

If there is some other complex drawings... it is just too time consumign and sometimes impossible to get that uncovered part calculated.

So, we programmers rely on the hardware acceleration. Most of the time, it is actually to redraw everything especially when 2D hardware acceleration is present.

 

[bourgeoisdude]

[citation][nom]carlhenry[/nom]it'd be interesting to see intel graphics. i think they have a decent 2d acceleration. oh, btw good article![/citation]

That's what I was thinking. How do Intel graphics fare in the 2D realm?

 

[soulbro]

Interesting article! It should be noted, however, that that Ballmer "commercial" wasn't real. I mean, it existed, obviously, but it was an internal-only joke at MS, not a real advertisement. It didn't appear on TV.

http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2010/01/12/9946851.aspx

-Will

 

[tpi2007]

[citation][nom]soulbro[/nom]Interesting article! It should be noted, however, that that Ballmer "commercial" wasn't real. I mean, it existed, obviously, but it was an internal-only joke at MS, not a real advertisement. It didn't appear on TV.http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/ [...] 46851.aspx-Will[/citation]

He did a recreation of the original ad for Windows XP. I wonder if it was also internal only (I live in Portugal, so I don't know if it was broadcast).

By the way this spoof video is hilarious: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IY2j_GPIqRA&NR=1

 

[Zoonie]

Awesome article! This is what Tom's used to be all about. Thank you Igor Wallossek!

 

[jabliese]

I miss GEM.

AMD's response: All the guy's that cared about 2D are gone. Fortunately, we found one guy who does not care, but remembers how to make it work. He will be teaching the new guys how to make it work, even if he cannot teach them to care.

Great article Tom's, hang onto the guys that care. Hint to AMD, Linux guys care. They are worth listening too.

 

[zorky9]

I guess then that it's better to have a hybrid type of GPU set-up which would let the onboard IGP do the muscle work when working on non 3D-intensive applications. Perhaps a GeForce 9300 board with a high-end card(s).

 

[coldmast]

WOW Tom's Great Find (has anyone else done this before)

Before I would think that any sane person would assume that a $400 Graphics card would pound the sh-- out of a old IGP for doing 2D acceleration even when that $400 card is clocked down to 18.5%

What graphics should I be running (in Windows 7) for a (2d) Graphics Design related computer (a work computer).

Please include a note on Linux.

Also does Hybrid graphics (Hybrid SLI, Hybrid Crossfire) have positive affects on the 2D performance (like it should).

 

[bbertram]

I would like to see if the FireGL or Quadro cards suffer these limitations as well. I bet they do not and ATI/NVidia keeps 2D acceleration for the workstation class cards since they are more likely to notice a 2D performance drop.

Test them out and you may catch ATI in a lie?

 

[Guest]

The pic on how to disable DWM is in German, I believe... could you change that to an English pic?

 

[Guest]

Hey, the pic on how to turn off DWM is in German... could you switch that with an English picture?

 

[blackened144]

[citation][nom]sohei[/nom]notty22 you exaggerate...if ATi has a problem with drivers in 2d, what about nvidia with new drivers ? no over-clocking...you know that?pls read more than talk[/citation]
If youre going to correct someone else, at least get your facts straight. All the new drivers did was stop you being able to overclock via software. That does NOT mean they completely disabled overclocking. If that was the case, how could my 8800GT be running at 725core/2000mem on the newest drivers?

 

[bounty]

Ok, now we need 2D graphics charts.

 

[eyemaster]

ATI/AMD's response was what I was expecting when reading the article.

Even if the results are slow in the benchmarks, are they noticable in day to day usage? The only thing that bothers me in Windows 7 is that it's always disabling the Aero theme when I launch certain apps/games.

 

[Guest]

i wonder if this has any affect on the terrible performance of my ati card with Silverlight videos - when using sky player i get a lot of jerkiness and dropped frames...nothing to do with bandwidth here...

i'd love to see a comparison with the new intel clarkdale GPUs as well (out of curiosity if their driver teams are any better - especially as they are aimed at business and are more in the '2d' space