Have you found the Hidden gems of Windows 7?

[badge]

Any thoughts about the 'Big 8' hidden gems of Windows 7.

Aero shake. When you click on any window's title bar and shake it, every other open window goes away. This reduces the clutter on your screen, letting you focus on the one window you care about. Shake it again and the other windows reappear. Microsoft calls it Aero Shake, and it also lets you clear off the desktop completely. Just move the mouse to the lower right of the screen to hide all the open windows and get your bearings back.

Graphics. DX11 is an integral part of Windows 7. It supports a technique called tessellation borrowed from CGI movies to add tons of detail without slowing gameplay.


Last but not least. A hundredfold speed boost. Some technology fans think "DirectCompute" is the most revolutionary part of Windows 7. It's a technology that controls where computers do their calculations, moving some math-heavy processing onto the graphics card. This could result in as much as a hundredfold speed increase in, say, photo and video editing, and could lead to faster computing overall.

Any thoughts on 'Direct Compute' or any of the other 'Big 8' hidden gems we will be getting with Windows 7?

 

[badge]

Aero Shake download in case anyone wants to try the number 1 hidden gems according to the article.

 

[sminlal]

Aero's "auto-maximize when dragging a window to the top of the screen" is one of my pet peeves. Fortunately I discovered that you can turn it off in the Accessibility options...

 

[mi1ez]

I like the half screen maximize when you push a window to the side. Will this automatically fullscreen windows in a dual monitor setup?

 

[badge]

How will/does Vista apply "Direct Compute" if DC is a byproduct of DX11?. Is Direct Compute an operation already working with DX10? Confused. Anyone care to shed a little light on Direct Compute?

 

[buwish]

Yes, I'm curious about the Direct Compute thing as well. If it adds some substantial speed increases in overall system performance, that'd be an excuse to move up to a 57xx or 58xx series graphics card.

 

[badge]

So for my next upgrade I need the following:

Top performing SSD
Windows 7 64 OEM Ultimate
Radeon 5870

Mindboggling.

 

[cybrcatter]

Directcompute works on dx11 and and later model dx10 GPUs. The overall implementation in the OS and applications is another issue altogether. I'm very interested in what OpenCL has to offer as well.

 

[buwish]

So for my next upgrade I need the following:

Top performing SSD
Windows 7 64 OEM Ultimate
Radeon 5870

Mindboggling.

$$$$ as well

 

[anamaniac]

Thank you for pointing out the Aero Shake feature.
Never noticed it before, and it seems like it may actually be conveniant.

 

[soundefx]

Yeh, thanks for sharing the shake.
Now I can quickly minimize everything else on the screen.

 

[DiscoDuck]

I like the download progress indicator on the minimized IE, but miss the animated network tray icon of xp.

 

[revoc]

Yep, the progress indicator on the icons in the taskbar is my favorite so far. Nice little interface tweak.