Microsoft talks Windows 7 - Page 2
Q) Apple is touting the adoption of OpenCL in Snow Leopard as a significant development in the graphics processor segment. With OpenCL seeing support from the likes of Intel, AMD and NVIDIA, do you see it as much of a threat to the Compute Shaders found in the upcoming DirectX 11?
"It is an alternative, we have spent a lot of time and effort in the development of DirectX 11 and have been working closely with partners for a while now to gather support for the new platform, here are some of the examples of the decisions we have made:
- Full support (including all DirectX 11 hardware features) on Windows Vista as well as future versions of Windows
- Compatibility with DirectX 10 and 10.1 hardware, as well as support for new DirectX 11 hardware
- New compute shader technology that lays the groundwork for the GPU to be used for more than just 3D graphics, so that developers can take advantage of the graphics card as a parallel processor
- Multi-threaded resource handling that will allow games to better take advantage of multi-core machines
- Support for tessellation, which blurs the line between super high quality pre-rendered scenes and scenes rendered in real-time, allowing game developers to refine models to be smoother and more attractive when seen up close"
Q) Apple claims that nearly all of the system applications found in Snow Leopard are built with 64-bit code. Is Microsoft's decision to continue to offer 32-bit versions of Windows - albeit alongside a 64-bit alternative - slowing industry-wide progress?
"We are continuing to give users choice in the hardware they wish to use. In both Windows XP and Windows Vista we had 32-Bit and 64-Bit editions of the operating system and this carried forward into Windows 7. We understand that many users are looking forward to running Windows 7 on their existing PC’s and so we need to offer a 32-Bit version of the product. For people that want to have the best then many users will probably look at 64-bit and whether they need the additional power it provides, we have seen a huge uptake of ultra-low-cost PC’s (AKA Netbooks) around the world which are based around a lower powered 32-Bit processor and we also want to give these users the opportunity to have a great Windows 7 experience."
Q) For the Mac faithful readers, Which compelling feature (or features) does Windows 7 have that Apple's Mac OS X is missing?
"Windows 7 has many great new features that we think people will enjoy whether it be the great new media features such as play-to (DLNA support) for streaming media around the house and to different devices to remote media streaming or IPTV. We also have the new Touch features in Windows 7 that help create new experiences for the end user. On the business side of things we have many improvements to help companies manage their infrastructures and help to make users more productive on their PC’s, these features include Direct Access, Branch Caching, App Locker Enterprise Search and the security enhancements introduced such as Bitlocker-To-Go for encrypting USB flash drives and SD cards."
Q) Flipping the previous question on its head, which compelling feature does Mac OS X have that you'd like to see in a Windows operating system?
"I think prior to Windows 7 I would have said the general desktop environment was a nice place to interact with a computer, however having used both I would say given the choice I would take Windows 7 every time."
