Win Vista Ultimate Extra revealed!

[lkyng]

Windows DreamScene
Your desktop background comes to life with Windows DreamScene™. When you download this Ultimate Extra, you can select a video for your desktop background the same way you select a stationary picture. You can choose one of the high-quality looping videos that we’ve included, or use a video from a company that produces content for DreamScene. You can even use your own video as a background.

BitLocker and EFS Enhancements
This Ultimate Extra includes two tools that make it easier to use some of the security features that come with Windows Vista Ultimate: The Windows BitLocker™ Drive Preparation Tool, which configures your hard drive so that you can use the BitLocker Drive Encryption feature of Windows Vista, and Secure Online Key Backup, a utility that stores a backup copy of your BitLocker recovery password and Encrypting File System (EFS) recovery certificates in your digital locker, a secure Microsoft website.

Hold 'Em Poker Game
This Windows Ultimate Extra adds a popular poker game to your Windows Vista™ gaming experience. Hold 'Em sets you against the computer for no-limit poker fun. Hold 'Em may cost you time, but your money is safe because the chips are not real
Windows Ultimate Vista Extra

 

[Shamus MacNoob]

Sorry seems we are allowed to advertise sites here as we please.

 

[Grandmaster]

^ Umm, no.

Can't wait for people to start using porn clips as DreamScene pranks

 

[Grandmaster]

Hey Shamus:

I read your deleted post. The site linked in the first post is the official Windows Ultimate blog. So this is actually news, not spam.

 

[LordOfLA]

It happens to be an MS offical site..... and valid news.

 

[Shamus MacNoob]

Cool I just kinnda jumped the gun on that one sorry

 

[lkyng]

Hey Shamus:

I read your deleted post. The site linked in the first post is the official Windows Ultimate blog. So this is actually news, not spam.

Of course it's not a spam. I never wrote spam anywhere, anyway loll

 

[madmatt]

What happened to SportsLounge?

 

[kcnychief]

Holdem ftw!

 

[omg its nlm]

Poker looks like fun

 

[ElementalDragon]

i think Dreamscene looks pretty killer. no more of that crappily done animated desktop crap where all it does is add a ripple to your background here and there. will be nice to have an animated fire desktop. "OMFG my monitor's burning on the inside!!!!!"

 

[vertigo]

dreamscene is nothing new, applications like dvbviewer were capable of doing it on xp long ago with your own videos or live digital TV

 

[ElementalDragon]

well yeah.... but something like that probably used quite a bit of resources. If they manage it well in Vista, it should HOPEFULLY work quite well, with little resource usage (like Aero).

 

[vertigo]

but something like that probably used quite a bit of resources

actually less than aero i would think. it's just like playing a regular video. usually mpeg2 or mpeg4 part 2, the former of which doesn't take much resources with a DXVA capable graphics card, even at high resolutions. the latter of which decoders like ffdshow are very efficient. plus there are no glow/glass effects that need to be rendered like in vista

 

[ElementalDragon]

yeah..... but Vista's Aero interface actually uses the same amount of resources or less compared to XP's interface. Saw that on Gizmodo the one day. was kinda shocked.... but then again, once Aero is loaded, all it really does is sit there. then the only thing that hogs resources is whenever you move your cursor over the sidebar.

 

[madmatt]

*cough* SportsLounge? Anyone?

 

[vertigo]

uses the same amount of resources or less compared to XP's interface

i still find that hard to believe... there is a lot of alpha blending in vista, which constantly uses the graphics card i think.

 

[ElementalDragon]

http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=107

I have Vista Business RTM installed, and with Aero enabled... transparency, sidebar and all... my CPU usage is usually around 0-3% at idle. It's honestly not THAT demanding of a UI, or at least not like it was in much earlier builds. as the above link states..... on the more high-end systems, performance hits are negligible. That's the same for XP too. the less resources you have available, the lower your overall performance gets.

edit: here's another:

The three key findings of the 47-page report (PDF) are as follows:

1. After several common business operations, Vista was more responsive after rebooting as compared to Windows XP
2. Generally, Vista and XP were equally responsive on most test operations
3. Aero had little to no negative effect on the responsiveness of Vista

 

[vertigo]

ofcourse no offence to you ED, but i can't help but think the person who wrote that blog is the type of person who graduated with a batchelor of arts or commerce and applied for a tech job. no real knowledge, just remembering what he reads from basic "guides" and "explanations" and wikipedia.

now i'm no expert, but i do think it's very unlikely the cpu load had anything to do with the interface, especially when the pc is idle, and when vista, and xp to a lesser extent, both utilize the gpu when possible. and the fact that not enough info was given on the actual test.

my point was, that on a given system, having a video as your wallpaper will use more resources on Vista than XP. this is because:

- XP's "default" renderer is VMR7, but usually uses overlays when it can. dvbviewer and the vast majority of software players will use overlay mixer by default.

- Vista, from what i've read, uses VMR9 (i don't think it's specifically called that now though, i forgot the name).

- overlay mixer is faster than VMR9. VMR9 requires a directx 9 card.

- on any given system, VMR9 uses more resources (gpu, and almost always, cpu too) than overlay mixer. the performance hit increases with resolution and complexity of the codec used.

- on high end cards, like my 7900GTX, there is a relatively small performance hit, somewhere around 6% on an athlon 4400+ when playing a 1080i mpeg2 clip. on low-mid or integrated graphics the performance hit increases considerably. with vista, you have glass/glow effects to be rendered as well, even more of a performance hit

again, i'm no "expert", but i have been working with digital video for many years

 

[Island Dog]

DreamScene is very cool on its own, but the enhancement to that, DeskScapes will bring dynamic content to the desktop which will bring some really great features to the Vista desktop.