Windows Vista: more than just a pretty face: Page 2
Graphics Device Interface
Win16 had two components of particular significance, one named "GDI" and the other called "User." Graphics Device Interface was the API used for drawing shapes and text onto the screen or a printer. The API is entirely bitmap-based […]
Dots were about the same size on any screen you used—about 1/96".
The User API
User also interacts with GDI; one of the messages that gets sent is a message to, say, "repaint your window." The application then makes the necessary calls to GDI to do that. The reason that this has to happen is because User and the window manager have no memory. The window manager knows which windows are onscreen, and it knows what the current screen looks like, but that’s all. […]
As with GDI, this assumption no longer holds true. […]
Nowadays it’s not only practical to store information about the covered-up parts of windows (so that they can be revealed instantly)—it seems foolish not to.
Windows Vista: more than just a pretty face: Page 3
Out with the old…
Our low-level graphics API needs to be resolution-independent[…]
The window manager needs to be composited; that is, each window needs to be drawn in full and “memorized” by the OS so that we don’t see redraw flicker when windows are moved about or animated.
And this is exactly what Windows Vista will do. There is a new graphics API, based on Direct3D. It has support for 2D and 3D shapes, which will be vector-based and hardware-accelerated. This new graphics API is combined with a new windowing API, which will, it’s hoped, make creating attractive, easy-to-use user interfaces a doddle.
In depth 